Star.
London, England, 1830-02-19 00:00:00

• . .

besides this departure from the ancient principles end
practice of Parliamentary Representation, there is another
which has taken place, and which may be said to have
arisen out of it. When boroughs became the sepulchres
of departed greatness and prosperity, retaining nothing
of their former condition but their name, and their soil,
and their custom of returning one or two members to
Parliament, they became the property of the rich and
the powerful ; and instead of being dependent, as they
originally were, upon the pleasure of the Crown for their
writs of summons, they became dependent upon the plea-
sure of their purchasers, for the returns to those writs—
and their writs of summons and charters of incorporation,
(like other paper and parchment securities,) became
marketable commodities, conveying to the buyer the
certainty of honors, and the contingency of profits in
this House—this also is a manifest departure from con-
stitutional principles and practice. When towns and
boroughs were first called upon to send representatives to
Parliament, it was not intended to decorate these places,
in their decay and downfall, with immortal honors, or to
make their lifeless bodies fetch high prices, like subjects
for dissection—it was not the design to invest the silence
and desolation of ruined streets, and market places, with
the everlasting right of sending a couple of Members to
the National Council. It was never meant to help on
the speculations of craft, or the gains of avarice, or the
projects of ambition, by making seats and franchises, ar-
ticles to be bought by the best bidder. But, Sir, these,
departures from ancient principles, these violations of an-
cient practice, have not only taken place in the manner
of making returns from these close and decayed boroughs
(in which returns nothing can now he discovered
like " frawsche et due election," according to
the ancient statute—nothing like the principle in
the ancient writ, " /mod MRCS tangit ab omnibus appro-
Letstr :" but there are still more remarkable violations and
departures in respect of the qualifications of the burgesses
returned—by the ancient laws and practice they were to
be " resident, in-dwellers, and freemen of the borough
or city they represented, and no others"—" Nuls mitres
in 'tulle manicure." It is true that these laws were re-
pealed—it is true also that to the repealing act we may
fairly ascribe much of the mischief that now exists.
Boroughs are now supplied with representatives from
every other description of persons, except residents and
in-dwellers, or persons locally connected with those bo-
roughs. We may look through the whole series of Cor-
nish returns, and scarcely find a Cornish name in the list
of their burgesses : we cannot even say " stat montinis
umbra ;" name as well as thing are both gone—the close
and decayed boroughs of Cornwall have passed into the
hands of strangers to the county. The interests of the
Stiummies are sometimes confided to speculators in the
mines of Mexico and Peru. Paper is seen to triumph over
the influence and interest of its tin. By the mere operation
of paper and parchment, Cornish seats have been trans-
ferred like shares in a joint stock company, at the market
price, to some great capitalist of London. And, Sir, there
is another principle, a principle well developed in a Writ
of 47. Edward 111. which it is most important to attend to,
and apply. It is there laid down as a necessary qualifi-
cation, that Borough Representatives should have a suit-
able knowledge of local interests : the Writ in question
required the Sheriff to return " do quolibet Burgo duos
Burgesses qui in navigio et exercitio mercandisanun no.
titian habeant meliorem;" and the Writ concludes with
an injunction that acne are to be returned, who want this
necessary local or rather municipal information. The
knowledge which was required in these burgesses was a
plain practical knowledge for every days use ; it was not
a superfine knowledge in political economy ; that sort of
science which has filled the country with bankrupts and
bookmakers, which produces thick octavos, and
thin purses, and makes men very rich in fine
phrases, and very poor in pocket. This was not
the kind of knowledge which King Edward re-
quired for his Burgesses: They were to be knowing
men " exercitio ntercandisaruns," in a good souse
tradesmanlike information, such as was bottomed uposil
COIII2IOII sense and common experience—not upon theory
and hair-splitting, and the follies of a fanciful philoso-
phy. The result, then, of all these references to partici-
mentary antiquities is, that Borough Elections ought te
be as free, as those of Counties—that the members re-
turned ought to have some original connection with the
places they represent. They ought to have also local
knowledge, a plain practical knowledge of the trade, and
trading interests, of their constituents. But to all this
it may, perhaps, be replied that the system is ancient, that
the practice has passed into usage, and become an ester
blished custom, and that it is not safe to disturb what-
time has sanctioned and settled. To all this, however,
the words of Lord Bacon will supply the shortest, and
readiest refutation. " Time (says he) is a great innova-
tor," meaning that time itself, and what Is called the
march of events, produce such changes in the dream-
' stances, relations, and affinities of old institutions, as to
make them different in fact and effect, though they
may continue the same in name ; they may even become
so different, as to require adjustments and adaptations
to the vicissitudes of time, in order to secure their ori-
ginal utility ; and that great man has followed up his
remark by such pertinent illustrations of it, that I can-
not forbear citing them in support of my own views
upon this question : neither will they be thought the
worse for being ingrafted upon some of the old adagio
of our laws. " Leges," (says he) " novis legibus non
recreatce acescune —laws not refreshed by new laws
wax sour—" qui Ina/a ncnt permutat in bonis non per-
severat"—without change of ill, a man cannot continue
the good—to take away abuses supplanteth not good
orders, but establisheth them—" Morose moris retentio
ref turbuleata est wows ac novitas"—a contentious re-
taining of custom is a turbulent thing, as much so as
innovation—a good husbandman is ever pruning in his
vineyard, or his fields, not unreasonably, not unskilfully,
but lightly ; he findath ever somewhat to do." And so,
Sir, it is with respect to the subject of Parliamentary
Reform ; and I assert, upon this high authority,
that to defend as a thing that is praiseworthy, or to re-
commend as a thing that is expedient, the present
ownership in seats and suffrages, and writs of summons
to Parliament,. because it is ancient, is a sort of revolu-
tionary doctrine ; it is to hold the language and opinions
of revolutionary men ; it ii to think, and talk, and act,
contrary to the principles of our, representation, and the
analogies of our law, and the spirit of our Constitution,
and the judgment of oar best writers. The theorist who
sets about the define of venal and proprietary borotighe
may, perhaps, be able to cite many ancient and modem
vpointments by Wise, as well as Gentlemen—for,, if I
rightly recollect the *weds of the Record, Dame Dorothy
Paciiingtoo. in Abe 14th of Elisabeth, sent ** *bur-
gesses to Parliament from her town of Aylesbury ; and
notified; under her hand and seal, that they were her Re-
, prepentatiies ; and that whateier 'they did
,was to be
considered is her act and deed. Is, how
ever, of this high authority, and all other anicimit
precedents, it will not be possible SD make the..
crooked traisactiOns strait : it will not be, possible
to eorrect their deformities, or to cleanse 'their &anew,
to legalise their unlawfulness. They are, and ever

must remain foul spots upon our drapery—dark and dirty
places upon the apparel of this House. Neither are
they to be washed out by rhetorical ablutions ; by descant-
ing upon the beauty which results from the intermixture
of imperfections, and the harmony which arises from dis-
cord, and the practical advantage of departing from the
letter of the law, and of doing a little evil that good may
come. Allthis, and a great deal more may be said, and
admired, by the lovers of dextrous declamation; but if
ten times more were to be said, and ten times better, it
could not have the effect of altering the essential cha-
racter of these transactions ; for these questions still recur ;
is it agreeable to the constitution of the Commons' House
of Parliament, that there should be anything like settled
succession in the course and order of sitting in this
House ? that there should be any thing like purchase in
the mode of getting into it? that there should be any
thing like an heir loom—any thing like an heritable,
or a marketable, or a testamentary property, or
interest attached to these benches ?—a sort of pro-
perty or interest which a man may call his own if
he buys it, or is born to it. Such things as these,
Sir, are too monstrous to admit, I will not say of decora-
tion, but defence ; and when we find able men, politi-
cians, or philosophers trying their best tactics to save
these things from attack and overthrow, one cannot help
lamenting their waste of fine words, and fine wit—their
misuse of the florid in style, and the subtle in argument,
and the sarcastic in reply. I might, Sir, proceed to
point out other changes produced by time. Changes
have taken place in respect of the qualifications both of
the electors and the elected ; and changes in the mode
of discharging these great public trusts of representa-
.tion ; and changes in men's opinions of them, and in
the way in which they are now considered, and spoken
of, and sought for. Instead of being called hardships
and burthens, from which poor towns prayed to be re-
lieved, they have become lucrative deputations, bene-
ficiary appointments, from which poor towns contrive to
derive a profit: instead of the Sheriff being obliged to secure
the appearance of his citizen or burgess by manucaptar, , and
even by the seizure of their goods and chattels, be is sure
to find plenty of candidates for a vacant seat, and no
lack of cost or contrivance to obtain it. Instead of re-
ceiving wages—(Knights 4s. Citizens and Burgesses 2s.
a day)—many honourable gentlemen would be glad to
hold their seats at no higher cost, than the daily payment
of ten times the higher sum. But though time has
changed the face of all things, both in and out of Parlia-
ment ; though it has changed all the great interests of
the country, and all the relations of public, and Parlia-
mentary, life ; and the whole moral, as well as political
economy of the nation—it has produced no change in the
real objects and purposes of Parliamentary representation.
It has not in any way affected the reasons which made
the Commons of England demand and obtain, an ade-
quate appearance by proxy in the great Council of the
nation. It has not weakened, nor obscured, any ono of
the plain and simple propositions contained in the writs
of summons to the sheriffs ofthe realm. What was good law
and good policy upon the issue of the first writ for knights
citizens and burgesses, 565 years ago, continues to be so
still ; and there is not a better way of arriving at the re.
form which is so much desired, than by reverting to an-
cient principles, to the manifest designs of our forefathers,
to the records of their prudence, u well as of their
prowess ; and I believe that surer, safer, and readier
guidance will be found in the light of their wisdom and
the brightness of their example, than in the dreams of the
enthusiasts, or in the doctrines of the philosophy of the
present day ; and I am convinced that it will be found that
the best sort of reform will be the restoration of what
time hutimpaired, the cleansing of what corruption has
polluted, the rectifying of what craft has twisted aside
from its proper use and real design. Nothing, Sir, it
appears to me now, remains but that I should simply and
as shortly as I may be able, state the outlines of the Bill
which I hold in my hand, and which in its principal pro-
visions I have endeavoured to construct upon ancient
principles—principles which have appeared to me best
fitted for amending and repairing the Constitution of
this House—" Sum ex lit qui ntirer antiquos."—
Now, then, Sir, I prl, this bill, which is to restore
to the Commons of England their rightful share in the
Legislature, to place upon record, by way of recitals,
the fundamental principles of representation, as I find
them in the books, when both the theory and the prac,
tice were in the state of their greatest purity ; that the
clear meaning of this bill may never be misunderstood.
I find from the time of Henry 111. and throughout the
subsequent reigns of the three first Edwards, (a period at
which Sir Matthew Hale, and other text writers, declare
the Law of England to have reached the highest degree
of perfection), that there can be no doubt that the citi-
zens and burgesses returned to Parliaments by virtue of
the King's writ, to the Sheriffs of the different counties,
were, elected and chosen by the inhabitant-householders
of the large and populous towns, paying scot and lot ;
and so it was declared by a Committee of the How*
of Commons of which Lord Coke (the great oracle of
the Law of England) and the learned Mr. Sel-
don, were both Members : for during the reigns
above alluded to, and down to that of Edward IV. the
practice of granting royal charters had not been intro-
duced—the first being in the 17th year of that reign, by
which charter the right of sending one burgess to Par-
liament was granted to the borough of Wenlock. I
propose, then, by the first enactment of this sill, that a
Committee of 21 Members of this House (to be chosen
by ballot,) shall be appointed within ten days after the
passing ef this Act, and hereafter within the first an
days after the commencement of each Session, with full
power o'ascertain the exact stale of every city, borough,
and port,' in the United Kingdom. Secondly :—That as
soon as the said Committee shall bare ascertained the
fact that any city, borough, or port, have fallen into de-
cay, and ceased to be such populous and wealth.v place,
as was originally intended, to send a Member or Members
to serve in Parliament, or that the franchise granted-to
any city, or borough, ought to be considered as forfeited
by mit-user or non-user, that it shall be the duty
of the Committee to report such facts to the
Secretary of the State for the Home Department; and
that such report shall be deemed, and taken to be that
which, during the purity of the representation, weeld
have taken place, and actually did take place in many in-
stances, namely, the petition of each City or Borongh.to
be relieved of the burden of sending me.i.bers to Parlia-
ment:--Thirdly, That upon receiving such Report, it shall
be the duty of the Secretary of State to announce in the
Gazette that such city or borough has ceased to send
lumbers to Parliament, or that the franchise thereof has
been forfeited for mis-user. Fourthly : The Committee
it. directed to begin their investigation and reports, with
the Burger Tenure! Boroughs, because these are known
in their privies 'gate, to afford a direct proprietary in-
terest. Filthiy :o—That as soon as such announcement shall
be aside in the Gazette, the Committee shill select such
pltiOlOus 'Unteprersgrad, or inadectiately represented
towns or.pfaces, with the hundreds, &striate, or parishes,
surrounding the same, es the Cranmistste shall think
proper, in order to fiil up the seats rendered vacant as
' above ; and it is provided that the right of voting in such