The Sun.
London, England, 1835-08-18 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, TUVSDAY, AUGUST 18, 1835.

that all who would be appointed under the new system, would
act under the control of, and would be inevitably subservient
to, the opinions and feelings, and political views of those by
whom they were returned. When he had first entered into
public life, he remembered the principles that were then laid
down with respect to representative Governments. It had
had been said, that representative Governments had all the
advantages of democracies whilst they avoided all their
vices ; that representation placed an interposition to arbitrary
power, whilst it avoided the injustice by which democracy had
been always actuated ; and, in short, representative Govern-
ments were to be adopted, because they established a complete
system of freedom. The doctrine then had been that a repre-
sentative when once chosen was to act independently of the in-
structions of his constituents, and to offer his own free and un-
biased opinions upon all matters that came under his considera-
tion. But their Lordships had now lived to see directly the reverse
of those principle carried into practice, and a representative
was now considered only as the passive agent, the mere dele-
gate, of those who sent him to the House. Was it, then, local
Governments of this description that their Lordships were
going to erect ? and when their Lordships saw by whom the
representatives were to be returned he might be excused-if
he called to their Lordships' recollection the extraordinary
power with which those representatives were to be invested.
First, they were to have the entire controul and direction of
all the funds of the Corporation, which, as their Lordships
well knew, were in some instances most extensive. In the
next place, they were to have the power of taxing the inha-
bitants far beyond that which at present was possessed by any
body in this kingdom, except the two Houses of Parliament.
In the third place, the body constituted, as he had described
this body to be, was to have the free and entire controul and
disposition of all the Church patronage of the boroughs, and
which in some places, such as Bristol, for instance, extended
as far as to eleven or twelve Church livings.—( Hear.) In
addition to this they were to have the important power of
licensing all public-houses within their jurisdiction. This was
a power of a most extensive kind, followed by consequences of
the greatest importance with reference to influence, power, and
authority. In addition to this he called to their Lordships'
recollection that they were to have the entire controul, direc-
tion, as well as the appointment, of the whole police of the
borough. They were to manage the expense of it, and to dis-
pose of it as they thought proper. They had, moreover, the
extraordinary power of selecting individuals to be presented
to the Throne, and out of these alone could the magistracy
be appointed, the Crown having no power to appoint a single
magistrate unless previously nominated for election by this ex-
traordinary Town Council. Lastly, he called upon the House
to recollect that the Councils were to give their nominees—
persons whom they were to appoint without any qualification,
without any inquiry, without any security or responsibility
whatever—to such nominees were these Councils to give the
charge of all the extensive charitable funds that belonged to
the Corporations of this empire. Such were the extraordinary
powers which were to be given to the bodies that were to be
constituted under the present Bill. It was impossible to view
such a Bill without feeling the deepest alarm at the conse-
quences it might produce. He had very much to regret that
the Noble Viscount had not laid upon the table of the House
the Report of the Commissioners which his Noble Friend on
the back benches had adverted to. The House would have
found in that Report such observations as to the boroughs of
Scotland as would have led their Lordships to pause before they
trusted to Town Councils thus elected such extraordinary, ex-
tensive, and dangerous powers. It would have been found
that these Commissioners entirely, and without doubt, agree
in one opinion as to the impropriety of corporations being in-
vested with ecclesiastical patronage. The Report doubted as
to the propriety of corporations having anything to do with
interfering with Universities, and as to whether they ought to
be entrusted with many of those magisterial powers which had
hitherto been entrusted to the corporations of that part of the
kingdom. Until the Report of that Commission was laid on
the table of the House he could not with absolute precision say
what were the full nature and objects of the statements. He
had, however, received from Glasgow an account from a gen-
tleman holding such a high situation in that city, a man of
such observation, experience, and talent, that he could place
the fullest reliance upon him—an account of the manner in
which the new system had worked in that city. The statement
was altogether so material that, with the permission of their
Lordships, he would advert to some passages of the letter.—
( Here his Lordship read several passages from the letter. The
writer said that the baneful effects of the want of a qualification
in the councillors were severely felt at Glasgow, under the
Scotch Burgh Reform Act, and he was anxious that the ease
should be known before the cities of England should be sub-
jected to a similar infliction. Under the old system the ma-
gistrates were taken from the highest classes of the citi-
zens, and uniformly were the most wealthy and influential
of the merchants and manufacturers. Under the new
system the councils were elected of men who, upon oath,
had been certified to be so poor that they were un-
able to contribute the smallest sum to the poor rates.
Others had lately been bankrupts and insolvents, discharged
by creditors, and the great majority of them were not of in-
fluence or authority, but were men distinguished in their local
circles merely by the violence of their political principles. The
acts of such Councils were what might have been supposed.
Having neither skill nor conduct, they dealt with the borough
property in a most improper manner, turning out the old civil
officers, who held their places ad titans ant culpam. They
had attempted to exclude the Established Clergy from their
share in the management of the estates of the Church, which
they derived from the will of the founders, and which they had
exercised for 190 years. There was an endless catalogue of
mischievous measures which had ensued, and been the conse-
quences of the ignorance and inexperience of the Councils ;
and the respectable parties were so dissatisfied that they could
not be brought to take a share in any proceedings. There was
every prospect of the Council falling into utter contempt. The
borough funds had suffered severe dilapidations, and they had
lately resorted to a poll tax, in order to supply what the Coun-
cils had dissipated. Under the old Councils there had been a
surplus of revenue.) He (Lord Lyndhurst) was not at liberty
to state to the House the authority from which lie derived his
information, but he would willingly communicate to his Noble
and Learned Friend, or to any Noble Lord on the other side of
the House, the name of the writer. The question came to this—
of what composition were these Councils? Did their Lordships
think that they could safely trust to such bodies the management
of the affairs of the cities and boroughs—to a society of men
elected every three years by the rate-payers ? Did their
Lordships think that these councils were so constituted as to
be liable to fall under control and subserviency to the electors,
and that they ought to have intrusted to them such great and
extensive powers. They ought to have some principles of
steadiness, and net be a body liable to waver from day to day,
and hour to hour, but to be men able to act indepen-
dently, according to the sound dictates of their own judgment,
uninfluenced by any body whatever. A certain portion of
these councils ought to consist, not of persons elected every
three years, but elected for life. The proportion, he should
say, should be one-fourth of the whole, which he deemed as
moderate a proportion as could be proposed. In saying this
he was following the ideal model of those who had set up a
theory, and contended that the present close corporations
were formerly open bodies, and that some of the members
were elected for life. More than this, he was following the
great example of the corporation of London. The corpo-
ration of London was thus composed. The Common Coun-
cil was elected from year to year. The Aldermen, who
formed part of the Common Couucil, held office for life.
The Lord Mayor, as every body knew, was elected annu-
ally. This he took as a model for the amendments which he
proposed. In proposing this amendment, he had flattered
himself (he hoped it was not flattery) that he should meet
with the support of his Noble and Learned Friend opposite.
Lord BROUGHAM—No, no, net with respect to the
Common Councils, at least.—( A laugh.)
Lord L YNDHURST—He was sorry that his expectation
should be so immediately disappointed. He had hoped that it
would receive the approbation of his Noble and Learned
Friend. Well knowing how powerful he was in a bad cause,
and how irresistible in a good one, he had hoped that his No-
ble and Learned Friend would not have opposed him, merely
for the sake of swelling his own importance, especially as he
( Lord Lyndhurst) had taken his views from his Noble and
Learned Friend's own Bill. In that Bill it was enacted that
each Alderman should hold his office during his natural life.
The next provision was that the Mayor, and the Aldermen
thus elected for life, should form part of the Common Council.
—(Hear, hear.) In his amendments he had taken the precise
words of his Noble Friend. He had studied the history of
the Bill which his Noble and Learned Friend had introduced,
and he found that it had undergone the revision of the Noble
Lord ( Althorp), who had at that time taken the lead in the
House of Commons. It had received the sanction of the Go-
vernment, and, having looked at the Bill and studied every
part of it, he had flattered himself that he should have received
the spirited support and sanction of his Noble and Learned
Friend to the amendments which he now proposed, as they
merely went to assimilate the Bill now before the House in its
most material parts to the Bill which had been before intro-
duced.—(Hear, hear.) He had adverted to the mirror that
reflected the speeches of past times, and he had adverted to
other authorities, in order to ascertain whether, when the
former Bill had been submitted to Parliament, anything like
doubt had fallen from his Noble and Learned Friend as tg the
propriety of exacting qualificationi. He had found no aces
of any such doubt. So far from doubt, his Noble and Learned
Friend had considered the election of aldermen for life to be
preferable to any other mode of election. He begged their
Lordships to recollect that the object of the preceding Bill
was to give corporations to large towns, which at present did
not possess any ; but it had to deal with no existing right—the
application of it was open, direct, and simple. The present
Bill disturbed the rights of persons who had been in undis-
puted possession of them for ages. The amendment, he sub-
mitted, was that three-fourths of the common councilmen
should be elected annually, whilst the remaining one-fourth
should hold office for life, whether under the name of aldermen
or of capital burgesses. This was his first amendment. He
proposed that those who now filled these life offices should be
continued in them. This he held to be only an act of justice.
These men possessed their offices under a charter from the
Crown ; they were not merely franchises, but in many in-
stances they were connected with the beneficial enjoyment of
property to a large extent. There was no law by which they
could be deprived of their rights unless they had committed
some fault, which was not even alleged against them. It was
the principle of the Constitution that no man should be dis-
possessed of his freehold except by judgment of his peers or
by the law of the land. The Noble Viscount had struck out
of his Bill the charge of abuse and of neglect of privilege.
No such charge existed in the Report of the Commissioners,
or if it did it was totally unsupported by the evidence._
(Cheers.) Their Lordships had examined thirty cases at
their bar, and the evidence showed that there was not one in-
stance of any criminal neglect in the performance of duty.
The witnesses proved that the duty had been faithfully, well,
and honourably performed, and to the satisfaction of the inha-

bitants of each borough ; and why were the mayor and alder-
men to be stripped of their rights, which they held under the
sanction of the law of the land ? Why were they to be turned
out of their freeholds? He had already stated the amend-
ment, and he deemed that the property which was now held
for life should be continued for life to the same parties. It was
not necessary at this moment to name the precise terms of his
motion ; but it was necessary that the point of the case should
be raised, and at another period he should have the opportu-
nity of stating the precise terms of his motion, the substance
of which he had sufficiently explained. He would further
observe, that at present the number of aldermen holding their
places for life was different in different corporations. Where
the number of any corporation was equal to what had existed
before, he should propose no alteration. If the number fell
short, the council by election should make up the deficiency.
If the number were too great they must go as near the mark
as they could.
Lord BROUGHAM agreed with his Noble Friend, that
the particular form of words—the shape of the proposition,
which brought them to discuss the vote upon this question,
was a matter of mighty little importance, because the ques-
tion itself in its substance, in the aspect with which it saluted
the friends of the Bill, in its bearing upon the whole of the
measure—in its tendency to the success and to the working of
this Bill, appeared to him to be of unspeakable importance.
He did not think it was possible by any language to exagge-
rate the effects of this alteration. Well might his Noble and
Learned Friend preface his observations in answer to the re-
marks of the Noble Duke behind him (Lord Brougham), by
stating that hitherto the alterations he had introduced had
made no inroad upon the principle of the Bill. Inroads, like
every thing else, were comparative, and that which brought
the invader three days' march within the frontiers of the in-
vaded country, was no inroad at all compared with that which
brought his force into the heart of the country, and made him
possessed of the capital and of the citadel itself.—( Cheers.)
He called those former amendments inroads the other night,
because they infringed upon the integrity of the measure—
because they no longer left the measure pure, free, and in
its original aspect. He called them inroads, as he should
speak of a three-days' march of an enemy within the terri-
tories of the country. To that extent he should say that
that country was not free; and he should call upon it to
arouse its energies, for the purpose of expelling the invader.
But if afterwards, in its progress, that invading force should
have devastated and depopulated the land, and have planted
its standard in the very heart of the capital itself, he should
then look back at the three days' march as no inroad at
all, and should wish to heaven that that was the only ca-
lamity that had befallen the country. So now, notwith-
standing the feelings he had experienced on the amend-
ments introduced last Thursday and Friday—notwithstand-
ing the pangs he felt at seeing this measure shorn of its
fair proportions—notwithstanding those alterations which they
had been told was only the working out of the principles of
this Bill, especially the introduction of that notable amend-
ment, which was then introduced fur the first time, in the le-
gislative history of this country—tile principle that not only
was wealth the measure and standard of a man's qualification
to do anything, but that unless he was not only rich, but of
the richest class—not only possessed of a minimum of wealth,
but of a maximum--unless he belonged to the best, to the
richest, to the aristocratic, to the oligarchical class of the Cor-
poration—he should not be eligible to manage any of the af-
fairs of his fellow-citizens ! This, too, was called only work-
ing out a little further the qualification which the Bill of his
Noble Friend (Lord Nlelbour.le) proposed, namely—that per-
sons paying 3d. or 6d. towards the poor-rates should be quali-
fied to act as burgesses. He presumed that few persons who
regarded the original qualification in the Bill were quite pre-
pared to see this other qualification grafted upon it ; and
which had grafted, at the same time, he would venture to
say, one of the most poisonous, one of the most alien, one
of the most hostile, one of the most inevitable and irreconci-
lable blemishes upon the tree of the British constitution.—
( Cheers.) But bad as that was—bad as he thought it as an
inroad upon this measure, yet now, after having heard his
Noble and Learned Friend's present proposition, he looked
back upon that inroad with a sort of envy and regret—a regret
that the time of Thursday and Friday, when that was the only
alteration and mutilation of the Bill, should have been lost in
discussing it. "Do not let us shut our eyes to the fact, or
disguise it from ourselves—the Bill is gone—( Loud cheers)—
the Bill is gone if this principle is introduced." I know your
Lordships will say, " So much the better."
A NOBLE LORD (on the Opposition benches, whose name we
could not learn) said—" Not at all."

Lord BROUGHAM—Not at all 1 Perhaps not at all to
my Noble Friend ; but my Noble Friend is not all your Lord-
ships on the other side. There are other Noble Lords to whom
peradventure I might have referred myself. I believe that a
considerable majority of your Lordships will be prepared to
answer—" So much the better that the Bill should be lost ;"
for when so many of you entered into the Committee of this
Bill with an avowed, a recognised, and openly pronounced hos-
tility to its principle, and when I know that others of you were
with the utmost difficulty restrained from throwing it out on
the second reading altogether, God wot we had little to expect
from going into this Committee, except that of a slower death,
and after the endurance of more mutilation. For after the
lopping off first a twig, in order to try the operation, then a
branch, to see how it would take elsewhere, you next severed
the bough, and then you attacked the trunk of the tree itself;
while lice to-night my Learned Friend comes and lays the axe
at the root.—(Cheers.) The Noble and Learned Lord pro-
ceeded to say, that their Lordships had fulfilled all the worst
anticipations he had formed. Their Lordships would recol-
lect, that on the motion for going into Committee, he stated
that he saw no good to result from it ; and that the only ques-
tion was between those who voted conscientiously and openly
against the Bill—like the Noble Duke (Newcastle), who, in
his straightforward course, was for throwing it out at once,
and those who adopted another course not so intelligible,
and he must say a more tortuous one—that of going into
Committee to consider the details, when they were against
the whole and every part of the measure.—( Hear, hear.) He
thought, therefore, lie had a right to- say that his anticipations
were not chimerical, or altogether groundless. But now it
was his duty, painful as was the task, and hopeless as it was
likely to be, but which he undertook for the sake of discharg-
ing his conscience and his duty to the country, to enter a little
into the arguments, and advert to the various constitutional
points which his Noble and Learned Friend had advanced.
His Noble and Learned Friend had gone back to the very
origin of a representative Government. He had carried there
hack to the period of the French Revolution—a period which
he appeared to love to dwell upon, as being the one when he
entered into political life, as all men liked to look back upon
their earlier days. He (Lord Broeeham) would not go so
far back, but he thought he could go quite far enough to meet
the arguments of his Noble and Learned Friend. He had
said that the great evil of the democratic branch of the Con-
stitution was its fluctuating nature, its love of injustice, or at
least thit proneness to injustice which it was said to be dis-
posed towards ; and it was imagined that these defects of the
democratic branch were to be remedied by way of counter-
agents, existing in the representative principle ; but that the
representative principle was only carried out upon the ground
of him that was chosen by anybody being held to be—holding
himself to be—and demeaning himself as if he really felt he
was— not the deputy acting under the instructions of his con-
stituent4but the party chosen to consult for the good of the
whole and exercising therein a free, independent and unbiassed
ja:lgment. Having stated what he thought to be the representa-
tive principle, his Noble and Learned Friend went on to say that
that principle in these our times, had suffered a complete
change, for that the representatives now no longer held them-
selves to be at liberty to exercise their own free and unfettered
judgments, but that they all acted under pledges, and were
fettered by the instructions of their constituents. " I am
yet to learn (said Lord Brougham) that that is now the duty
of a Representative. I have yet to learn that that is held 11
the Representatives of the present day to be their duty.—
(Cheers.) I know, on the contrary, that the Members of the
other House of Parliament who,- I suppose, will be admitted
to be the Representatives of the people in a certain sense,
though not in the sense in which my Noble and Learned
Friend regarded the rotten borough Parliaments of 1788,
1789, and 1790, when the Members were the Representatives
either of the borough patrons or the borough corporations, or
the money paid by the Members themselves; but I say I know
that the Members of the present House of Commons act upon
a very different principle from that described by my Noble
and Learned Friend. You may here and there find instances
of men pledging themselves and refusing to exercise that li-
berty which a Representative, in order to do his duty faithfully
or honourably to himself, or usefully to his country, must ex-
ercise.—( Hear, hear.) I give that as my opinion.—(Hear.)
I have always held that opinion. A near connection of mine
sacrificed his seat in Parliament because be would not submit
to pledges, nor submit to be fettered in the free exercise of
his judgment; and yet that individual to whom I am advert-
ing, so far from differing from his former constituents, agreed
with them on every important political_ question on which
he could possibly be called upon to give a pledge." He main-
tained that the instances in which pledges had been tendered
and agreed to formed the exception, and not the rule. He
rejected, therefore, at once, entirely, and without qualification,
the proposition that the representatives of the people in Par-
liament, under the Reform Bill, had changed their character
or lowered their tone.—( Hear.) Before he left this part of
the subject, there were one or two other observations he wished
to make. According to his Noble and Learned Friend, the
fetters now imposed upon Members of Parliament in the shape
of pledges to their constituents were a novel invention, until
this time wholly unheard-of and unknown. Before the year
1832 there was no such thing as a pledge, no such thing as a
fetter imposed upon the free will of the representative—the
House of Commons was composed of nothing but honest,
upright, intelligent, statesmanlike men--(Hear, hear)—men
freely elected, freely executing the mission for which they
were sent to Parliament, who regarded nothing but the
common weal, were careful of nothing but the common in-
terest, and represented not the Noble Duke, or Earl, or
Baron, who gave them their seats, but the interests of
England at large.--(Hear, hear.) There was no understand-
ing between the nominee and the representative as to the votes
that were to be given on certain questions—( Hear, hear,
hear)—no little carving out from the wide realm' of
senatorial liberty some small corners on which the nominee
was not to set his unhallowed foot—(Cheers)—no little
piece of ground over which the sole of his foot was never to
pass—( Renewed cheering)—abore all, there was no such
thing as a representative who was told how he was to vote,
not on one occasion, or on two occasions, but on all great
questions for a whole session—(Cheers)—no such thing as a
man going to a certain house day by day to be told bow he
was to vote, under penalty of being compelled to accept the
not very enviable and seldom sought-for office of steward of
the Chiltern Hundreds—( Great cheering and laughter)—no
such things as these were ever beard of before 1832, that
fatal year of reform, which forged the chains of the repre-
untative body, abolished their discretion, left them no longer

to exercise the uncontrolled power of consulting for the public
good, but bound everlastingly to the will of somewhere abDut
30,000 constituents, a body of men who never in the history
of Parliament had been bound before, except by their own
notions of what was right and proper for the general welfare.
—(Cheers.) Before that fatal period there was no such
thing as a Peer returning eleven or twelve Members to the
House of Commons, and never for a moment trusting them
out of his sight ;—he, being capricious in his own proper
nature, and a great martinet in the evolutions he made his men
perform—rot trusting them for half an hour together, but regu-
larly taking his place under the gallery of the House of Com-
mons—directing them according to the course the debate might
take, to make now a flank movement to the left—anon, an
echallon movement in the opposite direction—half to go one way,
half another way, and finally, perhaps, both halves to leave the
House altogether, and, in the emphatic phrase of those times,
to go down in a body to shoot larks at Dunstable.—( Cheer-
ing and laughter.) " I say this," said the Noble and Learned
Lord, turning round, " with the greatest respect to my Noble
Friend (the Duke of Cleveland) who sits behind me.—( Re-
newed cheering and laughter.) Ah, now you think you have
got the best jest of the evening—you think it is my Noble
Friend I have all along been alluding to. But you are mis-
taken : I was not alluding to my Noble Friend ; but to one
widely differing from him—a noble predecessor of his, it is
true, but one with whom my Noble Friend has no characteris-
tics in common." The Noble and Learned Lord proceeded
to observe, that it was a little too much, then, for his Noble
and Learned Friend (Lord Lyndhurst) to refer to the year
1832 as the period at which this total change in the feelings
and conduct of the representatives had been introduced—as if
no such thing as a bond or fetter had ever been imposed upon
them before.—(Hear, hear.) He entirely agreed with his
Noble and Learned Friend as to what the duties of a repre-
sentative were, and he believed that those duties were as
well, as honestly, and as honourably performed, now that the
members of the House of Commons had thousands of con-
stituents to represent, as they were when they were sent up
as the nominees of the old proprietors of boroughs.—( Hear,
bear.) Yet the whole of his Noble and Learned Friend's
•proposition was grounded on the assumption, that men popu-

lar y elected were the mere puppets or tools of those who
choose them, and not the real representatives of the interests
of the country. That was the only ground on which his
Noble and Learned Friend rested his proposition ; and it was
because he (Lord Brougham) thought it unfounded in fact,
because he thought that the popularly elected might safely be
trusted to represent the interests of those who chose them, that
he should give to that proposition his decided and most unqua-
lified opposition. If, indeed, his Noble and Learned Friend's
proposition were once admitted, it would go at once to abolish
the representative principle in the other House of Parliament.
He could not conceive an argument which applied to the elec-
tion of representatives of municipal interests, which would nct
with the same force be applicable to the election of the repre-
sentatives who sat in Parliament. He was satisfied that the
people of this country might safely be trusted with the manage-
ment of their own affairs. If he thought otherwise, he would
never, for one moment, stand forward as the advocate of such
a measure as that they had then before them.---( Hear.) His
Noble and Learned Friend, alluding to a Bill which he (Lord
Brougham) had introduced into that House two. years ago,
and in which it was proposed that men once chosen Alder-
men should be Aldermen for life, expressed great surprize
and astonishment to find that he (Lord Brougham) would not
ou this occasion come forward to second his proposition for
making at least a portion of the Town Council Town Coun-
cillors for life. In the first place, his Noble and Learned
Friend should recollect that there was a wide difference be-

tween the functions to be performed by Town Councillors,
and those to be performed by Aldermen. Town Councillors
were chosen simply to defend the interests of the borough,
and to watch over the expenditure of the borough funds. Al-
dermen, on the other hand, were not the taxers—not the
guardians of the common purse—but were filling a judicial
situation, tfd assisting in the administration of justice. —( Hear,
hear.) Because the Alderman was elected for life, therefore
it by no means followed that the Town Councillor should hold
the office for the like period. But his Noble and Learned
Friend had no right to endeavour to bind him to the letter of
the Bill of 1833, because that measure was, in fact, nothing
more than a sketch. It was not brought forward as a per-
fect measure, but merely as a skeleton, which should lie on
the table of the House until further inquiry and greater expe-
rience should teach them how, in the best manner, to fill up

its different parts. He was pledged to nothing that that Bill
contained. But, even supposing that he had expressly de-
clared at the time that such or such a provision was necessary,
if, subsequently, a more minute examination of the subject
taught him to believe that his former opinion was erroneous,
he would rather (though even at the eleventh hour) do what,
he considered to be right—and let fools say " Why do you
so ?"—than obstinately adhere to an opinion which be found
to be wrong, and induce wise men to pity him. In the next
place, his Noble and Learned Friend stated that the Scotch
Commissioners, after instituting an inquiry into the subject,
found that the Scotch Corporation Reform Bill did not work
well. This his Noble and Learned Friend asserted upon the
strength of a letter lie had received from a high authority in
that part of the country ; but surely his Noble and Learned
Friend must have forgotten that a petition in favour of the
Bill, signed by 30,000 persons, had been sent up from Glas-
gow. He would place that petition against the letter alluded
to by his Noble and Learned Friend. Besides he (Lord
Brougham) had had a very extensive communication with
Scotland upon the subject, and up to this moment he had
never heard one syllable or whisper of complaint against the
measure.—( Hear, hear.) With respect to the exercise of
Church patronage, he must say that he thought his Noble and
Learned Friend's fears upon that point were wholly ground-
less. How was that patronage to be exercised except by the
governing body of the Corporations, and who would say that
a governing body, freely elected, would not exercise it as
honestly and properly as those which were self-elected ? With
respect to the administration of the funds of charitable es-
tates, he was disposed to admit, that when the governing body
was popularly chosen, and no check imposed on the qualifica-
tion of the constituency, there might be a reason for having an
effective check; and he had no objection that a control should
be provided much more effectual than that which the Court
of Chancery at present provided. As to the general propo-
sition of his Noble and Learned Friend, that one-fourth cf

the representative body should be chosen for life, he must say
that he could not command language strong enough to ex-
press, not only his opposition, but his utter aversion and dis-
gust of it. If it were once acceded to, it would open the
door to all the worst evils of the existing system. He looked
upon this Bill as in their Lordships' hands for its salvation
or destruction. By the alterations already made it was all but
destroyed. The amendment before their Lordships, if carried,
would, he feared, be utterly fatal to the measure. He re-
garded the amendment itself as utterly inconsistent with the
principle of the measure into which it was proposed to intro-
duce it, and tending in practice to render it nugatory. By
foisting in aldertnen for life, the self-elective principle over-
laid every other, and was calculated in the working of the
measure and in the fulness of time to restore every borough
to its state of pristine rottenness. The vigour and purity of
principle which, in other respects, would be introduced into
the government of corporations by the measure, would he
paralysed by the baneful self-elective provision. If their Lord-
ships should adopt the amendm,,ut of his Noble and Learned
Friend, they would send forth a mockery, a mere shadow
under the pretence of the substance of reformation, tainting
the whole mass with rottenness, and disappointing, wofully
disappointing the universal, the sanguine, the ardent, and un-
questionably the just expectations of the people of England.

Lord WH ARNC I, IFFE expressed surprise that in the
Noble and Learned Lord's speech there had been so little ar-
gument. He must say that he thought that Noble Lords on
his side of the House had a right to adopt and stand by a prin-
ciple embodied in a Bill laid upon their table with due gravity,
and, after due deliberation, by the Lord High Chancellor—
and yet that was all that himself and his friends were conten-
ding for with the Noble and Learned Lord who had just sat
down. The Noble and Learned Lord had held up the House
of Commons as an instance of the excellent principle of the
Constitution. With submission, he begged to observe that
the House of Commons, elected directly by the people, and
directly expressing the popular will, was controlled (if that
was not using too strong a term) by the House of Lords. It
was in this manner that the democratic principle of the Con-
stitution was restrained from absorbing too large a share in the
legislation and government of the country. For similar pur-
poses it was now proposed to add a non-elective body to the
Town Councils. He most sincerely believed that the intro-
duction of these few Members for life would enable the Bill to
work well, which it otherwise would not do, It would be ab-
solutely necessary to take some precaution against the Town
Councils, under this Bill, becoming mere political engines,
as was the case, for the most part, with the Common Council
of the city of London. He was quite ready to concede that
Corporations should no longer be those exclusive bodies in
which popular opinion had no sway. Upon that point he was
willing to make the fullest concession, but he thought the best
mode of rendering the alteration effective, would be by the
provision now introduced by his Noble and Learned Friend.
To send the measure forth without such corrective, would be
to strike a blow at the very root of the Aristocracy, by giving
the entire power in the Corporations to the democracy.—
( Hear.) He could see no harm in the amendment, which
was calculated merely to introduce into the Constitution of
the Town Councils, a few persons, as life Members, who had
already been elected for that term by virtue of a Charter from
the Crown.

Lord ELLENBOROUGH said, he believed it was essen-

tial to the public interests that a Bill for the reform of Cor-
porations should pass that House. He found no fault with the
bodies who had heretofore exercised the corporate functions,
but he thought there was a defect in the appointment by the
Crown of the governing bodies of towns, which required the
correcting hand of that House to remedy. He was quite sure
the Noble Viscount opposite (Viscount Melbourne) had no
other object in view in the measure before the House than the
good and quiet government of the different towns to which it
referred. He (Lord Ellenborough) having the same object in
view, was desirous of seeing his Noble and Learned Friend's
amendment form part of the Bill. He did not believe in all
the exaggerated tales narrated in that House and elsewhere as
to the excitement under which the first elections would take
place. But undoubtedly there would be some excitement
caused by the bringing into action simultaneously throughout
the country a new system. Upon that account alone he thought
it would be advisable to retain some of the old bodies as a check
and control upon the new. It was apprehended that at first
tranquil and moderate men would not present themselves as
candidates for the new office. If this apprehension were well
founded, then they should be the more desirous to retain a few
conspicuous for those qualities. It would, he thought, be un-
just and impolitic to dismiss the old members of Corporations
throughout the country with a brand upon their characters.
They had done no wrong—they had not been condemned. A
great authority in such ;natters had told them that they ought

to " reform without bravery of power, times, and perso
Let them rather seek to make this measure one of ger.
conciliation, so that the new bodies to be formed under it, 4
stead of viewing with irritation and alarm those of their vi„
leagues who belonged to the old system, should rather Pin
r
the endeavour to give what all so much desired, viz., a hap jo
social state to the country. Looking to futurity rather 4
to the present, and hoping for the permanent well-working
the Bill, he earnestly conjured their Lordships and his Maj.eit7.lo
Ministers to give their best and their impartial consid,sratto?‘
the measure upon their table._( General cries of Quosttobile
Lord MELBOURNE began by observing, that his' -°,4
and Leatned Friend (Lord Brougham) had so ably 1,70ra
51
fully discussed the subject under consideration, that he 11.
Melbourne) had but little left to say upon it. After the .
the
est consideration that he could give to the amendment of •
be
Noble and Learned Lord, he was bound to declare that:
could not regard it but as seriously injurious, if not eat'
.0:t
fatal, to the Bill.—( Cheers.) The amendment would do 1..,
it of that character of popularity which was its best re: %),D:e
mendation to the country. It was calculate,4 to impede:
march of the measure, and clog every object which n'e,
framers of it had in view. What these objects were had bep
already well described to their Lordships, and also the e
ner in which they would be interfered with by ;le annuls °,41
provision which it was the purport of the Noble and Lear nip
Lord's amendment to introduce. He could not hell) rett
marking that there was a singular discrepanc he,twiot
the arguments of the two Noble Lords who
ha" bed
spoken, and the Noble and Learned Lord who was' the, 1;4
thor of the amendment. The Noble and Learned L eraniil,
spoken in a spirit of the utmost hostility against tht 0
describing in the most glowing colours the degradation. or all
those principles of the representative system which were:
cherished in the days of his youth in favour of more acre
cratic and dangerous sentiments, treating the Bill hef°rie
their Lordships as the offspring of the chauge. The Wis,ebe
force of his argument lay in pointing out the dangers of „
times at which they had arrived, when it became neccol'eli
to give way to the prejudices and submit to the wildest tan°
and caprices of the governed. The present Bill he protegs.
to regard as an emanation from this altered spirit of the 01313
His hostility to the Bill, and to all the principles upon nbitei,
it was founded, was conspicuous in every argument and solln•e
ment of his speech. Ile stigmatized the measure as
brought forward with the most reckless haste, crude, and
considerate in its provisions. Now, if the Noble an d Lear
Lord believed all this of the measure, lie ought to have rnel;(ris,
,
its rejection altogether.—( Cheers.) Other Nob) e b
however, and especially the two who had just spoken, althous.
supporting the amendment, were clearly sensible of tine need
sity of passing such a measure as the present. But if St, e---t
were sincere in their advocacy of the measure, how eagiedijo
that all the amendments upon the Bill were drawn r p y )
unfriendly hand of the Noble and Learned Lord.—(Chee—t°
The Noble and Learned Lord's amendments of course went
the root and foundation of the measure. The Bill itself The
posed that the governing bodies should be purely electil e.
amendment proposed the introduction of a certain nursiber4
members for life. Was not this a complete anomaly ?
tory, he knew, would furnish a precedent for almost everlih'°'l
but for such a proHposition it offered no example. f
Lord LYNDURST observed that the Corporation pro
City of London was a case in point : the Aldermen /v.
elected for life, the Common Councilmen were not. ea
Lord MELBOURNE said that the Courts of Akler-.„00
and Common Council were separate counts; his observes,'"
applied to the proposal to constitute one body—partly ot
nually elective, and partly of members for life. The effe°eo
maintaining the existing aldermen must be to stamp the llot
system with the unpopularity of the old. Considering to,
they were making a great change in the municipal ge/ealf,
ment of all these towns—it did not appear to him, undoubtek
any injustice to remove these persons from the situations S'eif
occupied at present, to which situations in all probability' ,
they deserved it, they would be again elected. At the
time lie thought that they would deprive the Bill of a PLo
portion of its advantage and its grace, if they forced tt,roo
these towns reluctantly, and by force of law, individuals svro
they would not otherwise have chosen.—(Clwers.) FortPeet
reasons he opposed the amendments of the Noble and Lear°
Lord. osi
The Duke of WELLINGT.ON—The Noble Viscount • of
much mistaken if he supposed there was any difference j,
opinion between his Noble and Learned Friend (Lord no,
burst) and other Noble Lords acting on that side of the Ileebeif
who, he could assure the Noble Viscount, bed givenAol
full concurrence and support to the amendments he had „res
the honour of proposing. Ile had proposed these mess
the
to the House, because, being a distinguished member 01 to.
learned profession, and the one most distinguished for his the
quence in that House, he was the person best qutalified forder
task.—( Hear, hear.) The Noble Viscount really iniassLei
stood those who had spoken on the question, if he suPr,.,o4
that they did not all agree with his Noble and LeVrel,
Friend. The conclusion at which he (the Duke of tit
lington) had arrived from reading the Reports was, the to
would be absolutely impossible to frame upon their
Bill in the Reform of the Municipal Corporations.---(s rd
A Bill, however, had been introduced, and he had e're-ary
stated more than once, and to that Bill, unless it were C-14
siderably altered, he could not consent. The Noble tsj
Learned Lord who had just spoken with his usual ability' °,16
drawn a parallel between the House of Commons and `O4
assemblies which would be constituted by the Bill. N°wde,
difference was, that the town councils would be far more di
mocratical, being in fact annually elected, and conneclten°ol3
more liable to the control of the constituents—that they "-of
exercise powers beyond those vested in any assembly in ;of
part of the world—and that they would have the pcove'ots
imposing what rates they chose, and incurring what eic,Pc'tbs
they pleased, on the mere allegation that they did so Who
benefit of the people. In every other Act he had seen.top
was a limitatiori to the power of taxation entrusted to a large
but in the present there was none whatever. In alert;i et
towns the Corporations had a great amount of prop ear
their disposal, and it was absolutely necessary that the' Ley
bers of the Corporations should be men of intelligence, Cu"
tion, and station.
After a few words in reply from Lord LYNDHUR
The House divided—
For the amendment
Against the amendment
tided-44
Majority in favour of the amendramot
The clauses proposed by Lord Lyndhurst were then i
to the Bill.

Clauses from 27 to 33 were then, after several ''''
amendments, agreed to. _

The Huse —then resud.
The Wills Execution,me Executors, and Prisoners' DefenCe
Bills were referred to a Select Committee.

Adjourned at a quarter past Twelve o'clock.
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