Star.
London, England, 1822-04-26 00:00:00

rants thought exactly as thost iviredefended the pee4l,
Sent Constitution of that House. He had illo.to an.;
swer the use made in the question of Reform; of the
Revolution of France, and• the civil wars of Eng-
land. In reference Co thtise;- thOy viire continually
reminded of the popular licentiousness and the atro-
cities cointnitted. Did,thoie Who used these against
Reform mean .to says that ..to the. Government of
Charles J. where it was 'attempted to establish rule by
Divine Right, and to impose taxes wiihodt the sanc-
tion of Parliament, any opposition could be wrong ?
Or, in the case of the French people towards Louis
the Fifteenth, who wasted- in low debauchery the re-
sources of the People? But these Gentlemen said,
the leaders in these events bught to have stopped short
in their career, which was as much at to say, that
they should be more patriotic than Hampden. The
Cause of popular excesses in these instances was owing
to the Aristocracy not being united. It was then ne-
cessary for that part of it which was attached to
betty to appeal to the People, to assist them in their
efforts to accomplish Reform. Now, history informed
them, that Reform brought about by the People was
calamitous in its course.. The obvicrussemedy was,
that the Aristocracy should be united in their •efforts
to accomplish the necessary Reform. •He instanced
the Reform wrought in the time of James 11. as free
from the u•tial concomitants of popular
.Rievolutions.
lle called therefore on the aristocracy of Parliament
to unite in favour of Reform. He called upon the
higs to do the same. If he understood the prin-
ciple and spirit of Whiggism, it was to obtain for
the People as much, liberty as they were able to hold
within their• grasp at the time. It was that spirit
which procured them the Hanoverian dynasty, and
saved the country from the return of the Stuarts. Al-
though at that time they had acted wisely in retain-
ing the Boroughs in the Representative System, and
furthered the cause of liberty, yet, by giving them
up at present to the increased intelligence of the
People, they went to promote the cause of Reform;
for the People were now able to guard, and hold
any amount of liberty that could be given to them.
The learned Sir William Temple had said, that Eng-
land would never be ruined but by herself—that
whilst the weight and number of the People all
tended one way, she would still stand pre-eminent.
Ile asked of all the Aristoci acy, therefore, to join in
this struggle for Reform. Posterity would require
of us the liberty we had received from our ancestors.
By a timely union of force, would be saved that con-
vuhiou of the moral world, which the discordance
in the elements of society would otherwise ferment.
Let him fervently hope, that a Constitution of only one
handled years standing, was destined yet to rank in
antiquity with Any that had gone before it—(Hear,
/le.:pl.—The Noble Lord concluded by moving a Re-
s•lr.tion—."That it is the opinion of this House, that
tie Representation of the People in Parliament, calls
i'r the most earnest consideration of this House."

HORACE TWISS said, that in obtruding
Yrnsell upon the attention of the House to make a
taw observations on what had fallen from the Noble
Lord who had just sat down, the House would not
expect him to go through a tithe of the various mat-
ter adverted to, and the enormous theories by which
it had been attempted to support this question. In
the objections urged by the Noble Lord against the
infinence of the Crown in that House, it appeared to
him, t!at such influence could only be objectionable
when the functions of the Government were completely
exercised out of doors; but when the whole Execu-
tive was, as it were, carried on in that House, the
objection he thought did not stand upon such good
ground. The same might be said of the interference
of the LorJs in that House. But, in advocating innc-
vations upon the existing system of things, the ad-
vocates were not entitled to any benefit from the
antiquity of any practice. They who opposed them
had a right to follow such a course of argument, but
surely not they who urged as the foundation of their
argument the silent changes of time. But upon
those silent changes he was willing to rest the
issue of the question between them. And in re-
ply to the augmentation of power in the House
of Peers, he would urge the popular party, which
in the lapse of time had insensibly grown up in
that House, unknown to our ancestors. If bribery
and corruption were found to exist in some of
the details, it was not fair to change the system
with it. If the outrages of the Westtninster mob had
been attended with loss of life in the case of Sir Mur-
ray Maxwell, or if the attempt at drowning a candi-
date on a late occasion had succeeded, it would have
been deemed murder by the law ; but would it have
been fair to charge these as evils upon the popular
system?—(Hear, hear).—The Noble Lord, in his in-
ducements for Reform, included the expense of Bo-
roughs. But allowing the expense of a Borough
Election to amount to 4,0001. he asked if for treble
that sum any one would guarantee the cost of a con-
tested election for Manchester or Leeds? The ex-
pense, then, being equal, or greater, in the popular
mode, he asked any one who had witnessed the scene
of a contested Election, the state of the public-houses,
and the state of the Electors, stimulated to outrage
and disorder by every idle watchword, which was,
the preferable system ? The expression of public opi-
pion was much about the same in both cases. There
was one very difficult point of difference between the
Noble Lord (John Russell) and himself, as to the
meaning of the word " Representative." He (Mr.
Twiss) understood by it a guardian of the interests of
the People in Parliament, to the best of his abilities.
Let the Noble Lord look at the silent operation of
public opinion in bringing about the abolition of the
Cave Trade, the emancipation of religious sects, and
the mitigation of punishment, before he declared that
the People were not ably and amply represented in
Parliament. But although it ought duly to repre-
sent public opinion, that House ought to oppose a
steady constitutional barrier against the overrunning
stream of popular innovatiou—(llear, hear, hear).—
The innovation contended for by the Noble Lord was
by some unaccountable means styled moderate Re-
form. This moderate Reform was to dishanchise a
buadred Boroughs at once—ll/ear, hear).--This was
the amputation of an entire limb—(llerst, hear).—lt
would be well for the House, in disposing of this
question, to consider what woull come next, if they
satisfied the cravings of the Reformers in this respect.
They would next be told they had not gone far
enough ; and they would be driven on from one point
to another till they arrived at complete Radical Re-
form—(Hear, Fear).—'These attempts of the Radicals
might be compared to the operation of successive