brought into action could possibly prevent the prevalence of truth and knowledge. Triennial Parliaments, with a provision against dissolution, would prevent that advantage which a faction may now take of a moment of general excitement or delusion; and by which the evil is extended, not only over the seven long years for which the Parliament may perhaps last, but, in the legislative consequences, may become absolutely irreparable. Elections would scarcely be more frequent than at present; they would only be more regular, and more likely to elicit the permanent opinion of the community. Such are the chief points by which the Radicals have hitherto been distinguished from those who took their stand on the Reform Act as a final measure of organic improvement. They all bear the same character. There is no question about the substitution of any other power for that of enlightened opinion. Certain means are indicated which will tend to secure opinion from the suppression or perversion to which it is now liable, which supply strong motives for furnishing the great mass of the constituency with the materials for forming a correct opinion, which provide for its free expression when so formed, and which deprive faction of the opportunity for rendering permanent the consequences of a momentary delusion; and to these measures your Lordship is opposed, under the plea of relying on public opinion. You think the end infinitely desirable, and therefore you argue that the means should be encountered by determined hostility. Will you say that the present means are sufficient? That is simply to prefer a less complete collection of opinion, a less free expression of it, an inferior plan for its formation, and a constant source of irregularity in its influence, to its full, deliberate, and constant agency. I think I like a speckled axe best,' said the man who was tired of holding his tool to the grindstone; but Franklin, in telling the story, does not fix on him the absurdity of stopping when the axe became speckled, under the pretext of admiring a bright axe more than anything in the world: he left the incongruity for your Lordship. The only consistent opposition to organic changes is that founded on the allied good of aristocratic influence, and the undesireableness of allowing public opinion to be the ruling principle. Those who take such ground do really like the speckled axe best; except that they would yet more rejoice to have it rusted and buried. But then they do not pretend, like your Lordship, to regard opinion as the only weapon with which the people's road to improvement can be cleared. As you truly remark, they have confessed that, although darkness was still to be desired, light was no longer to be excluded.' Why should you help them to keep the house with the shutters only half opened? Recent occurrences have made, not only those who were before known as Radicals, by their advocacy of the changes just enume rated, but many others who had not been so strongly impressed with the necessity of those changes, look to some alteration in the constitution or functions of the House of Lords, as essential to the well-being of the community. The desire for a reform in that quarter has been loudly, strongly, and extensively expressed. Probably this fact was uppermost in your Lordship's mind when you deprecated organic changes; if so, you have volunteered on a forlorn hope. Hereditary legislation is too absurd in theory, and too pernicious in practice, long to remain a co-ordinate power with real representation. The hope of acting upon a body of men who are told that their privileges are too sacred to be touched, who know that they have a distinct interest from that of the community at large, and whose power is irresponsible, by the mere expression of opinion, although it should be ever so matured by knowledge and discussion,' is much less plausible than the scheme for extracting sunbeams from cucumbers. What have obviously been the causes of any forbearance which they have shown in their opposition to liberal measures, great or small, during the last five years? The exercise of royal influence, the dread of popular commotion, and the impossibility of governing the country with a House of Commons, as at present constituted, by a Ministry of their own nomination. It may be said that the last motive is a modified action upon them of public opinion. True, but its operation ceases whenever they succeed in influencing the Commons, and all other check upon them is resolvable into their apprehension of being themselves reformed, which apprehension you propose entirely to destroy. Influence the Commons they will, and that to an extent which can never be calculated, until that House is made, completely and irrevocably, the organ of public opinion. They have done so already. They may do so again, and worse. And yet the people are blamed for the results of the last election, and told to trust to public opinion, and not to organic reforms. You keep the oracle half muzzled, and then declare that it has only to speak aloud for its voice to be omnipotent. How is this opinion to be expressed? Will you reply through the newspapers? Ah, my Lord, it were better not to remind us of that medium. The taxation upon knowledge is a sore subject. Would the removal of the stamp duties be an organic change? If not, in Heaven's name let us have that at least, and do not tell us that we should seek for no extension of the utility of the press, but rather look for the triumph of further measures of reform' to 'public opinion, enlightened and matured.' Upon what reasonable grounds, for what useful purpose whatever, are the people to be called upon to bear a nuisance which they find intolerable? We rest,' says the authority to which I have already referred, 'we rest our belief of the necessity of a second Chamber upon the necessity of a reconsideration in a less occupied assembly, to prevent fatal oversights and other errors.' The House of Commons is, no doubt, very inaptly constituted for the work of legislation. The best that can be said for it is, that it is not so bad as the House of Lords. The defectiveness is an excellent reason for some contrivance, which it would not be very difficult to devise, by which the mechanics of law-making' might be improved. But non constat that, one Chamber being ill constructed for legislation, there should be added another Chamber, worse constructed, and inflicting a host of evils, for the sake of now and then rectifying its blunders. The condition of the Statute Book sufficiently shows what such a remedy is worth. No appeal on behalf of the artificers can be made from the testimony of their own workmanship. There are plenty of fatal oversights, and other errors.' If mending the legislation of the Commons, up to the degree of simplicity and perfection whichit has already attained, be the basis on which rests the worth of the House of Lords, down it must go, smothered in the bog of its own making. Public opinion will ere long be chiefly divided, not on the question of change or no change, but on that of reformation or simple abolition; and in proportion as the former is obstructed will the desire for the latter gain force until it become invincible. Even the Edinburgh Review,' in the very article just quoted, renews its former recommendation of one species of reform, the free conference,' on the ground that it would in fact be depriving the Lords of their veto in certain cases; but only in cases where there seems no sound reason why they should retain it.' Why this, my Lord, is all that any body wants; although not a few cannot perceive a sound reason why their veto should be retained in any case. Still there is time during which a mitigation of the mischief will suffice for general satisfaction. Only do not prematurely tell the people that at this point they, and the friends they have hitherto trusted, must needs part company. I would rather suspect your Lordship of such hastiness and indiscretion, as is indeed much to be lamented in a representative of the people, a Minister of the Crown, the leader of a party, and an approved patriot, than believe you have already come to a determination which, if persisted in, must soon present you as an enemy in the ranks of the Conservatives, fighting the battles of noxious privilege against that public opinion which you wisely regard as the great power of improvement. I know not whether you would disclaim the inference, from the conclusion of your reply, that some notion of duty,' as distinguished from feeling and opinion,' binds you to the support of 'the Constitution of the country in all its branches,' and that so you stand pledged' to resist organic changes,' even though you should be convinced of their beneficial tendency to the great mass of the community. Your language bears that construction, which 6 is indeed the most obvious one. If so, my Lord, there is a traitorous principle in your mind, a false allegiance incompatible with genuine patriotism. The old slavish devotion to a particular family, the unquestioning loyalty which was claimed by and vowed to the Stuarts, is, I know, transferred by many to the forms of our Government, and the ancient privileges of certain classes of society. It is not much the better for the transfer. The mover of the Reform Bill ought not to be found amongst the votaries of this blind faith, this political popery; alterations' may be fundamental;' but what then, if they be also beneficial? Irresponsible power may be one of the branches' of the Constitution; but what then, if it bear bitter fruit, and overshadow the land pestiferously? Nay, even should unquestionable danger to the Monarchy' be logically predicated of any arrangements which are essential to the nation's rights, security, prosperity, and improvement, then must such danger be incurred, unless we are prepared to revert to the monstrous faith of millions made for one.' So long as there is a mighty sinister interest in the country, it may be that organic changes cannot be proposed without causing division, nor carried without risk of convulsion.' But the assertion is only true of them on account of their eminent utility; it applies to all other changes in proportion as they advance public good at the expense of privilege; and the risk is diminished by every accession of power to the people. It is already too much diminished for reasonable apprehension. The time for a fight is gone by. Your Lordship, I apprehend, has a salvo in your own mind to reconcile your allegiance to the forms of Government with your devotion to the people's cause. With you the branches of the constitution' are the great land-marks of our liberties.' But, as to those particulars in which the Radical Reformers plead for change, they are rather the marks of encroachment upon liberty, than of its extension. The Septennial Act is the land-mark of a daring advance by the House of Commons, beyond the legitimate boundaries of its delegated trust. Election influence, which exists by the continuance of open voting, is the land-mark of successful piratical invasion of the people's allowed share in the Government by the Aristocracy. The limitation of the franchise is the land-mark of ancient vassalage, of slavery in the excluded, which, as yet, is only nominally abolished. And the House of Lords is a land-mark of feudal privilege, authority, and insolence, fixed where its leaden weight was deposited in the dark ages, and bearing the inscription Thus far shalt thou come, and no further,' while in all other directions the road is open for the march of improvement. If the Romans worshipped the god Terminus, the warmth of their devotion was dependent upon the frequency of his advances. Of the principles which pervade our primitive institutions,' and which, by the way, are seldom practically forthcoming when they are needed, none are more worthy of having you for an ardent admirer' than those which declare that no man shall be taxed but by his own consent,' that laws to bind all must be assented to by all,' and that for every wrong there is a remedy.' Let but these be realized, and there will be no further cry for organic changes. The If the reformers be true to one another, and continue united and on the alert, the dangers of a Tory restoration may be averted. There must be no selfish faltering, no splitting of hairs.** exhortation, my Lord, is sound and timely, and it applies to both sections of the united body. But neither must there be any call for the compromise of great principles, or for an abandonment of the pursuit of those securities for uninterrupted good government, which experience has palpably shown that we have not yet obtained. I conclude by heartily adopting the words of the same writer: We offer these reflections in perfect kindness and respect towards those worthy reformers of whom we have been speaking. That no schism will henceforth split our forces we are fully persuaded; but this desirable result is far more likely to happen if justice be done to all parties among us, so that no reasonable cause of complaint shall remain to any ;-if our whole case be stated with truth, and always rested upon the right ground,— ground on which we can abide.' That ground I take to be not only the desirableness of many economical and other reforms, but the absolute necessity of gaining for the people, by the requisite changes, whether termed organic or otherwise, such a decisive power in the Government as shall effectually prevent the country from ever again becoming the prey of an intolerant, rapacious, and unprincipled faction. Νου. 1, 1835. W. J. Fox. THE KING. A KING lived long ago, In the morning of the world, When earth was nigher heaven than now: Disparting o'er a forehead full As the milk-white space 'twixt horn and horn Of some sacrificial bull Only calm as a babe new-born. For he was got to a sleepy mood, So safe from all decrepitude, Age with its pine so sure gone by, (As though gods loved him while he dreamed,) That, having lived thus long, there seemed No need that he should ever die. * Edinburgh Review.'; |