The Sun.
London, England, 1831-10-21 00:00:00

House of Lords that it was " the last time of asking."
He solemnly warned the Government that if it had not
the energy to make the change in the representation re-
quired by the people, that the people would make it for
themselves.—(Loud cheers.) Ile warned the Peers
that its proportion to the fortitude and forbearance of the
people would be the deluge of their fury, and retributive
justice, when they did break from the moorings of their pa-
tience. If any Anti-Reforin Administration attacked the
Press, the liberties and the lives of the people, revolution
would and ought to come, and God forbid that he should
be the last to join it.—(Loud cheering.) But he would
not anticipate such evils. History, common sense, and
events justified the Government in an alteration of the let-
ter or spirit of the Constitution if its parts did not work well.
The Anti-Reformers in the Lords all eulogised a political
Constitution made by accident, and libelled those made by
design. Could the Ministry have a better justification?
Was not our whole history a record of political change—
of constant adaptation of political institutions to new
wants and to time? if the House of Lords would not give
us our rights—if they would unjustly, insanely prevent a
Reform of the representation, must it not be dealt with in
some way or other? Patience would not last fur ever.
Some proposed that the King issued his writs, as of old,
to the new boroughs, and suppressed the customary writs
to the decayed, rotten, and nominatian boroughs. Some
proposed that after passing the Reform Bill in
the Commons, it should be declared law without
the consent or consideration of the Peers. But
all these were palpable breaches of the letter and spirit of
the Constitution. The last Act of Union settled the rela-
tive proportions of the representatives of the three king-
doms. The House of Lords was unquestionably a party
to that act, and had a right to exercise its voice—its nul-
lification. But the resolution he held in his hand re-
minded him that there was a prerogative that might and,
if necessary, ought to be exercised—the prerogative of
making Peen,. This was doubtless a most deeply respon-
sible power in the British Monarch ; but it was a prero-
gative for use, not for ornament. He could chew by the
whole history of Parli nnents, that the Peers had been a
constantly fluctuating body, in numbers and in character.
Every King had exercised this prerogative more or less.
From the period of the Conquest, Peers had been
created by our Kings, as the numbers of a House
of Commons had also perpetually varied. He was
of opinion that anciently most Barons were sum-
moned to Parliament as the possessors of so much laud, or
Knights' fees. Those, of course, varied in number, as
towns in like manner decayed and rose in wealth and popu
lation. In latter times reward to valour, to learning, to
newly-acquired property, to Prime Ministers and States-
men, had conferred the great privileges of hereditary legis-
lation. But how often, in modern reigns, had corruption,
subserviency, and toryism, been the titles to the Peerage?
He would give a short note of the creation of Peers since
the Reformation. James I. created 45—Charles 11.
38—James the Second, B—William, 21—Anne, 24.
From the death of James 1., in 1628, to the Revolution.
in 1688, upwards of 170 Peerages had been granted by
the Crown ; and from that time to the accession of George
IV., 570 Peerages were conferred, including advances
and special remainders. Thus, in a period of two cen-
turies, between the years 1621 and 1821, the number of
748 Peerages were created, being an average of upwards
of 93 English Peerages by each of the eight Monarchs
who filled the Throne in that period. But it might be
said that these Peers were not made by any Sovereign on
one occasion for one object. But were they not made for
objects, often with equally specific views? Were they
not often made for base and unconstitutional objects ?
Was our patriotic King to be restricted from snaking
Peers for a good, a righteous object--to restore the rights
of his people, to save us from revolution, from chaos,
from anarchy? Surely it required no reasoning to establish
the right. And did not the occasion justify the exercise?
In the reign of Queen Anne, in 1610, twelve Peers were
made for one day's division. Precedent does not always
justify its means or end ; but if lawful in a bad cause, it
was surely justifiable in a good one. The question of the
prerogative of creating new Peers, underwent a memo
rable and remarkable discussion, on the Bill ft); limiting
the Peerage, unsuccessfully proposed in 1719. The
possibility of every circumstance of our present situa-
tion was then supposed. It was truly represented as the
brighte-t jewel in the Royal diadem of prerogatives.
Without that we should not be safe under an aristocracy.
Prerogative was a power in the Sovereign not expressed or
defined by the laws, but to be exerted in the preserva-
tion of the Constitution for the public good. The
power could not be denied ; the misapplication
of it only could be a had precedent. If this pre-
rogative did not exist, the House of Lords would not
only become stagnant but extinct. The great business of
the nation had notoriously long been carried on by men
created first in their own persons. If this prerogative did
not exist, we should ever be exposed under a monarchy to
evil with no possible remedy. In an old publication op-
posing this Bill he found an apposite sentence—" The
Prince is the grand Pilot of the State, and must steer the
national vessel so as not to endanger its sinking, either by
the too great weight of Lords on the one side, or of
the Commons on the other. For if the one be too
powerful, the consequence will be an Aristocracy ; if the
other, a Democracy, and both equally destructive of Mo-
narchy." Now at this state we were arrived, and without
dictation he trusted our beloved Monarch would, if neces-
sary, create Lords, and save us from ultimate convulsion.
Mr. Parkes then said that the resolution was not drawn up
dictatorial ; that it was worded leavine it to the King and
his Ministry to exercise it as they might deem it right,
and best qualified as they were to judge of the emergency.
Mr. Parkes then exposed the Bishops' votes as those of
cunning men, who had promised both sides and played
booty ; and he then detailed the expulsion of the Bishops
in the time of Charles 1., when for a similar vote they were
declared mad and guilty of suicide, and turned out of the
House of Lords. After a high enlogium on the honesty
of the Ministers, and on the necessity of popularising- the
House of Lords to obtain the ends of the Reform Bill, he
closed a speech of forty tx.inutes loudly cheered.

The Rev. H. M‘DoNsfEeL seconded the resolution.
It had been related of Hercules, that the severest con-
flict he ever entered into was with a giant, who
the moment be threw hint to the ground gained
more strength, and whom it was necessary to hold up
with one hand and slay with the other.—(Loud and
continued cheering.) Such was the case of the people of
of England, who were strong enough to overcome
and sweep their enemies away front the face of the earth.
One of the Lay Lords had said he had a tight to do as he
liked with his own. If that were the ease, surely the
people of England had a right to do as they pleased with
their own, and the House of Lords had no right to inter-
fere with them. The birch-rod which had been shaken in
the face of the Peers had given them a specimen of what
species of discipline they might expect hereafter. Of all
speeches, in his opinion, which had been made in the
House of Lords, none contained such tioWn-right nonsense
as did Lord Harrowby's. The subject of Lord liar-
rowby'a speech was not Bullem versus Boatem, but
it was Bullem versus Bullem. Lord Dudley had
been pleased to make contemptuous obsTrvs.tions
at what he was pleased to call the philosophers
of Birmingham. Ile thought the time was not far
distant when that Noble Earl would begin to see that the
people of Birmingham had philosophy enough not to be
beaten down by Lord Dudley, or taxed without re-
presentation, which was tyranny. He trusted that
the
~)f t Wellingtonthey
did,intt
admit
power
people oaspgule again.—(Loud
England(
auuee
i would
estliou n
f D,,ueNvkeeer b
Never.")
eurf.e f.) olish as to
they would be enemies to themselves, their country, and
v
their God.—(Cheers.) Never had any people been so
humbugged on the face of the earth as the people of
Englandute
d
the had
Government.
ttvl
al the Bishopstruethathadt
i,ey
always
hdi
done so. But what sort of Government had this country
been living under ? A Government of plunder, of
war, and rapine, for whose political purposes Peers
had been made as common as blackberries. When such
a Government was in existence the Bishops always sup-
ported them—(Hisses)—but the moment that the country
had an honest King and honest Ministers, that moment
did the Right Rev. Bench of Bishops, whose creed was to
preach peace, set themselves in opposition to that honest
King and his Ministers, and the wishes of the people.—
(Loud cheering accompanied with hisses.) These men
kad never done any good for the people, and the
people were now going hand and heart to wrest their
rights out of the hands of an unrighteous aristo-
cracy—an upstart aristocracy from whom the ranks of cor-
ruption have been raised ; men who seine years ago had hands
hands as black and as bard as your own.--(Loud cheer-
ing.) He trusted the present meeting would give Mini-
sters the credit of a determination to serve the people.
He hoped they would have patience a little longer, when
they might be assured of having all they wanted. It de-
pended upon themselves whether the blood of Englishmen
should still flow in their veins, or whether numberless
widows and orphans should lament their untimely end.
(The Rev. Gentleman concluded amidst great cheering by
seconding the resolution.)
Mr. HADLEY then came forward for the purpose of
proposing a resolution declaratory of the opinion of the
meeting of the improper conduct of the Bishops in voting
against the Reform Bill. He considered that if Reform
was wanted any where, it was in that Right Rev. Bench.
lie should therefore propose as a resolution, that the