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

thatet. change should again •• be made in the cestrency-s'
suppose that distress should again cause complaints, was it
not possible that again the anodyne recourse
to of paper money ; and if paper money: were issued,
that would extend the frenchise indefinitely. Peace
might continue ; but who would answer for. it ? The
Continent was not so tranquil as to insure it; and if the
flame of war were lighted there, by what art were we to
escape the cord] ag ration ? If war came, it was-not likely
that its hurthens could be borne, and that it could.beTcare
ried on with a gold currency, and the fatal facilities of
paper currency might again cause a Bank Restriction Act
The consequence would i.e money would, fall 40.61.50
per cent. ; 101. might be only equal to 61. at present, and
that would immediately introduce a universal suffrage of
I inweliolders.—(Hear.) The Hon. Member here sud-
denly stopped, and apologised to the House by saying that
the indisposition under which he laboured would prevent
him from proceeding, hut he hoped in the progress of the
Bill to find other opportunities to expeess with greater
accuracy and greater' force. the opinions which be enter-
tained on the subisct.—(Cheere.)
Mr. 11. LYTTON BIJI.WER spoke to the following
effect—l thank tie Hon. Gentlemen opposite, more par-
ticuler ly the lion. Gentleman who has just. sat down, fee
giving us a new advantage—for placing us in a new posi-
tion—sos that that argument with which the Reformers
were assailed in other days, is the very argument with
which we teal mo-t appropriately assail the Anti-Reformers
of ours. That nice distinction—those speculative differ-
ences—that want of unanimity in any plan or opinion,
which was so numb the subject of Mr. Canning's con-
tempt and ridicule, have left us, to become the peculiar
charaeteristics of our opponents. But that which is a
proof of tl:eir real weakness, I our willing to acknowledge
becomes in argument the past point of their streogth, far
no sooner ace u-e answered a violent Anti Reformer of
the Rood old school, than we are replied to by some
epode:llan,
" to megeroteet placing all his glory,
Not quite a Whig, and yet not quite a Tore,"
who proffers us some pet little scheme of his own, of which
we know nothing—of which he tells us nothing, but of
which he-leaves tee to conjecture that the principal object
will lie to prevent inopportune dissolution of Parliament.
Bat 1 do not think I shall be doing injustice to the lion.
Gentlemen opposite if I state that the same horror of
change which animates those who object to its principle,
and itny its necessity, is equally predominant in others,
who are willing to allow a very small alteration indeed,
in oidLr to prevent a more effectual one. I am not one
of these inclined to suppose that such gentlemen as happen
ditTer from me in this important and difficult subject are
necessarily actuated by petty feelings or personal motives;
on the contrary, history 'viii tell me that high.minded
end honourable persons h oos, at various times, beea
the mistaken but disinterestel advocates of existing abuses,
lis ing down their lives and sacrificing their property
in their support. But what Ido contend for is, that
many Honourable Gentlemen would be taking a much
more manly and straightl'orward path, if they declared
themsebee, frankly and unflinchingly the opponents of
Law measure of change, than thus to aa'ume the title
of Reformers, for the purpose of defeating the cause
of Reform. And indeed, Sir, if I were convinced, as
these Hon. Gentlemen state themselves to be, that those
parts which we are about to change in our Constitution
bad been the objects of admiration to the wisest Legible-
ters—the subject of imitation to the most intelligent mo-
tions—then, indeed, I should be very unwilling ti compro.
mist, er to tamper in any manner with change. But it is
precisely that which the Hon. Gentlemen have so very
quietly assum:d that I rake the liberty to dispute. I say
that it is we who are the advocates of that Constitution
which Mentesquieu praised and Delnlme described. It is
the Hon. Gentlemen who are the advocates gf. ahe defects
in this Constitution, which sonic indeed huve palliatial and
excused, but which none have pretended to praise or at-
tempted to imitate. I say that those who have admired
—those who have imitated our Constitution, have always
considered it as we are note shout to make it—a mixed
fin rn of Government, consisting of a King, entrusted wilt •
the executive authority ; a House of Lords, exercising its
functions from heteditary right; and .a House of Com-
mone chosen out of the body of the people. 1 know, Sir,
that I ern alluding to Constitutions which have furnished
a Noble Lord with warnings and examples ; but if any
thing equalled my admiration for the spirited eloquence
with which the Noble Lord spoke on these aubjects, it was
my surprise at the ienorance, the willing ignorance I must
believe, that he displayed upon them. Mistaking the
ease of Sicily, mis-stating the case of Portugal. when the
Noble Lord approached his favourite manor of France, he
certainly justified hie toast of poaching there very un-
ceremonieusly. Any person, to have beard the Noble
Lord speak, unacquainted with this portion of modern
history, would have imagined that France, .duting the
whole Constitutional monarchy of the Bourbons hall teen
the scene of cotrinued decay and uninterrupted confusion.
But let any one look at France et the time of the Resto-
ration—see its contending parties, its fallen commerce, its
ruined credit, its gross political ignorance—and let him
again look at it under the Ministry of Martignac,
viewing its almost perfect union, the prosperity
of its trade, the immensity of its resources,
the increased and widely extending intelligence—let him
also consider the disadvantages against which the free
institutions of that country had to struggle in the absolute
spirit of those who administered them, and I think he will
'ay that there never was a country under similar circum-
stances, which, in the same progress of titne, made the
same progress in improvement that France did under that
monstrous firm of Government against which the Noble
Lord so bitterlyinveiglel.—(llear,hear.; The Hon.
Gentleman, however, maintains that in all mixed Govern-
ments, sorb as its theory at least would preset ibe our own
to Iw, the elective character would destroy the other two
orders of the State, if separtied front them ; and they
think they have proved this by a few modern exaMplew—
Maglit not we quote ancient examples of a House of Com-
mons, constituted as this Howie now is, whiCh did destroy
the other two orders in the State, and waged. a war, in
which it was victorious (fits it was a popular war)
against the Sovereign ? The feet is that the Hon; Gen-
tlemen assert a truism while they maintain an irr,:ta If
there were one power in a State, representing the !iselings
and the interests of the people, and there were others, it
does not signify how many, which were merely the repre-
sentation of themselves, of their own interests amid their
own privileges, there can he no doubt that that power
which enlisted on its side all the sympathies of the com-
munity would be able, should they come into collision, to
di stray the others, whether they should he two or twenty.
But I have always considered the constitutional doctrine
to be that the King and the House of Peers are the here-
ditary representatives of the people, as we are their re-
pre entatives chosen at certain periods. As all rept esent
the ,ante feelings and interests, so we are all supported by
the same authority—the authority of public opinion ;
and if this is the support of each, is it not necessary -
for the safety of all, that there should he nue
,of ue
at least who should be able to say what that public
opinion is?—.(lleac, hear.) But to come from theory
to feet. The Honourable Gentleman will ask whether we
have not arrived at a great pitch of prosperity, and
wh. the: it b wise fo alter that Constitution under-which
that prosperity has been attained? Surely no- Hoe.
Gentlemen can he led away by such sophistry as this ;
surely they will see that a doctrine like this, which sup-
posts that if the whole be productive of advantage, no
elteretion can be made in the details, would be in favour
of any abuse now existing, of all those abuses that have
been now abolished, and more {particularly in favour of
those abuses which the Right Hon. Baronet gained so
much credit for removing. The country grew up to pre-
eminence under its complex laws, its wretched police, its
gross religious injustice. It increased in strength and
power under the servile Parliaments of the tyrannical
Tudors, and let the Hon. Gentleman remember, under
the rule, equally arbitrary, of a Protector. But are dime
salansities to which we have been subject—are those cir-
eumetaners which 'nay have been so many impediments to
:'or prosperity, to he considered as the only causes of
tor good fortune? Certainly it has so happened that our
poets have itmnortalized our language—that our philoso-
phers have added new stores to the wisdom of the world,
that our navies have spread their dominion, and our
irmies signalized their valour on the Continent ; but does
it follow as a matter of course that we owe all this to one
linndred and sixty gentlemen whom Providence has from
time to time beneficently sent to Parliament to represent
m broken-down wall—a rotten park paling, or a hundred
hunken potwolloppers ? Not that I mean to say that
those Hon. Gentlemen were idle; on the contrary, while
our men of science end letters advanced our national
knowledge—while our armies and navies advanced our
national glory—it is but justice to Had, that the one
hundred and sixty gentlemen in question were almost as
actively employed in advancin,g our rational debt.—
(Hear, hear.) But I area not anxious to exaggerate,
when eu much can be adduced without it. 1 o ill take tl e
argument as I find it in the Hon. Gentleman's hands,
hello neticed diet elthough theme .tray be imperfections
here, as in all other forms of Government, still the House
ef Commons, as at
present constituted, has been, to • use
'be cant phrase, a machine, that upon the whole.. has
" woo lied well" fur the benefit of the public. But let us
underst oil what this
" working well" means: if the
Hon. Geo l• malt intone by such an expression, • that. the
,
House . Ustranoree has, to a certain degree, been a bar-