The Sun.
London, England, 1831-12-19 00:00:00

Pi
i the 'ase no one To,lddoubt the expedition of Alinisters, or
o
i, celerity of tneir movements ; indeed all those move-
;it'l "tents
than
their dependence to be more on their
via itlior:
ft on their heads.—(Laughter.) For the satisfac-
jd
thin 0 the out-of-doors people, they had hurried forward
Ivo ?'ea,gore of Reform in a manner so absurd that its
It
_a,defectiveness was really insulting to those by whom it
~,,a 17 • to he discussed. The Hon. Member for Caine
,:
in illustration
those who sought in foreign history for examples
Ica, ltri,uinllustration of their arguments ; he thought with that
101
otiver. Member that there was no necessity to go half-seas
ual, it,
rto Florence or Venice for illustrations, whilst in this
,f
tri4_'rnal for he would go no further—there were examples
sts!
w_°ll.capt than could elsewhere he met with. Now he
t, pus ii
.go no further back than the times of Charles the
inch
I."' ts in which times the radical party overturned the Go-
„Of the
of " No.") Yes, they did overturn
gad the Fkiouretrhnznito,vaenrtdnrtnheradjeals of the time of William
the Government again. The Hon.
4 Ate.,
offr e., "mar for Caine had warned the House not to resist ex.
tt/a 4".ernent, and in support of this warning referred to the'
010,
bid consequences of resisting excitement, which tenni
,btiot 4tel in the civil war of 1642. But let him ask. that
0/0 that
'Member, did he mean fur one moment to insinuate
taao til_al.e there was any analogy, any comparison even to be
fee 42° between the times of Charles the First and the pre-
tiao lent period? Had the illustrious House of Brunswick,
et/e4
r'e°,ltuthe moment of its accession to the throne of these
0,1 44' a up to the present time, ever excited the animosity
It,
ti_trhe people by acts similar to those which had drawn
the!' "‘.ti vengeance on the heads of the Stuarts? Had tl
0/40 Itlitieb3rts of. William. IV. to complain of any such tyranny asle
rail st Imposition of ship-money, or of the arbitrary cruelty
,'O,lO, t„ 5 Star-Chamber? If history be resorted to for
01 l'l:aminples, surely was it not worse than folly to disregard
VI ser,'s examples, and to neglect the lessons of prudence
tii4o Li: 'eh it inculcates ? His Right Hon. Friend (Mr. Croker)
.0' , d quoted in support of his able arguments, last even-
t i
tiso 4, largely from history. Now lie would venture to add
oldttl_otlier quotation to those, but it would not be selected
old i 2fn the pages of an historian. He should avail him-
t,tiol a ,7111.r0f the. words of a poet, w*lnlae dealings were quite
iiclir: tif. 4 ge in practical good sense and solid wisdom as those
I at,,, t,
.any recorder of by-gone' events. His Right Hon..
'hod:
trletia (Mr. Croker) had drawn a parallel between the
tata.. te''grls of Charles I. and William IV., but his picture
et'''. to have been more finished if he lalso had adverted to
tro-te, ; e Manner in which at both periods the Bishops had been
.e'l 'iled. TI •
at
.1, the.. They were then, as now, styled malignants—
,4 tt,'! h. ) Were then, as now, decried and vilified, and Butler
" t'' " Put
14that treatment upon record, where he says thas-
1/0' " Oyster-women locked their fish up
(?q_c, ""And trudged away to cry .No Bishop
op tyop!'"
OC'4l till. ti cheering and laughter.) In the present times
1 "..ji, i:' treatment has been no less unceremonious. No;
at:hi!ra tilbg_ since a flag was exhibits(' at a large county meeting,
0-ll'ol 44}1Wih}71idivas represented a prostrate Bishop, with a mitre
(Hear.) The reign of Charles I. was elm-
itif"jel ttil'ettteriseeda by the
appearance of a political prophet, but
',,a1,1 a,sd_Prrophet was a poor pretender compared with him of
• ',•4l' pts,.',: days, the political prophet of William IV. That
tlts lystf:;:nt, in a speech on the subject of Reform, uttered a
little;o (T loug_ to the Bishops—" to set their houses in order."
/ Ai, aitV•gn d cheers.) Not the boldest Radical, not the most
10;eiis 44.1.e.ant Roundhead of the vents of Charles I. ever
aa It) f 1 any thing so furious, or red upon a prophecy
loti,f 44earless.—( Loud cheers.) That prophecy was meant
o' la the sedative to public excitement, and within one month
instalsi, at
I,lllace of a Bishop was in flames.—(Cheers.) Could
Ore li teas
Member for Caine—the Ariel of Calne—whom
' at l happy to discover behind the Chair—could, he re-
Illrda littet,, the Ariel behind the Chair point out a parallel
So 014 tient from the times of Charles I. to the fact which
Lifee.l„.:, ttig(
iii., C. W.) had cited ?—(Hear.)
. Well, indeed,
i jo'
ckie„,. it_ I e said that it was difficult to stop excite-
l;e,e, it4l4_, He entirely agreed in the difficulty, more par-
'lea, i „surticY when excitement rushed in a torrent from
4 110 .(iit e whence not a drop ought to have flowed ;
"'cit indeeel
da Mated , , was it to stop excitement when
;ii,,aa
tfolla_e foith from a quarter where not ca
spark ought
"!'o, , w existed.—(Hear, hear, hear.) Who could blame
Yetetia, tr,tl),°,l3le for being excited, when their passions were
iteffts kill called forth by the blessed leader of this blessed con-
'lo,l lt,tui've Ministry ?—(Cheers.) After this, could the col-
!a \I. th:ti?.f this political. prophet assert their blamelessness
aid the ti_
,t Was not their fault if they could not resist a tide,
raluAijhe,.°l)l-gates of which they had themselves let loose ?
,grrii,ikllie:aeretuthet_ raisers. of the excitement by which their
b '''i Iked Under" carried, and now they basely, meanly,
t ila Nit the plea that the excitement created the ne-
t...01,4,4Y for passing their measure.—(Hear, hear.) Thus
a 17;(1k,„..'ofhat a law which reason refused to sanction was to
at, ot, rted by intimidation. He did not blame the op-
ces'; ksti_e° of an Episcopacy ; he thought differently to them :
het's( the "Night Episcopacy necessary for the prestivation of
Jur,ll:, of Pope,l:to zayelig_ion. His opinion accorded with that line
where he sa as
" Even in a3rAshop I can spy desert"—
liturirdo,;
Itaiiiiiideatroy the props, and away goes the edifice : do away
1000:,
.lit
tet, e Episcopal Establishment, and away too will go
be r` So lion of the country.—(Hear, hear.) The French
al ',lt;
.titlit'olutiao‘nu,r too, had been brought in to hear witness for
i 101; I:titt7tiotti
been lately
Ihtuti was that revolution. finished ? Had not a
mooted. in that country, whether the
/Is' 44t'th:t formulaa oefypublic worship on the Sabbath should
00 4,,
~ abolished 7 Let. that. Ministry who listened to insults
,f4', ;rats;':,t,to
that
dignitaries of the Established Church
ra, ?,'.tast `,..t.h t the whole body of Members who belonged
ecttwoo l,skinert;harch were insulted. The Hon. and Learned
to la riser then proceeded to draw a picture of the state of
,f 5,," all , at present, alluding more particularly to the state
colt'; ll'itto4°t"iill; and he ended by holding forth an argument to
a 4t. at the lower orders of France were universall
• al isbed With the results of the three. glorious slays, even
y
ihtlif,t;; t„ the
hot! (banished their hereditary Monarch, and
0,.‘ t„ th_
.ectite Monarchy. Similar results would at-
ic:ii, t,t,tfht ;_a,,ttainment of Reform in England, for it would
,P.,,, st.theie°, it but the people, finding only disappointment
11:'.r, 1,::, pto,s_h.opes of having all their evils remedied when it
the advocates for it only in the
"ladle het °f e4"hoantds hviewing generis," would turo round and
.tlri ~Irt:s4ntto their feelingsn.ani in a manner of which he had
I in
_.4 ~,14' de given a description. The present Bill was, in the
et& ' tis gree as the last, a revolutionary.. and plundering
'ile..l'i ttl tLihi:',.and the. same Jacobinism which had character-
,;:t, itatats wait Bill was also a distinguishing attribute of the
Not s,',atist., It was, equally with the last, a measure of re-
derf°ol ''Alltlpieand robbery—(Cheers)—as Jacobinism was the
I 0 t7,as,t, of the last, so it was of the present Bill,—
%ea It'i,ho4t 111 He would again in-ist that it was a change
aet rt„ etemty or use; for the Constitution, as itstood
I):. w ,„,
,p,,
..
01 IL: t "r, as equally preservative of the liberties of the
,f t,Ol i„:4",i, acid the prerogatives of the Crown.—(Hear.)
,t I, I,„flite 'e sat down—(" Oh, oh," from the Ministerial
r, I..q)it 1' answered by cheers from the Opposition)—
ytso ,t.'141%0`4! sat. down he would say that both the Noble
at Ntt aPosite had -failed to answer the speech of his Hon.
or,: kstt,,,l4t,ed Friend the Member for St. Mawe's, and that,
if!..: Qahe. "e had heard—and he had listened to Ministers
t 01:
r.'"opOrtell with attention—the principle and pro-
the
0,0 I)t 4n", nof the Bill remained to that moment alto-
, Os , explained.—(Cheers.
111.7, 'tll,''ti73l":_4l,•NLEY said he was not emulous of imitating
_t_ta :6,
07" a example of the Hon. Member for Oxford,
L''', yth, nsby observing he had long waited for something
'.4„ tika advocates of the Bill which deserved answering,
...,,hfo'r 4,,toit)rnOs .Withstanding, sat down, and left altogether
',O 1„, ea, as had also the Hon. and Learned Gentleman
/ ' Ni ' eddretised them, the admirable and argumentative
Sep
Of h•
has. ,'' Hon. and Learned Friend, the Member for
a Via '0 that able and eloquentd speech, and its argu-
-41; i.'s44(ith_a.s.yaltla.b_le hadfbeen o ressed b.y woy. of reply.
i°,o ::\14151y t,
.4:
01 t. hour o the night he felt irresistibly called
vo 4,, l'at me parts of the speech of the Right Hon.
still qleg_ , e Secretary to the Admiralty. Whatever had
i Itighvg OS the charge of his Majesty's Ministers b
le
o°4
itilltili k,
retvslieOnt .
iGentleman, there was one instance ayt
to
,iliatiosiat• c es the pamphlet alluded to—" Whig Fraud
i t ,sl,l r Folly" be believed it was called—in which
lb' ki ,s°ne injustice to his Majesty's Ministers; for he
t lle 6,44" re him, for himself and for the rest of his
Oh , %tett, except, perhaps, the Noble Paymaster of the
k td tt, the pamphlet to which he alluded had never
i kNa e eyes of one of the Ministers (Hear, hear.)
r ° Itt'ea Otn concur in the compliment which the Hon.
I4tb rliett'td Gentleman 41 lt, . who spoke last paid to the two
lbrr, NI Mel), he said, his Noble Friend near him (the
on'' i:htort.7 of the Exchequer) had failed to answer. For
as);', Qi h'ever, he (Mr. Stanley) felt it to be his duty
toe 4'11t,. Si!' said) to reply to some part of one of those
?I's
,ttillor, It had been complimented for many qualities,
r iion All: o-tg'tlfie!n, for one which
.he.. should never have
s i.a. *o_ applying to it—extreme accuracy.—(Cheers.)
spa '' la 'lid not be induc,evdithtotigiaot
qinutelitohnosethedßetiagilhst
aas,°:
,tts,, 4,11/4`),);_aybore upon the. question of
.Reform. Ot:
iyi ,r,laiatlt,eirnlY unconnected
b° ,`' pe' an had attacked the Government in a ton
c_arf!
,41.,t 51ut'4......0f which he (Mr. Stanley) would only say thise
V' lifirea among the unions which the Hon. Gentleman
,tees ''N•a,'ll°' the radical meetings which he so much held
boa 111 ,Lee, Would language be heard so vituperative as
the t'd ...,t",,,ich the Right Hon. Gentleman himself in-
IP
,their t,'heers.) As to the conduct. of the Government,
at at .t Nod, difference to thepeace
the Ile .4. Gen., _ of the country, if the
:0
~, nit° „ 'lemon had any charges to make he ought
' lalr co the House and make them by a specific motion
IS ii sa, 'f,"emnation. But if the Right Hon. Gentleman
:4,1; 'part that that HOuse he would have no chance of
\ tribunal in a pledged House—(Cheering on
',r) 1 • °,---tht.
to step
forward
ought to ea)l upon some Noble Friend
and bring an open accusation in

the other House of Parliament, instead of confining him-
self to taunts and insinuations, which there was no op-
portunity to answer. He could not say what tight the
Right Hon. Gentleman supposed he had to take upon him-
self to accuse the Members of that House as the tame mutes
of a despotic Government.—(Vehement cheering.) If, as
the Right Hon. Gentleman said, the Government were
not their own masters, he (Mr. Stanley) would say that
he never found himself less so—he never felt equal indig-
nation, or an inclination equally difficult to resist to call
upon the Right Hon. Gentleman to retract what he said—
(Oh, oh ! and cheers)—as at the moment when he so slan-
dered the Members of his Alajesty's Government. 'When
the Right Hon. Gentleman charged the Ministers as the
authors of the present excitement, by bringing in the
Reform Bill, and asked, why (lid they not take the same
plan and project, and pursue the same course as in 1819?
he would answer, because they were in 1831, and not in
1819.—(Cheers.) Had the motion of his Noble Friend
(Lord J. Russell) been acceded to in that year, they might
by slower, and, perhaps, more safe degrees, have arrived at
the same result a little later.—(Cheers.) His Noble
Friend had for twelve years been endeavouring to force
Reform upon a reluctant Government; and he had been
taunted and told that the country was indifferent to
Reform, and that no change was necessary. So far
Government then opposed Reform, that they refused
to give Members to Manchester and Halifax ; nay, more—
when his Noble Friend moved a resolution, that it
was expedient to improve the representation of the
people, he was met by a direct negative.—(Loud cheers.)
Were the present Ministers, then, to be taunted with the
present excited state of the country ?—(Cheers.) Was
there no excitement when, hardly one year ago, that fatal
declaration was put forth that the wishes of the people
should be met by no delusive gratification, but by a direct
negative ?—(Cheers.) Was there not then produced a
state of things such, that the chief Minister of the Crown
represented to his Majesty that he dare not trust his per-
son in the metropolis?—(Much cheering.) What, then,
would those gentlemen opposite propose to do ? Would
they give no Reform, or a little Reform, or a great Reform ?
What would they do, suppose, for the argument sake,
that they could succeed in throwing out the present Go-
vernment and the Bill ?—(Cheers.) Would they bring
in a Reform Bill themselves, or abide by their negative ?
Let the country understand their answer, and let them
take the consequences?—(Repeated cheering.) Why, one
gentleman had admitted to-night that he began to see some
reason for making some concession. The Hon. Member
for Oxford might have heard even an Archbishop admit
that some Reform Was necessary. With what horror must
he have heard this, and that he was abandoned by a
Bishop, too ! This was the most unkindest cut of all.—
(Loud laughter.) He really felt for the Hon. Gentle-
man when he heard his Learned Friend beside him admit
that he saw reason for some concession. Well, then, were
they ready to play the game which they had played be-
fore ? Having voted against the measure to the last, would
they take the places of those whom they had defeated
on the question of that measure, and then adopt it them-
selves to its utmost extent ?—(Much cheering.) If so,
let the country know it. But he would tell them that
neither they nor their measure would obtain or deserve
the confidence of the people.—(Repeated cheering.) But
if the present Government had proposed such a Reform as
should have conciliated their opponents, and should pro -
ceed so slowly as to quiet their alarm, it might be pos-
sible to ►nake it so efficient as to give Members to Leeds
and Manchester some tch,re about the year ISM—
(Laughter.) If there were excitement now, it was the
opposition to this Bill, and not the conduct of his Ma-
jesty's Ministers, that had occasioned it. The gentlemen
opposite were, when in power and place, the originators
of it by their misconduct, and they were answerable for it
all. He would tell them, if the Bill were a less pniple or
satisfactory concession to the people, the excitement then
would have been ❑ot as it was now, in favour of either the
Ministers or the measure.—(Hear, hear.) It was true
they had not entered much at length into detailed argu-
ments on the principle, because they thought, and rightly,
the principle had been argued even to satiety. They con-
sidered the question as to principle to have been settled by
the votes of the two several Houses of Commons, and that
it was no longer a matter of discussion there that " Re-
form in Parliament the Commons of England must have."
—(Cheers.) Some gentlemen complained that the Bill
was more democratical than the last, and others, that it
was not different from the last. They were told by the
Hon. Gentleman that such was the resemblance that this
Bill bore to that of last session, that it might be said o
them—

facies non omnibus tina,
Nee diversa tamen : qualem decet esse sororum."
A less trite quotation, and more applicable, in his mind,
was that familiar to most—
,. Mater pulehra : fa. puichrior."

—(Hear.) But there had been io fact no departure from
the principle. The disfranchisement of schedule A was
maintained to an equal extent. The enfranchisement of
the large towns was retained to a greater extent, and the
101. franchise was not violated. They were now told that
they had taken no intelligible rule as the guide of the dis-
franchisement. But had it not been imputed to them that
they had been influenced in the choice of the boroughs to
be disfranchised by private motives, and looking to indivi-
dual interest ? Now they were charged with producing to
Parliament certain calculations, without being prepared
with even the names of the boroughs to be disfranchised
according to those calculations. They bad been charged
with abandoning their favourite principle of population as
applicable to the boroughs and the return of the y ear
1821. The truth was that population never had been the
principle of the Bill ; it bad only been resorted to as a test,
and the readiest test by which to ascertain the relative im-
portance of the boroughs. But when objections which seemed
to have some foundation were taken t o it as being liable to
abuse,the Ministers had determined to take a test composed of
the ratio of the houses and of the population in those bo_
roughs. Even the present test went far to prove they
were not materially daceived in the application of the
former ; for the result of the application of the new test
was that, of the 56 boroughs which originally stood in the
schedule, 51 still remained there—(Cheers)—and notwith-
standing all that had been said of the injustice done to
Saltash, that borough was one of those which, tried by
the combined tests of the population in 1831, the taxes
which it pays, and the number of 101. housed, was proved
to be worthy of its place in the schedule, and it still stood
within the line of demarcation..—(A laugh.) Objections
had been made to the anomaly of the principle of schedule
B in creating single returns; and it had been strongly ar-
gued last session that they had no right to diminish the
number of Members in that House. Minister's had
yielded to the latter argument, and in this Bill they had
proceeded to fill up the vacancies created by the schedules
in the representation, by granting a proportionate increase
of Members to the great towns. The equilibrium was
thus exactly maintained between the two great interests in
the community. As to the 101. franchise, thouch it
would be the snore proper time to discuss it in the Com-
mitt,e, he must say new that it combined two most desir-
able advantages. It extended the right of representation

to property of the lowest class, and went as far as it was
possible to go, consistently with safety to the State.
Although he was not of the opinion of the Hon.
Members for Westminster, that every man had a right to
be represented, yet it was the duty of the Legislature to
extend the right as far as it could be extended, without
injury to the commonwealth.—(Cheers from both sides.)
An Hon. and Learned Gentleman told the House that he
knew from good authority that the measme was not satis-
factory, from a correspondence upon which he could rely;
no doubt it was not satisfactory to hie correspondents at
Boroughbridge.—(Laughter.) The objections which
Hon. Gentlemen opponite made to the ten-pound franchise
were so contradictory that he could not tell which to an-
swer ; they refuted each other. It was by one denounced
an innovation which would create an aristocracy of shop..
keepers ; by another as an oligarchy of ten-pound house-
holders ; again as unrestrained democracy--as universal
suffrage ; but the climax of all, in his mind, was, that it
was described by one Honourable Member as a system of
nomination.—(Laughter and: cheers.) The web they
wove in this manner was so intricate and perplexed that it
was impossible, in answering one of the opposers of the
Bill, not to fall foul of the other. The Hon. Gentleman,
to whom he bad before alluded, had charged the Govern-
ment with rashness and precipitation in taking but ten
days to form a Constitution anew for this country. Would

it not have been more fair to say that the Government,
having all the necessary information prepared, and before
them, with the documents, for some considerable time, on
the 24th of November gave them into Lieutenant Drum-
mond's hands merely to cast up the tables, and to make
the numerical calculations on which the disfranchisement
of the boroughs was to depend? Such was really the fact
that had been so misrepresented. He was not the only
opposer of the Bill who dealt in misrepresentation ; for
the Right Hon. the late secretary had misquoted, sup-
pressed, or garbled history to suit his purposes—nay, he
had not hesitated even to describe occurrences as effects of
certain causes ; which causes, upon examination, were,
in fact, preceded by the effects or events attributed to
them.—(Cheers and laughing.) The House would re-
collect the use of the Right Hon. Gentleman bad made of
his historical knowledge on that occasion. He said, in
a tone expressive of no mode rate exultation, " Look to
what concession led to in 1640, when Charles 11. yielded
to his Parliament, and made the offer of Triennial Media-
merits, which was the first step in that bloody tragedy, in