The Sun.
London, England, 1860-04-27 00:00:00

in her subjugation by her nearest formidable rival, who pos-
sessed a genius mere military than her own, whom her free
speaking had seriously offended, and who, under the con •
duct of a chief of whom it was said—pause, and think whe-
ther the same can be said of any foreign chief ow living—
" that where the lion's skin fell short he dit out with
the fox's," while her or. tors still talked ab ) t " progress,"
while her factions still wrangled for pow„ sailed into the
Piraeus itself, and gave her liberty to the Inds. (Cheers.)
But why do we all hastily yet languidly agree to shovel
this question away, to accept any measure of reform, though
what it is to reform none of us could satisfactorily explain ?
Is it not because we all do desire for the next 10 or 12 years
to have done with the subject ? And I can well understand
that gentlemen on both sides should feel eager this very
session to try and effect a compromise which, though not
final, will give a new constitution a trial for at least half
the term of years which we have given to the constitution
of 1832. To attain that object I should myself be pre-
pared to approve a measure really comprehensive and sub-
stantial, that shall unite a larger representation of num-
bers with some such securities for the representation of

property as the Economist newspaper has suggested. For
it is better, of the two, if we are to alter our house, to
alter it so as to get rid of its chief inconveniences, than
it is to pass the best part of our lives in the hands of the
architects. One may put up with a great deal of alteration
if one can say, " Thank Heaven, one is settled at last ;" but
thero is no inconvenience equal to that of never being set-
tled at all. (Cheers.) Now, sir, is there one gentleman who
can flatter himself for us that if we pass this bill we aro one
jot nearer to settling the question of Parliamentaryßeform?
There is not a single inconvenience of which educated men
complain that this bill even attempts to mitigate; no at-
tempt to lessen the expenses of elections in counties—l sus-
pect that these expenses will be doubled ; no attempt to
enfranchise the many enlightened and respectable men who
happen not to be householders ; no attempt to lessen the
chances of bribery—on the contrary, as we have seen, to
increase them., Thus the next general election will not in-
augurate this Reform Bill, but rather record the dissatis-
faction of its own supporters at its crudity and incomplete-
ness, and their solemn pledges that they will continue with
increased ardour to struggle—what for ? 'Why, for a new
Reform Bill. (Cheers.) So that this measure is only the
shoeing-horn to some fresh miracle of cobbling, in which,
with weary feet and in " successive steps," we shall plod
the same dull road, sure to pass our nights again under the
same old sign of the Blue Boar. (Cheers and laughter.) I
say then, as men of business, we do not get our considera-
tion; that when we have paid the bill we do not get that
acquittance and receipt which can alone reconcile our doubts
as to the justice and propriety of the demand. The mem-
ber for Birmingham says persua, ively, " Take this or you
will get something worse." But if we take this do we not
strengthen his hands to give us something worse into the
bargain ? (Cheers.) Thus we go into committee on this bill
with the conviction beforehand that it pleases no one and
settles nothing—that, do what we can:with it, it will remedy
no evil, produce no benefit, satisfy no class—not even the
working men ; all we shall have done, if we pass this bill,
is to place an empire, which rests its wealth and greatness
upon causes so artificial and delicate that once destroyed,
that wealth and greatness could no more return to England
than they could ever again return to Venice, in the hands of
men whose means of existence and facilities for education are
—if a household test be any test at all—nearly one-half
below the lowest standard of the existing suffrage in our
towns. (Cheers.) So much for the Bill itself. A word now
as to the time in which we are called upon to pass it. The
Home Secretary says he hopes there is to be no ignoble re-
course to the Fabian policy of delay, while at the same time
he rejoices that there is to be a committee of the House of
Lords to consider whether that Fabian policy in England
may not be entltled to receive the same praise that it received
in Rome, where it was called, in classical expressions that
have passed into proverbs, " The salvation of the State and
the shield of the Commonwealth." And it does seem to me
the height of inconsistency to concede a committee of the
other House of Parliament upon thevery points that we are
called upon to take for granted (great cheering), so that this
house may stamp its approval on the Bill simultaneously
with the publication of evidence which may show that if we
had waited for three months we should have found that we
had been legislating for remote generations upon data on
which the Home Secretary would not have filled up the
humblest office in his public department, or accepted a
tenant on a seven years' lease for the smallest farm on his
private estate. (Hear, hear, and laughter.) But, even if
no such committee had been conceded, I would ask if there
be not two very evident causes which render this special
time peculiarly unfortunate for discarding a legislative body
with which the nation has become familiar, and choosing
another of which it can know nothing. Those causes are,
first, the state of affairs abroad ; secondly, the state of our
finances at home. (Hear, hear.) On the ono side all the signs
and omens that indicate storms, on the other the gulf of an
enormous deficit which this Parliament first sanctions and
widens, and then, like many a private speculator, commits
suicide rather than face the day of reckoning. (Cheers
and laughter.) But let us first glance at the state of affairs
abroad. The Chancellor of the Duchy said in the debate
before Easter, " Affairs abroad were critical when you
(Lord Derby's Government) introduced a Reform Bill.
War in Europe was then imminent ; you did your best to
prevent it, but that war soon broke out." Perfectly true ;
and, as an ad captandum argument addressed to a £6 con-
stituency, the right hon. baronet's answer would be very
clever and telling. But addressed to this house, as at pre-
sent constituted, it seems to me to be a poor resort to
what schoolboys call the tea quoque kind of logic, and not
quite worthy the fight hon. baronet's just reputation for
ability and candour. The difference between the two pe-
riods of time is immense. The difference has become infi-
nitely more marked since the commencement of the season.
The noble lord who is at once the introducer of this bill and
the responsible Minister for Foreign Affairs has not only
acknowledged but enforced that difference in speeches in the
house and despatches to Foreign Ministers, which have
been equally worthy of himself and faithful to the senti-
ment of the country; and I am sure there is not a loyal
gentleman on this side the house who will not pardon and
perhaps even sympathise with me when I say that, looking
towards the chief under whom I once served as a private
soldier, I rejoice to think that here at least I can equally
defend my country's honour and renown. (Hear.) Well,
then, I say to the Chancellor of the Duchy that his col-
league, the noble Secretary, will tell him the difference
between the two periods of time—between the time when
Lord Derby's Government introduced a Reform Bill and
the time in which we now are—is immense. In a war un-
dertaken by France for the independence of Italy there was
nothing that threatened England ; in the peace concluded
by France can we say the same ? We see before us, as we
saw then, a neighbour of gigantic power. He said then to
us, " This power I will not use for one selfish object." We
had no right to disbelieve him. Now we not only see the
power but the use that is made of it, and events have shown
that our neighbour says ono thing and means another. You
now know the character and conditions of the French Em-
pire ; you now know that the peace of the world and the se-
curity of England hang on the nod of a single man, whose
thoughts none of us penetrate, whose ambition none of us
can measure. At the stroke of his pen the existing geo-
graphy of Europe cm. be ehanged as rapidly as in his own
country a republic that vied with the American collapsed into
a sovereignty as imperial as that of the Roman Cmsars— a
sovereignty, like theirs, preserving the forms while it de-
stroys the substance Of liberty, and more dangerous to its
neighbours than the ancient monarchies around it, because
it is as little bound by their scruples as it is by their treaties.
(Hear.) It has the young blood of the Revolution out of
which it sprang, and inherits both the license and the force
of the multitudes who feel themselves crowned in its coro-
nation. Thus it combines in a terrible union the arts and
necessities of a brilliant demagogue with the armies and ob-
jects of a military chief. Such a combination is rare; it has
never hitherto occurred in the history of the world without
threatening the landmarks of its neighbours, and woe to
the nation that it finds unprepared to cope with its twofold
of
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power over the multitude that it dazzles and the armies th i
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which render even his defects popular and majestic with '
a the
people that he governs. He has capacities for organisation
not inferior to those of his illustrious uncle, and hen consoli-
datest.on
both his ambition and his intellect by an inflexible
singleness of purpose, by a mixture of secrecy in design and
promptitude in action, which give the vigour of Richelieu
and the astuteness of Mazzarin to the leader of 600,000 i.
sol-
diers. Such are the character and conditions of the French
Empire, involving nothing that would justify our taking
one step either to court hostility or forfeit alliance, nothing
that should make us depart from our position as an insular
commercial population by seeking to excite a counter league
among the Powers of the Continent before they themselves
invoked our assistance, but involving much that requires
unrelaxing vigilance as well as disciplined judgment on
the part even less of Ministers than of the House of
Commons. (Cheers.) And therefore it does seem to me a
wanton imprudence to discard at this moment a legislative
body whose fidelity to English interests and English hon-
our has been proved and tested, which certainly cannot be
called worn out and effete, which is actually younger than
most of the youngest members amongst us, which has not
spent thirty years in acquiring some familiar acquaintance
with its arduous duties, for a now and national legislative
body, chosen by the minimum of political experience to
meet times that may require the maximum of political
knowledge. (Cheers.) Tho Homo Secretary says this trans-
fer of political power will be a security against invasion,
and that Napoleon T. fell because ho was unpopular. Whet
is meant by that argument and that historical illustration ?
Is the Queen of England unpopular ? (Hear, hear.) Has
the nation shown that it requires a £6 constituency to
teach it the virtue of self-defence? (Hear, bear.) Or is it
implied that the House of Commons needs amendment in
one simplo respect to render it more disposed and more re-
solved to resist an invader ? (Hear, hear.) I deny the
ungrateful imputation. (Cheers.) This poor house, as at
present constituted, has borne us gallantly through a war
which has tasked all our national virtues and showed us all
our administrative defects. With an energy which had no
signs of decrepitude it has adapted our armaments to the
improved science of the age, and placed this country, in a
state of defence which will need •
• steady patience and self-
Bacrifieo to maintain. Are we sure that that patience and