The Sun.
London, England, 1831-10-07 00:00:00

general question of Reform or no Reform, and not whether -
the plan before us is likely to do any good ; but the Noble
Earl, who has just resumed his seat, has distinctly asked
our assent to this specific plan. We have now, therefore,
to deliberate, according to him, whether the Bill upon the
table is likely, by any modifications in the Committee, to
be so perfected as to justify your Lordships, in the dis-
charge of your duty, in substituting this new experiment
for the ancient Constitution of the country. If there be
no chance that any changes will render the Bill unobjec-
tionable, I contend that no more bitter insult could be
offered to the country, painfully, and I may say fearfully
excited, than to hold out a delusive hope that by consent-
ing to the second reading you have adopted the main prin-
ciple; when it is in fact your intention so to alter the
measure as to change even its principle. Nothing but
disappointment and increased irritation could be the con-
sequence of such a proceeding. But the Noble Lord
(Rosebery) tells us, also, that in resisting the second read-
ing of this Bill we are stepping out of our province.
Why, I should like to know ? It has, indeed, been un-
animously recommended by a Government, the members
of which never agre.al upon this subject in their lives
before.—(Cheers.) By some sudden and rapid change
—sudden and rapid even if it run over three months,
much less over only three weeks—those who all their
lives have been engaged in resisting the pregress of
Reform, at once in nouns consentire onmes videntur, unless
in the terms of the proverb we can of them consentire non
videntur qui errant.—(Cheers and laughter.) But, what-
ever
may been their change of opinion—whether they are
Reformers or no Reformers—l must do them the justice
to believe that they have been inflaenced by the most
honourable motives. Of all—although with some I am
not even personally acquainted—l must speak with the
highest respect, of others with the utmost regard, and it
is my conviction that they are animated only by a candid
and patriotic, although mistaken spirit. With reference
to my Noble Friend at the head of the Government, I can
only say that I look upon him now, as I have looked upon
him all my life, as not only possessed of the most splendid
abilities, but of the noblest virtues, and of the most manly
and exalted character.—(Cheers.) Some little time since,
it is true a little bitterness was exhibited between us, but
it arose solely from the expression of my earnest wish that
an unworthy cavil about an accidental expression should
not be mixed up with this great question, and the stress
laid upon which would bring discredit on the Ministers
themselves, as if they were catching at a straw to save
them from drowning. I feel, therefore, for my Noble
Friend the greatest respect; and the sincerest attachment;
but upon this measure, the discussion of which has super-
seded all public business, I can hardly express, without using
words personally offensive, my disapprobation, not only of
the Bill, but of the mode in which it has been forced upon
the country, and of the endeavour now to force it upon
your Lordships.—(Much cheering.) The Noble Earl
who has just sat down, has put the question on a footing
on which I certainly was not prepared to hear it argued—
as a matter of civility.—(Hear.) We are not to refuse
our assent to the second reading of this Bill, on the ground
that it will not be civil to the House of Commons.—
(Hear, and laughter.) Ile tells ns that it has been adopted
not only by the Ministers, hut by the Crown ; but give
me leave to say, that that is only using two phrases to say
the same thing. The King was advised by his Ministers
that the outline of this Bill should be submitted to Par-
liament, and I cannot look at it as the act of the Crown
merely, but as the act of the Crown under the advice of
its responsible Ministers.—(Hear.) That the measure has
been approved of by the House of Commons is a point
that deserves the most calm and serious consideration ?
Have we not, after a pause to reflect upon the provisions,
been sitting night after night to debate it? But are we,
my Lords, out of civility to the House of Commons, to
delude the country by assenting to the principle of a Bill,
wh. n our opinion is, that the plan cannot be safely adopted,
because it must lead in the end to the subversion of our
most venerable institutions.—(Year, hear.) I assure your
Lordships that I approach the consideration of the Bill
without fear—not that I am not aware that it is
surrounded by difficulties and dangers ; but that I
blieve by the discharge of our duty firmly and dis-
passionately we are steering, not only the most
honest, but the safest course. If the people are in a
state of excitement—greatly increased, I am ready to
think unwillingly, by the conduct of Ministers—the re-
jection of the Bill by us may, to a certain degree, augment
the dissatisfaction ; but the danger would he doubled and
trebled if we were to display fear in our proceedings; for
our cowardice would add contempt to the prevailing ill-
humour. I will not pretend to say that Ministers have
used in this House the language of intimidation; but this
I must say, that excepting the present ferment among the
people, they have assigned no reason for the adoption of
this measure. Whether this be the language of intimida-
tion towards us, or of timidity on the part of the Mini-
sters, I will not determine ; but this I know, that the
note of fear is the only note they have sounded, but I
shall be grievously mistaken if they find it echoed in this
place.—(Much cheering.)—lf it he meant as the lan-
guage of intimidation, I shall know how to meet it ; but
if it be the language of terror, I shall lament to see Mini-
sters, instead of meeting popular excitement with the firm-
ness and decision that distinguished Mr. Pitt with refer-
ence to the French revolution in the reign of George 111.
and pausing until the frenzy has subsided, crouch-
ing and shrinking before it, creating the storm instead of
endeavouring to avert it.—(Loud cheers.) The painful
inference will then be, that under their tuition we have
little to hope.—(Hear, hear.) If Ministers are deficient
in firmness and courage, it will rest with your Lordships
to supply the deficiency.—(Much cheering.) I address
myself to the subject with perfect impartiality, because 1
have no personal interest in the result, and I do not be-
lieve I car. influence a single vote in the whole kingdom.
I cannot bring myself to think that a measure of this de-
scription can ever be permanent law. I look upon it as
one of the ephemeral productions of the republican and
revolutionary times in which we live. We have seen
systems laid down by the score for French republics, for
Cisalpine and Transalpine republics, for Parthenopeian
republics, and I do not know what republics besides, and
philosophy was exhausted in their construction, as it may
have been upon the manufacture of this clumsy Bill—
(Hear)—but they have all disappeared, the products of
to-day's fancy, and the victims of to-morrow's flame. Let
us not adopt these rapid and sweeping changes, and least
of all let us adopt them at this unseasonable period with
the haste recommended not only by Ministers but in peti-
tions, not indeed presented, but prepared, chiding us even
for the delay of a single hour. I might entertain more re-
spect for the Bill if I thought it would establish a constitu-
tion more permanent than that which it will supplant, but
I do not approach it with any such feeling, and not a single
argument has been used to show the practical advantage of
the change. All that had been said in defence of the measure
was the question, " Can any man believe it is necessary
to discuss this question in the 19th century ?" Give me
leave to say, that in the 19th, or in any other century, it
is fit an evil should be proved before we can be called upon
for a remedy.—(Hear.) Was not the year before last also
in the 19th century? Yet only in the year before last
some of the present approving authors of this Bill declared
that they saw such a general apathy in the people on the
subject of Reform—that in fact it was such a dead letter
—that they almost relt inclined never to advocate the
cause again.—(Cheers.) Hence it is evident that there
must have been something peculiar in the last year and a
half which has called for this sudden and unanimous re-
solution on the part of Government. Revolutionary doc-
trines and measures will always produce a sympathetic
excitement, but some of your Lordships must remember
that in this country it was not less at the period of the
French revolution—l knew the Whigs of that day, and
here let no man charge me with any change of opinion—
I never gave a vote in the Whig opposition of that day :
I supported the general measures of Mr. Pitt's government
until the rupture of the peace of Amiens, when Lord
Grenville made a co-operation with Mr. Fox, and I did
then join that party. From that time to the present Par-
. liatnentary Reform has been abandoned as the watch-word
of a party, and it has been left as an open question. I say
this in order only to set myself rectus in curia, for I always
was of opinion that some gradual Reform was what was
pointed out by the Constitution. I always thought that
great towns should be allowed representatives, but not
without the utmost caution. I was friendly to Reform,
but it was to gradual and temperate Reform, To preserve
practical identity in the Constitution, I admitted that it
was fit that changes, from time to time, should be made,
in order to adapt representation to the progress of society.
It did not, however, follow, that, like the Noble Earl, I
was to take this immense step at once. He told us that
every thing in the world was liable to change but himself.
--(Laughter.) I commend his courage in taking this
mighty leap, but he must excuse me if I am much too
doubting a man to attempt to jump with him. Many
Noble Lords on the other side have said, " If you object to
our Bill, what Reform do you propose ?" First, let
me ask them whom do they address ? Who are we ?
They, indeed, are his Majesty's vaunted Government,
who so wonderfully agree upon a question on which
they never could agree before—like Puff's characters
in a o ell-known burlesque, " when they do agree their
unanimity is wonderful."—(Cheering and laughter.)
Does it follow that because we do not like to swallow
their nostrums, we must be prepared with a piece of
quackery of our own ?—(Cheers.) Ministers must surely
feel the weakness of their own cause, and the badness

of their own schem, when they ask us in compassion
to make good their deficiences. Are we to be prepared on the
sudden, especially when they would not let us know until
the last moment what it was they intended to propose ? I
give them credit for the manner in which they kept their
great secret—a secret that astonished the world, and took
away the breaths of the auditors, when at last it was re-
vealed. They kept their secret so well that I believe
nobody in the Cabinet had the least notion of it, and
nobody out of the Cabinet had the least comprehension of
it,—(Cheers and laughter.) A skilful General, if weak,
carries the war into the enemies' quarters ; but if strong,
he maintains his own impregnable position. Ministers
have shown their we tkness by the course they have pur-
sued, for they have attacked us, because, forsooth, we
have not brought in a Bill to supersede the ill-digested
mass upon the table. Not only do they require that the
opponents of the Bill collectively should be prepared with a
ne ee Constitution, but they insist that every individual re-
sisting Peer should be ready at an hour's warning with a
substitute for that which has been the growth of ages, and
the fruit of the wisdom of our forefathers. Perhaps I may
be allowed an illustration of this point, that may appear
familiar, but not without a striking applicability. Suppose
any man were about to engage a new cook, he might ask
some of the best judges of gastronomy to meet in order
to decide upon the merits of the new candidate for the
kitchen. When the cloth was drawn (if anything so
unfashionable occurred), the master of the house would
ask his guests what they thought of their dinner,
and they might reply that as he had appealed to them,
they must say, that excepting two plates of cottage pud-
ding on the side table, not a dish fit to be eaten had been
sot before them—in short, that the new culinary corn.
pounder was one of the worst in Europe.—(Cheers and
laughter.) Would not the company think it eery sttange,
if their host should immediately turn mound upon them,
and say, " You have taken the liberty to find fault with
my dinner, and I will now trouble you to go down into
the kitchen, and try whether you can cook a better."—
(Continued cheers, and laughter.) The request would
seem most unreasonable, but if by any chance it was com-
plied with, the guests would at least have the right to say,
" Before we essay our skill, the least you can do is to give
us possession of the kitchen."—(Cheers and laughter from
all sides-) So I may, give us possession of the situation
you now hold, and if we do not dress you up a better
dish than that which you have set before us, we will al.
low you to call us the most incompetent pretenders that
ever entered upon the cookery of legislation.—(General
cheers.) One of the Noble Secretaries the other night
gave us a curious reason for not going into detail into the
Bill. He told us that it was too large a Bill for one de-
bate. I wonder it never occurred to him that it was tao
large a measure for cne Bill.—( Hear, hear.) It contains
materials for at least twelve different enactments, yet these
are all compressed into clauses, and the debates upon them
are to be shortened and hurried in proportion. One ob-
jection I have to it is this.—that it is a Bill to make a
Constitution, and that a Constitution cannot be made by
a Bill.—(Cheers.) 1 assure my Noble Friend (Earl Grey)
that I am no enemy to Reform; to a moderate Resitrm,
founded on knowledge and warranted by experience, I shall
freely give my ready assent ; and if I am asked to what ex-
tent I will go, I answer, that there is nu point at which
a priori I would attempt to arrest the progress of human
improvement. If I did attempt, I should endeavour to
do that which is beyond the power of man ; but when a
change is proposed, I say, show me first that it is an im-
provement : when that is established, I will give a full and
fair consideration.—(Cheers.) Havirg already assured
my Noble Friend (E trl Grey) that I have always for hint
the strongest regard and affection, I must now address my-
self to some expressions which fell from him on the first
night of this debate. Whether he alluded to any expres-
sions which fell front me on former occasions in favour of
gradual and progressive Reform, and whether he included
me in the number of the most " diminutive nibblers at
bit-by-bit ReSorm," I know not. 1 have no pretensions
to be considered a Statesman, and therefore it would be no
matter of surprise to me if I were ranked among the small
fry of Anti-Reformers. This I can say, that there is no
degree of diminutiveness that my Noble Friend can attri-
bute to inn that will not, in my opinion, exceed my di-
mensions ; but in compassion to my insignificance, and in
order that we may discuss this great question upon some-
thing like equal terms, let me prevail upon him to shrink
his greatness, if he can do so without disparagement, for
a short time, and excelling even the notorious conjuror
at the Haymarket, let us endeavour to put, not only one
man, but two into the space of a quart bottle.—
(Laughter.) When there we will argue this great ques-
tion of Reform, and the merits of the proposed change
in our Constitution. Here I cannot pretend to raise my
nerveless arm against his acknowledged power. I cannot
affect to compete with him in this place in eloquence or in
argument. To equal him I must in fact be the same,
since " none but himself can be his parallel "—(Cheers)—
but I shall at least have a better chance if for a brief
space he consents to reduce himself to my insignificant
dimensions, and if we proceed to moot the point on the
footing only of two of the celebrated sages of Lilliput.--
(Hear. ) Nevertheless, when speaking of the high talent
of my Noble Friend, I cannot but recollect with pride the
glorious constellation of genius and eloquence with which
he and I were contemporaries in another House of Parlia-
ment—a constellation exceeded in number and lustre at no
period of the history of any country of the civilized worli.
I can well recollect when my Noble Friend was " mighty
among the mightiest" there, and with most convincing
eloquence advocated the cause of Reform in Parliament.
On his advancement to this House he seemed to gross,
more moderate in his view and in his tone ; and in sup-
port of what I state, I beg to refer your Lordships to a
speech which he delivered with his usual ability beneath
this roof, on the 13th of June, 1810, the year before I
took my seat here. He spoke of the lesson of moderation
he had derived from twenty years' experience, and then
proceeded as follows :—" But though I am disposed so-
berly and cautiously to estimate the principles of the Con-
stitution—though, perhaps, I do not tee in the same high
colouring the extent of the evil sought to be redressed,
and am more doulafnl as to the strength and certainty of
the remedy recommended to be applied, still, after as se-
rious and dispassionate a consideration as I can give to
what I believe the most important question that can em-
ploy your Lordships' attention, it is my conscientious
opinion that much good would result from the adoption
of the salutary principle of Reform gradually applied to
the correction of those existing abuses, to which the
progress of time must have unavoidably given birth ;
taking especial care that the measures of Reform to be
pursued should be marked out by the Constitution itself,
and in no case exceed its wholesome limits."—(Cheers
from the Opposition benches, re-echoed from the Minis-
terial side.) Thus, my Lords, you see that my Noble
Friend in 1810 recommended you to proceed in the plan
of Reform, not hastily, not by wholesale, but slowly step
by step ; and he directed the keen weapon of his ridicule
aeainst those who would pursue an opposite course—that
very course which to-night he advocates.—(Cheers.) I
leave it to him to reconcile his bit-by-hit Reform of 1810
with his sweeping measure of 1831. But so anxious
was he at the former period to impress upon your Lord-
ships the fitness of only moderate and gradual Reform,
that he made it one of the concluding topics of his speech,
and urged it with peculiar emphasis. Here, then, is one
of my authorities for a bit-by-bit Reform—here is the
speech of my Noble Friend, in the maturity of his ex-
perience, and when he had seen reason to abandon the
more popular, but more dangerous, doctrines of his youth.
But, my Lords, I have a still higher authority. It is no
disparagement to the Noble Lord to say, that the au-
thority to which I am about to refer is a higher autho-
rity, because, in the first place, it is his own ; and in ad-
dition to his there are the sentiments of a still greater
man, to whom, 1 am sure, he would then have deferred,
and to whom I am disposed to believe he will still yield
his ready deference—l mean Mr. Fox. It was the opi-
nion of Mr. Fox that sudden changes were always most
to be feared, as evils not producing the effect that was
wished ; but that gradual ,and efficient changes—(Hear,
hear, hear)—might be adopted in the Constitu-
tion, and in the operation of the Constitution, if they
were adopted when a proper occasion offered—(Hear,
hear, from the Ministerial beuches)—and not at any other
time. In speaking .of Mr. Fox's opinions, the Noble Earl
uses these expressions:—" If in his political creed there
was one article which he held more etedfastly than
another, it was, that while a system was practically good
he would always abstain from mending it by theories".—
(Cheers front the Opposition, answered by cheers from
the Ministerial benches)—and never, any Lords, can 1
forget his powerful observations when, in his place in
Parliament, he stated his conviction of the absolute im-
possibility of providing for all the variety of human events
by any previous speculative plans.—(Renewed cheers and
counter-cheers.) " For (said he) I think that if a num-
ber of the wisest, ablest, and most virtuous men that ever
adorned and improved human life were collected together
and seated round a table, to devise a priori a Constitu-
tion for a State, it is my persuasion that, notwithstand-
ing all their ability and virtue (unfortunately for Mr.
Fox' the virtue and ability of which he had experience
were not such as are known to exist now)—(Hear, and a
laugh)—they would not succeed in adapting a system to
the purposes required ; but must necessarily leave it to
be fitted by great alterations in the practice, and many
deviations front the original design."—(Cheers from the
Opposition.) And this opinion he was wont to illus.