The Sun.
London, England, 1831-07-21 00:00:00

ti e power of parcelling the tenements on burgage-
te .tire as they pleased ; whether this power was
not vested, by set purpose and design, in the Lords, who
might create 40 voters, 400 as they pleased? He put
it to the gentlemen opposite to tell him whether this power
was not designedly given to the landed aristocracy, and
whether the object of giving it was to create a peculiar
sort of Members ? He called upon the apostate Member
for Bletchingley, who was to be the high priest at the al-
crifice of it, and upon the Noble Lord the Secretary for
Foreign Affairs, and upon his Learned Friend the Solici-
tor-General, who ought to be chief mourner at its funeral
—he called upon them to answer him upon these points,
if nobody else would. Now he hoped that he had argued
this question properly, as he assured the Committee he
hid intended to do, and that he had not gone afloat into
the principle of the Bill. perhaps lie had detained them
a little too long ; but before Bletchingley was executed,
if it was to be executed—before the Chairman put the
dismal question, fiat executio, on the borough of Bletch-
ingley—he had thought it right to say thus much upon it,
because it was a burgage tenure borough—because it had
not committed the sins of falling off, or decaying, or
being changed—and, finally, because, as its last represen.
tative would have been a Noble Lord eminent for his ac-
quirements, and his talents, and his abilities—he was sure
he need not say that he meant the Noble Secretary of 11
State for Foreign Affairs—he had thought it ought not
to he stain and interred without some little eulogistic
mention which might mark its fall to posterity.
The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER was very
far from being prepared to admit all that the Hon. and
Learned Gentleman had said.—( Hear, hear, from the Mi-
nisterial side.) But the Hon. and Learned Gentleman had
asked why the Government proposed to include in the dis-
franchisiog clause burgage tenure boroughs? He would
answer this question of the Hon. and Learned Gentleman.
The Hon. and Learned Gentleman had argued, that as
such boroughs were now precisely in the same condition
as they had ever been, it was not fair to call them decayed
boroughs. But whether they were decayed boroughs, or
whether they had always been as badly constituted as they
were at present, and consequently could not be said to have
become any worse, these were not the questions for consi-
deration. The question to be decided was, whether they
were or were not inconsiderable boroughs—(Loud cries of

" Hear," from the 3linisterial side)—for the proposition
stated in the preamble of the Bill was, that it was expe-
dient to take effectual measures to deprive inconsiderable
places of the right of returning Members to the Commons
House of Parliament, and that the abuses that had lone
prevailed in the choice of Members could only be corrected
by granting the elective franchise to large and populous
towns, and extending it to the inhabitants generally in
such places where it was at present limited to a few,
and where there were inhabitants enough to form a re-
spectable constituency.—(Cheers.) The Hon. and Learned
Gentleman had said, that burgage tenure boroughs re-
turned a particular class of Members, and had seemed to
think that the Ministers were bound to prove that it was
safe and proper to get rid of that class, whose return was
rested in the landed aristocracy. On that point he was
quite prepared to meet the Hon. and Learned Gentleman.
lie wag far from thinking—nay, lie utterly denied—that
the continuance of this power would be advantageous to
the landed aristocracy of this country. He admitted that
it increased the influence of certain individuals cf the
landed aristocracy who happened to be possessed of these
boroughs, but it certainly did not confer any advantage
upon the aristocracy or the landed interest generally.—
(Cheers.) The measure which they proposed was much
more fair to the community at large, while at the same
time it was much more advantageous to the landed inte-
rest ; for while it gave representation to the people gene-
rally, it secured also to the landed interest generally, and
not to a few persons only connected with that interest,
those fiir advantages and that legitimate influence which
the possessor of I aided property ought to enjoy. Did the
lion. and Learned Gentleman mean to say that the landed
;ntereats, and the interests of the aristocracy, were served
or promoted by the existence of those nomination borough?
Those close boroughs were an abuse, and as such they
brought odium and dislike on the whole body of the aristo-
cracy of the country.—( Hear, hear.) Instead of being an
advantage, then, as hail been contended by the Hon. and
Learned Gentleman, the existence of such boroughs con-
stituted a positive disadvantage to the aristocracy, for as
long as they existed the Members of the aristocracy would
not stand as well as they ought with the people of England,
who called for the disfranchisement of all such close bo-
roughs.—(Hear.) The Hon. and Learned Gentleman
had argued the present matter very fairly—he had not
travelled out of the case ; and the ground, as he Ole
Chancellor of the Exe'nequer) collected, upon which the
Learned Gentleman had retied his opposition to the dis-
fraechisernent of this borough was, that it was one which
afforded an instance of simple burgage tenure, and that it
could not lie described as one of those decayed boroughs
which the bill proposed to cut oti. Without denying that
the tenure in tine leorongli did not differ from that which
it had been originally in the first instance, he begged to
observe, that this borougL come within the class of those
inconsiderable borsughs which, when it was proposed to
effect an alteration in accordance with the general and well-
established principles of the Constitution, it was impossible
to allow to remain any longer in existence. But, said the
lion, and Learned Gentleman, "You cannot call this a re-
storation of the ancient principles of the Constitution. This
individual borough, ever since it obtained the right of sending
Members to Parliament, bas remained precisely is the same
sane, and when you disfranchise it, you cannot nay
that you are returning to the ancient principles of the
Constitution." When they spoke of the Constitution,
they spoke of it as a whole, not of its individual parts;
and when they talked of re-establishing the representative
system upon the ancient principles of the Constitution,
they meant that Constitution by width the people of this
country were entitled to be fully, freely, and fairly repre-
sented in the Commons House of Parliament.—(Cheers.)
The measure which his Majesty's Government proposed,
therefore, was a restoration of the ancient principles of the
Constitution, though it might destroy sonic boroughs
which had existed up to the present day in the same con-
dition that they had been at their original establishment.
Viewed as a whole, it could not be denied that the measure
wee a restoration of the ancient and undoubted principles
of the Constitution. lie denied that the principle of the
Bill was merely to destroy decayed boroughs, as the lion.
and Learned Gentleman argued, The principle of the
Bill was to cut off all inconsiderable as well as decayed
bet ought+, and to establish the representatioe of the people
upon its ancient, comprehensive, and constitutional basis.
Sir B. PEEL said that the Noble Lord, in the speech
which lie had just made, had opened the discussion anew
into the whole principles of the Bill.—(Hear.) Ile must
enter his protest against the doctrines whiela bad been
laid down by the Noble Lord, The Noble Loin said
that when they looked at the measure as a whole, they
would see that its object was to give to the people a full
and fair representation in Parliament, and that as such, it
might be justly described as as a restoration of the ancient
principles of the Constitution ; for that those principles
were, that the people should be fully and fairly represented
in the Commons House of Parliament. Now that involved
the fallacy that the people of this country ever bad the
right which it was proposed to give to them by thin Bill.
Be would deny that the phrase, 'd the people of England,"
ever meant the people if England as they were polled- by
this Bill. What was meant by the peopte of England,
when we spoke of the representation of the peeple of
England in ancient three, cousietal in the great corporate
bodies, and those great classes of the community to whom
the franchise was intrueted, and of whom the Members
sent to Parliament were the representatives. But she word
" people" was never used then as it was in the preeeet;
13i11,—it was never used so as to mesa ten-pound house-
holders who bail never hitherto possessed a right to that
franchise which it was now proposed to give them. He
would swot': that the elective franchise, as it Lad been eata-
blished in England in former times, had never existed in
the form in which the present Bill proposed to establish it,
but in a much better, more practical, and more beneficial
form. Ile was far from dstying that a sentiment of die,eatis-
faction had been expressed throughout the country with
regard to what were called nominal en boroughs ; but that
dissatisfaction, and that clamour with reepect to those ho-
rough., he f,n, justified in attributing entkelv to the
manner in which this measure had been brought furriarti
by the Government, under the sanction of his .Majesty.
The :Ministers themselves had excited the clamour which
they pleaded as one of the grounds for disfranchising those
boroughs. So far as burgage tenure boroughs were con•
corned, they certainly could not be described as any usur-
pation on the rights of the people. It was said that the
possession of such boroughs could not be advantageous to
the aristocracy, and, indeed, the Lord Advocate of Scotlend
lied argued upon a former night, that as the right of re-
turning Members from such boroughs wrs vested in indi-
viduls, it was not probable that at was exereised for the
benefit of the general body, and that in fact the possession 1
of such boroughs was disadvantageous to the interests
of the aristocracy at large. But though the power might
Le vested in the hands of a single individual, was it to be
supposed that it ever would be used by him for the pro-
motion of his individual and personal interests—(Cries of
oh ! oh !)--and not for the promotion_ a_ritedsupport.4
interests of the general body to which belongs.d ?_ If
for instance, they should give Members to Birmingham,
was it probable that those Members would attend only to
the interests of Birmingliam„ 00, ppe to the intereets-of.