The Statesman.
London, England, 1815-10-20 00:00:00

PARLUVENTARY- REFORM.

icosTir!turn FROM Ouit PAPER OF rrtnAlc LAST.]
Previens to entering upon the ininsetliate conside-
r:eon of the civil branch of our Constitution, legi-
ela live representatinn, the Major Ihnught it expedient
to make a few preliminary observations, of which
the feline ing is the substance:—That the wisdom
and beeeficence of a legislature ere snore conspicuous
when it leest interferes with the business of the Eve-
cteive Government. That in much statute-making
there is a symptom of anmething unsound, a, levity
and officieusneia net congenial with the sobriety arid
dignity of grave and epright legislation ; but imply-
ing nit unacquaintance with the Constitution, a su-
perficialness in the principles; of law, and indeed
something even less to be respected. That Beccari
exclaimed. " miserable is the condition of that Ils.
tion in which the wis a science;" what then must
e the condition of England, where the law is a con-
geries of mountainous magnitude, and the Lawyers
in number are equal tow large army ! where each se-
parate branch of the law is in itself an intricate
science, anti no Mir of its professors presuniptobus
enough to pretend that he can grasp a knowledge of
the nitrite F—('bat in this boundless wilderness, this
intricate labyrinth of law, grow up endless per-
plexities and innumerable oppressions, deadening the
seetiment of affectien to the Stare, alienating the
mind from a Government which cannot protect, and
under which justice is the most cnstly of all commis.
when such a mass of complicated evil
is but a super-addition to a violation of feedamen.
talc, w hirh enables the Rulers to tear up by the
roots all natiatial liberty, must not such a condition
of a political commenity be pregnant either with con-
vulsien or dissolution, untres the Constitution being
. eater-411y vigorous, it lead to one of those critical re-
coveries, by which life is not merely preserved, but
heath restored and confirmed.
" The history of this country," says the Earl of
Lirerpred, " abounds with more of those critical
periods than that of any other ; and it is to the pro-
per use our ancestors made of them, that our Go-
vernment has long been advancing by various steps
towastis perfection they withstood e.e repeated at•
tempts but of plea! innovation and regal oppression •
and though their struggles frequently produced
violent fevers in the hate, yet the Constitution ahrays
came forth in more pfifrcl health, and some new se-
curity was obtained fur our frr edom." "If such
beeefita (said Meier C.) were derived from Magee
Charts and the Bill of Rights, which did little more
than merely declare our birth-right liberties, cer-
tainly did not restore them, how greatly must those
boasted statutes be surpassed. by that whets shall
ahortly, I trust, put those inestimable birth-right
liberties Poo our actual possession.
44 But if all the other European nations, originally
Of the same stock with ourselves, sooner or later
lost their liberties, white those of England alone
were preserved by critical Itetesrm, partiealarly at
Runnimede and the Revolution, it may be asked,
wby after a Magna Charts, a Bull of Rights became
neressary 2—as well as why, after a Bill of Rights,
we are now again, as much as ever, in need of a cri-
tical Reform?—To both these questions, we answer,
that although each of these cri.ical Reforms did good
service, and peed the eae tor better things, yet
neither of teem earl sir:mina for duration, because
neither of them wvs radical. Although each, in a
manly tone, declared the people's rights and liberties,
end this spirit produced, for a while, beneficial ef-
fects, yet on neeher occasion was there, on the car-
dinal ; rents of ripe Goverment, a proper militia
and Legislative Representation, any thing whatever
actually dune. Our Saxon and proper militia, the
only these that ever deserved the name, was see
" restored to full vigour and energy ;" a free Par-
liament, with annual election, was NOT coattlislied ;
the nation, consequently, was NOT put its possession
rf its riehts and liberties, with the means of self.
siefence, eiteer military or civil. llow, then, are
MP to wonder at the present condition of cur
country 2 The wonder rather is, that it has not been
completely ruined in half the time that has elapsed
since the Revelation. That it has required more
than a century to bring it su near destruction, we
must attribute to the inherent vigour of the Consti-
tution, mutilated as it was ; to the love of liberty
in the English character; to the remembrance of
Ilunnimetle, of Whitehall, and of the Revolution ;
and to the awe in which tyranny has stood of the;
gond seine and courage of the nation.
" After each of the two critical Reforms we have
mentioned, despotism, scotched only, not slain, lay
quiet for a short season ; but, as the claims and re-
seutments which had elicited to patriotic exertion •
subsided, the serpent again crawled forth, and never
ceesed to attempt the destruction of liberty, whether
by encircling her frail champions widths the fatal folds i
of her corruption ; whether by retaining the poison-
shedding tongues of lea reed slavesen help packed Juries
to pretended laws ; or by openly shedding freemen's
blood in modes eel y known to arbitrary government.'
Put, itideed, w Hee er be the forms of legislation,"
of mrseistracy, ur .ulunitvistration, a goverement is
in fact ere/land Jr. e. or military and despotic, ac-
cording to its lira resort for carrying its law into .
execution. Fur deciding that question, this is the
sure criterion. if it be a Civil Government, its Hail'
power (as we see in the constitutional county power
of Ercitho will be resistless; .but a hen the civil
poser t.f a government, once free, has, by treachery,
been undermined and brought We decay, so as to
have lost Ps force and energy for ultimately soppert-
leg the law, and a last resort to military forte is be-
come necessary, then it is assuredly become a Xili-
Mr" Gov erement.
" in the great work uedertakcn at the Rerolua
tine, are we to attribute oversights and omreissions
which to us appear palpable, to the slowness et. hu-
man iteellect in arrivisig at perfection in the forbid.
den science of civil government ? —to the long expe-
rienced and LeuuMbing effects of feadal violence, of
of ex-ofre in tyranny, and
star-chamber information,
the terrors of incarceration in tar distant jails, for
free speech or wsitiog In ass age illustrious her in-
tellect, in an age illumined by the geniis of a Milton,
a Locke, a Coke, a Seiden, or Newton, are we thus
.to account Ins the disappointment of the• hopes
as-
cited in the nation by the Prince of Criongete
Decla-
ration, ind the Parliament'e Bill of Rights? In part
we no,. 'lie few. indeed were highly gifted and
eminently I. enell, but they floarished toreearly after