The Sun.
London, England, 1831-04-01 00:00:00

(Frain the Constitution-Lel cf Wvitiesday.)

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I binet of METTERNLeir. M. CAslink rEßisk,
SIR JAMES SCARLETT AND REFORM.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.
SIR,-1-laving been s'ruck by some parts of Sir
James Scarlett's speech against the Reform Bill, I
have sent you the following observations, should
you deem them worthy of a place in your paper :
Sir James Scarlett says—
" That Reform, to be useful, must be such as was con-
sistent with the main constitution of the House. The
present Bill was not for the Reform, but the reconstruc-
tion of the House of Commons upon principle. entirely
new to the Constitution."
Does the Honourable Member forget the ancient
burgage tenure, or the Ist Henry V., cap. 1,
which ordains that the citizens and burgesses
of the cities and boroughs be chosen by men,
citizens and burgesses resiant and dwelling and
free in the same cities and boroughs ; indeed, noth-
ing would appear new in the Bill, except giving
votes to lease and copyholders, who ought to have
been franchised at the abolition of the feudal tenures.
Blackstone says, vol. 1, p. 171, if any alteration
might be wished or suggested in the present form of
Parliaments, it should be in favour of a more com-
plete representation of the people. We therefore
contend that the principle is not new, though the
practice of coming forward in the noble manner the
present Ministry have done may be unprecedented.
" His Learned Friend might as well propene to reduce
the House by half, and call upon all reformers to vote for
the second reading of such a Bill."
Coke, in his Commentary on Littleton (110 a.
110 b.) says, " The jurisdiction of this Court is so
transcendant, that it maketh, inlargeth, diminisheth,
abrogateth, repeateth, and reviveth laws, statutes,
acts, and ordinances concerning matters ecclesiasti-
cal!, capital], criminal], common, civill, martial', ma.
ritime, and the rest." So the right of Parliament is
undisputed. By Oldfield's History of Boroughs it
would appear that between seventy and eighty have
been disfranchised and discontinued, including Man-
chester and Leeds, and that in the Parliament held
18th of Edward 1., besides the two Knights for
every county, only 161 boroughs returned Members,
the rest were added as State purposes required;
the Bth Hen. VI. c. 8, disfranchised all freeholders
under 405.; and in our time we hare seen 200,000
forty-shilling freeholders of Ireland disfranchised by
the same party, who are now so loud in their
laments over the 5,030 electors of the sixty rotten
boroughs, and tell us we might as well propose to
reduce the House by one half.
" The advocates of Rel.rm took three grounds. One
was a constitutional right in the people to Reform ; the
second was a theoretical ground, with which the present
constitution of the House of Commons did not agree; and
the third was, the practical ground of expediency. As to
the ground of constitutional right, he would ask in what
law or in what usage was it to be found ? The House of
Commons, as it new existed, was formed by writs, Acts
of Parliament, and charters. In which of these would be
find one word with respect to any specific mode of repre-
sentation, or any specific plan of Reform ?"
After making every allowance for errors of the re-
porter, it should seem that the Hon. and Learned
Member did not state his views in the clearest lan-
guage. " By a constitutional right in the people to
Reform," he could scarcely mean any thing else
than a right in certain clisses of the people to re-
turn representatives, and if he meant this, the form
of the very writs to which he refers furnishes the
most triumphant reply. In these writs, as far back
as 5 Ed. 111., ( A.D. 1332) Elsynge on Parliaments,
p. 57, 8 ed., 1660, the King commands the return
of two knights for each county, two citizens for
each city, and two burgesses for each borough, and
thus the uninterrupted usage of five centuries would
establish the right of the agricultural and trading
elasses to representation; it would indeed hare been
wonderful had these writs, Acts of Parliament, or
charters, said one word about Reform, when they
were all framed long before those abuses existed
which now renders Reform necessary.
" His Noble Friend who bad brought forward the ques-
tion, had alluded to an Act passed in the reign of Edward
111. and stated to have been passed by the Bishops, Barons,
and all the Commons of the realm. But if his Noble
Friend had looked a little further into history he would
have found that the words ' Commons of the realm' did
not bear the meaning which he had ascribed to them ; for
it appeared that in allusion to the Oxford Provision, which
sat in the reign of Henry 111., the expression ' Commons
of England' was used to signify the persons elected by the
Barons to represent the Commons, which persons were
themselves Barons. He did not mean to say that, there-
fore, they should have no Reform ; but merely that the
Reform should depend on the expediency of what was
*lost useful fur the public benefit."
The Learned Member here indulges in very need-
less hypercriticism; the sense in which the word
Commons was used on a particular occasion in the

llth ei.itary is of very little importance, when the
writ above cited proves that before the middle of
the 14th century, (when the Act referred to was
passed,) this word had acquired its modern meaning.
It would also appear from Grafton, that the Perlis:
ment referred to by the Liearretl.o:mber is b'kter
knoei f the liSine of the mad Parliament, for the
mischief it occasioned ; and the,. twelve Peers were
expressly chosen "to avoid the enormities, and
reform the evil rule that wSt in the land." The
terms used in .S 6 Ed. 111., c. 15, are, " Pi dairy dues,
counts, barons, et tout la commune," rendered " and
all the commonalty" in the folio edition of the sta-
tutes. Petit, in his observations on the rights of
the Commons, 1680, instances the prescription of
the borough of S. Alban's, tth of Ed. II:, to send
t*l:s burgesses to all Parliaments, Sicut calor burgcn-
ses Regni tali: retroactis temporibus, in the time
of Ed. 1., and his progenitors." Also the declara-
tion on the rolls of Parliament 2 Henry V., n. 10,
that the Uommon3 laad ever been a Member of the
Parliament, and that no statute law could be made
without their consent; and statute (1 Henry V. c. 1),
which regulates the persons to be chosen Knights,
clearly points out what was meant by the word Corn-
icloris in bliss c 15...; F.

As for the ground of theory, it Wag altogeth,r unten-
able. Such attempts deserted only to be treated with
scorn, experience being the only guide worth a moment's
attention from anyone who pretended to the character of
a Statesman."

Thr - preceding tirade against theoretical prin-
eiplea is altogether I:::Nide :the consideration of the
presnt plan of 'R.efotln, NT h i eh hze never r•'ted
upon sr.y such

wilat tutu rtiid the.frarntra-of the nil: pr,..;pose? They
proposed to cut •off isizty.tw:) Mobbert. And from what
class f From that class which represented the eonimer-.
vial interest, while none were -taken, from the landed inte-
rest. I!e was reedy to .aernit that the landed interest
should have t!. preponchtrance, but. tkis was. an uritine, a
disproportiened preponderance."
The Learned Member, without offering a single
reason in support of his opinion, simply assumes
that the less of 62 Members will be an -.evil; and
then asserts that they are to ht. taken from the class
representing the clmmercial interests'. Now, with-
out saying hew far this might or might not Ise' de-
sirable, the short reply is, that the fact is not so,
iinCe the gieat majority, indeitk almost all of the
pieces returning those Members are now and long
'hare been, in the liana of great landed proprietors,
and thererore have never returned Members. to ad
rocate principles which ti.ete proprietors are ep-
sed • in4r-d the lk:- of the Members will show
'
that not mere than merchants. and bankers are
to be found among the 120 to be Terranchited,' and
we have from 150 to 160 Members connected with
the mercantile interest:. in the House. .T.

0 It should only be done upon ardent, 'Aped some
ietel-
ligible principle ; but there was e,othiug of that nature in
the Bill; but if popillsti,e, were to be the criterion, why
should 1821 be taken rztbcr than any other prrio-l?
Ac-
cordirg to ttlat act angFtnent, the borough which had two
thousand voters nr.•w, End- only fifteen hundred in 1821,
would not return Members, It had been said that the
public sought for Reform beraose it did not suit sirne
theory in its prac;ize. But after ail the, would find that
the public would be disrontent,d when, es-would certainly
be the case, the 1.1,il did act. answer • their expectations.
The public would complain that they had pulled down the
old House to build up a new one, ful of arror3 in the cnn-
structizn. Bat tbo•errers in a,e latter cue would he of
their ow., formation, not" the growth of years, which they
.might respect and venerate, •but defortaiti made by
snd rule—(Hear, hear)-..for. which they could feel nothing
must have 4o,iige, it ought tr
""•e-• • ,i h:ird not be of the sem,.
rere out, 5tr,...1, •
conducted upon some principle, a.- • -
anomalous and imperfect nature as the Constitution
complained of. Another objection to the Bill was, that
it attempted to put the whole representation of the country
upon one uniform principle.—(Hear.) In his opinion the
House of Commons represented every interest and every
class in the kingdom somehow or other.—(Laughter, and
cries of " Hear.") But now there was an attempt to
adopt a uniform line. Might not the anomalies which at
present existed be the cause of representing all three in-
terests."

Pere we are first told that the Bill wants system
or some intelligible principle; and the next objection
is its attempting to put the whole representation of
the country upon one uniform principle—instead of
putting down the old house we are only taking out
sixty planks that have got the dry-rot, least the
sound timbers should become infected. Lord Bacon,
in his advancement of learning, says, " Antiquity
deserveth that a man should make a stand thereat;
but, having discovered the right way, then make pro-
gression."
" In his opinion the class of voters who would be most
enlarged by this measure were those who were disposed to-
wards revolutionary principles, who aimed at the destruc-
tion of the house of Commons, and who ultimately looked
to the establishment of a republic ; and this class of
thinkers were, he was inclined to believe, more largely ex-
tended amongst the ten-pound householders than was very
generally known."
Here we have two opposite objections to the Bill,
namely, the increased influence of the landed in-
terest, or in other words the aristocratic tendency of
the measure, and in the same breath the approach of
a democracy through the revolutionary principles of
the ten-pound householders.
Judge Blackstone, after enumerating the various
infringements of our ancient Constitution by the Nor-
mans, says, " From so complete and well concerted
a scheme of servility it has been the work of gene-
rations for our ancestors to redeem themselves and
their posterity into that state of liberty which we
now enjoy; and which, therefore, is not to be looked
upon as consisting of mere encroachments on the
crown, and infringements of the prerogative, as some
slavish and narrow minded writers in the last cen-
tury endeavoured to maintain, but as, in general, a
gradual restoration of that ancient Constitution where-
of our Saxon forefathers had been unjustly deprived,
peaty by the policy and partly by the force of the
Norman."
Johnson defines revolution to be " the course of
any thing whisk returns to the point at which it be-
gan to 'move. If then we are returning to the
pure and simple institutions of our Saxon ancestors,
the revolution will be like the one of 1688, a glori-
ous revolution.
• " He would now come to the last topic on which he
should trouble the House with respect to the question now
before them—(Hear, bear)—and that was an examina-
into into the necessity for plesing the Bill, because the
public demanded it of the House. He contended, with
regard to this important consideration, that, although no
doubt could exist as to the wish of the people of England
plan before the House being carried into execution, and
fur Reform, yet the public did not insist on every part of
the
he was, therefore, of opinion, that the House could not
adopt it, as a reason for passing the measure, that the
people were in its favour as it stood."
This in the teeth of 448 petitions, since the in-
troduction of the measure in approbation of the plan.
Nothing can be more obvious than the necessity
of passing this Bill, when we know it to be a fact
that 130 Members are returned by rich Commoners,
and 173 by the Peers—it was this that made Mr.
Pitt,
1782, declare, " No honest man can, accord-
ing tothe Fresent system, continue Minister."
A WHIG.

[The above would have appeared sooner, but has been
delayed for want of room.]

The following is the House List of Governors
and Directors of the Bank of Eoglaad for the year en-

suing, vis :

?GE GOVERNORS.
JonN HownEr Pstraiza, Esq., Governor.
ANDREW HENRY THOM,ON, Esq., Deputy Governor.
FOR DIRECTORS.
John Bowden, Esq. Sheffield Neave, Eaq.
John Cockerell, Esq. George Warde Norman, Esq,
William Cotton, Eaq. James Pattison, jun., Esq.
Samuel Drewe, Esq. John Henry Pelly, Esq.
George Dorrien Esq. Charles Pole, Esq.
Charles Pascoe Grenfell, Esq. Henry Porcter,
Abel Lewes Gower, Esq. Richard Mee Raikes, Esq.
Samuel Ilibbert, Esq. John Baker Richards, Esq.
William Manning, Ebq. William It. Robinson, Esq.
William Mellish, Esq. William Thompson, Esq. and
Humphrey St. John Mildmay, Alderman.
Esq. Samuel Thornton, Eaq.
James Morris, Esq. Thomas %Varre, Esq.
The election of the Governor and Deputy Governor
will be held at the Bank on Tuesday, the sth, and for
Directors on Wednesday, the 6th inst., from ten o'clock
in the forenoon till four in the afternoon,

.~

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT.

ROUSE OF LORD S, 31Alterr 31.

Eleven private bills were read a third time and passed,
Thtir Lordships then adjourned till Elevso. o'clock od
Saturday, to hear•,Scoch
MAGAin: DAY.