The Sun.
London, England, 1848-06-21 00:00:00

not show in stronger language the necessity of bringing
forward and adopting the plan he proposed than by citing
this passage of the Noble Lord's speech. Upon these
grounds lie thought that the Government were bound to
give their support to his plan, which the Government, as
far as the Noble Lord was concerned, had approved ; for no
stronger reasons, no stronger arguments could be adduced in
its favour than those he had read from the Noble Lord's
speech. He would repeat once more, that he thought the time
had arrived when an important onward step must be taken.
If they only did justice to the mass of the people, they might
rely upon this, that the mass of the people would give them
cordial and unqualified support; but of this they might
equally rest assured, that, if they continued to exclude a
large portio❑ of the people from the enjoyment of civil rights,
it would be impossible for the Government of this country
any longer to repress universal discontent. To his mind no-
thing could be clearer than this, that they must freely grant
civil rights to their fellow sabjecta, or else they must be pre-
pared to coerce them. They had already—most prematurely
in his opinion—begun the plan of coercion, and it certainly
had beet productive of no good fruits. He meant, not merely
recent coercion, but that also of a more distant date. Let
him be allowed to refer to the year 1793. That was a period
when the first French Revolution raised in this country a
wide spread and eager demand for more popular institutions.
The cry of reform was then raised with great loudness and
strength ; and he entreated them to look at the measures that
were then taken for the purpose of repressing that cry. Let
them look at the measures that were taken for the purpose of
putting down reform, and let them look at the penalty which
this country paid for the pleasure of carrying those measures
into practical operation. All possible means of coercion were
then resorted to, and what did we pay fur it?—no less a sum
than 600,000,0001. England added 600,000,0001. to her debt
—it might be 800,000,000/.—the debt was 1,000,000,0(01.,
and certainly at the lowest computation 600,000,01101. of that
must be set down to. the account of the war, which war
arose altogether out of attempts to coerce the people. Look-
ing back, then, as no one at present could help doing, to the
state of things in 1793, could any rational or dispassionate
man deny that all we had since then suffered in the way of
war and its consequences, in the weight of public taxation,
and in the misery and distress which followed in its train,
might all have been avoided if Parliamentary reform had.
been conceded in good time? But the aristocracy were
against it, the Sovereign was against it, and that arch-traitor
to reform, Mr. Pitt, was against it. That Minister, who in
1785, took his great stand upon reform principles, kept this
country under the severest coerceive rule throughout the
many years that his administration lasted. Such had been the
consequence of formerly refusing to make any concessions to
the just demands of the people, and such again would be the
inevitable consequence of any resistance to the popular will;
that which the people of England had done before they
would do again. It was the duty of the Legislature to con-
cede that which they believed to be just and right, and to
trust the people; if they trusted the people they would be
perfectly safe, but if they deceived the people they might
expect severely to suffer for that crime. Trust the people,
and there need be no ground for alarm ; the people were as
much and more interested than the wealthier classes were in
the maintenance of law and order, for there were none in the
community more interested than the working men in the
public tranquillity, for they would be the first to suffer by
anything like disturbance. Persons of property,„though they
might to some extent suffer, could get thr,,ugh such diffi-
culties infinitely better than the poor working man; he was,
therefore, much more interested than those who belonged to
any other class in preserving the institutions of the country
from any species of harm. If the Legislature denied the
fair demands of the people, let them not suppose that the
working man could be insensible to so great a wrong—let
them grant the boon in time, and they would meet with
nothing but gratitude in return. On that ground, then,
and on the other grounds which he had stated, he
should say It was the duty of the Ministers of the
Crown to counsel her Majesty, and assure her that the pro-
posed change was for the benefit of the monarchy. They
should tell her that they did not make this demand for the
especial benefit or advantage of a class ; that, on the con-
trary, it was for the good of the whole body politic that
every one should participate in the privileges of the British
Constitution. The people whose cause he then pleaded re-
quired no more, and they would be content with no less.
He asked the House to agree to his motion more as a pledge
than anything else that they would carry out the principle
of reform. If the House agreed to his motion, such assent
would not have the effect of pledging them to any of the
details of any measure that he might seek to found upon a
motion so agreed to. Further, if they permitted him to
bring in a Bill, Hon. Members who supported his motion
might nevertheless propose any alterations that they thought
proper in the Bill when it came before the House. If he ex-
ceeded the just limit of reform, they might correct and cur-
tail what he proposed. If he fell short of what the neces-
sity of the case demanded, they might extend his plan ;
but he hoped that the House would at least come to such a
decision as would restore confidence and impart peace to the
agitated feelings of the country, for they much needed a con-
fidence and peace which every one felt they did not at pre-
sent enjoy. The Hon. Gentleman concluded by making his
motion as above stated, correcting an omission by inserting
the words" all householders."'
Dr. BOWRING seconded the motion.

The SPEAKER having read the resolution,
Mr. H. DRUMMOND said he could not understand how
the alteration in the suffrage proposed by the Hun. Gentle-
man could have the effect of alleviating that distress which
at present, unfortunately, so much prevailed; neither could
he understand how the adoption of his proposition would
have had more effect in stopping the ,proceedings of the
10th of April, than had the means adopted by the Govern-
ment for that purpose. He well knew that the enumerat-
ing of such principles as the Hon. Gentleman had given
utterance to, tended considerably to produce dissatisfaction,
and he was glad that to him was not entrusted the keeping
of the public peace on that occasion. That was fortu-
nately entrusted to her Majesty's Ministers, who were
in possession of information regarding the matters which
the Honourable Gentleman could not possibly be, and he
thought that the manner in which they preserved the
peace on the occasion alluded to, entitled them
to the gratitude of the community. He confessed he
had felt a difficulty in following the Honourable
Gentleman through his details; but he would mention, in
order to show that the subject was not new, that in 1829 an
extension of the suffrage and the shortening of Parliaments
was recommended. Several circumstances which had, how-
ever, of late taken place on the continent, had given it this
year an impetus it had never before received, and there was
not a doubt but that it was a subject which they would all
have to discuss on the hustings at the next election, when
they would find, as was said by Easclipus Judaicus, "That he
who will not argue is a bigot, and he who cannot is a fool."
—(Cheers and laughter.) There was no doubt but great dis-
tress prevailed at the present time, and those parties who
were suffering distress the most were those who adhered most
closely to the opinions expressed by the Hon. Gentleman. The
distress which prevailed had been the means of causing scenes
of the most heartrending description, and men, stung almost
to madness by being subjected to such misery, could not be
brought to a calm consideration of the question. There
was another class of what might be termed intellectual
labourers, such as mechanics, persons connected with the
various trades, having charge of steam-engines, and so forth.
These people earned very high wages, but it was notorious
that they were for ever in poverty notwithstanding, and a
gentleman with whom he was conversing the other day re-
garding them, told him that one man in his employment
had five guineas a week, but yet he was never possessed of a
farthing.—(Laughter.) All these joined the cry for the
franchise extension, while it was notorious that a reform in
their physical condition would be of much more benefit to
them.—(Hear.) There was a higher class above these,whom
he might call intellectual speculators. These were composed
of doctors without patients, and lawyers without briefs.—
(Laughter)—and a host of such like characters, who wanted
to turn the world into one great chaos, and see if they could
not fetch up a constitution out of it to suit themselves. The
system pursued by them was carried on in France at present
to great perfection, and on a small scale it was carried on in
this country; all of these parties being strong advocates for
the Charter. He was aware that the word charter was of
bet little repute, but he remembered the time when the fact
of a man being a reformer was sufficient to have him set
down as a black sheep. The word reformer soon, h.__ewever,
turned into Radical, and that had now shifted into Chartist.
And while the Chartists included all those evil persons be
had mentioned, still it did not follow that they were all of
such an evil stamp. They all, however, seemed to have
strange notions as to the first principles of law ;. and, to
prove this, the Hon. Gentleman read an extract from the
report of a meeting held at Leeds some time ago, at which,
he said, the Hon. Member. for Birmingham (Mr. Muntz)
attended. The extract he read was from a speech of one of
the aldermen of that town, wherein it was stated that,
while they were all loyal subjects, and willingly submitted
to the Government of King, Lords, and Commons, the two
former of which were evils which they could afford to en-
dure, yet they conceived that they were entitled to those
rights they demanded. They were advocates of peace, law,
and order, but if their demands were refused by the Go-
vernment, and if the Ministry hesitated too long in grant-
ing them, let it not be said that they were the first to
trample on the institutions of the country, and to raise the
standard of anarchy. The Honourable Gentleman then
went on to state that, whatever they did with the present
motion, they ought to make up their minds to stand by the
institutions of the country--(Cheers)—and they must not
allow themselves to think that the King, Lords, and Com-
mons were mere evils which could be endured.—( Hear,
hear.) Having thus shown who the parties were who asked
for these changes, the next point was what did they ask
for? He would not say ask " us" for, because he was no
party to their Reform Bill. He hated it then, and he hated
it now.—( Hear, hear, and a laugh.) It gave away all their
old suffrages, and established one in the stead which had no
principle to rest upon. Nobody could give a reason why
101. was more entitled to vote than 9/. 19s. 6d. When the
authors'of that measure talked of its being a final one, they
certainly displayed very little foresight for it must have been
evident to all that it was only the first step to a great num-
ber of similar measures.—(Hear.) At the same time he
would say, that though it was said everybody was now dis-
satisfied • with the Reform Bill, there never was a time when
the people were so fairly represented as now.—(Hear, and
" Oh.") Why, there was a little book, Mr. Dodd's " Par-
liamentary Companion," in which that fact was duly chro-
nicled. But reverting to the point of the real nature of the
changes asked for, he objected to all of them which wese new.
He contended that the vote should only be given to property,
those who had no property should be entirely excluded.—
(Oh, oh.) It was of no use talking of intelligence. They,
could not define wisdom by an Act of Parliament.—(Hear,
hear.) The object of every civilised society was to make
men live in peace, and the first duty of Government was
to put down mob force. Property was the aim of all parties,
and it was, therefore, the right and the duty of property to
rule. There was no such thing in nature as equality—they
did not find it either in the animal, vegetable, or the mineral
t
kingdom. Inequality was the law of nature, and they mjgh
agitate to all eternity, but they never could alter it. Then
ben
he had no objection to triennial Parliaments, because _ _
reverting to the old Constitution. He felt besides that it it
would
be of great advantage to the Members if they met their
constituents more frequently, and not only to Members but
to their constituents also.—( Hear, hear.) How many of
them before they were acquainted with facts and details
made flaming professions and fine promisesare totally at the hustings
which they afterwards discoveredh
w
imprac-
ticable?—(Hear, hear.) If
better practical political educationtey met more frequently a
would result. At present
that House was too much separated from the people.—
(Hear, hear.) To the demand for electoral divisions,
universal suffrage , no property qualifications, the ballot,
and similar claims, he was prepared to give a direct
negative. If asked •for his reason, he replied they
were new. That was sufficient.—(A laugh.) He dis-
liked all these things because they were merely ehreelywouthld
its the
means of getting at certain other thing
rather the House should take stand where it now was,
than make concessions. It was to the interest of the great
mass of the
people that there should be a division of property
every twelve months.7(:•lo.) He knew it. Political eco-
nomists might espial how the poor man was as much
the security of capital as its owners, but poli-
ticalinterested in
much falsified, and political
economy had been very;
economists Tory much astonished by what had taken place
in France. If they attempted to put all men upon an equal
footing as to the right of electing representatives, and of
being representatives, they would begin a system which
would be totally subversive of the rights of property, and
therefore totally deatruotive of property iteelf.—(No, no.) 1