aristocracy thus will entirely lose their influence, or be reduced to the necessity, to preserve their popularity, of becoming demagogues. Either of which alternatives is infinitely to be dreaded."*

Now, who are to be the electors under the new constitution? Every householder paying rent to the amount of £10 a-year every tenant paying rent to the amount of £50 a-year every copyholder having property worth £10 a-year every 40s., and ultimately, every £10 freeholder. Can any man, acquainted with the state of the middle ranks, doubt what description of persons will thus have the majority? The copyholders may be harmless enough; but the introduction of the £10 householder is a complete change in the constitution, which is thenceforward placed on the most democratic basis. The tenants of such houses, it is always to be remembered, are seldom, if ever, possessed of any property. They are shopkeepers, journey men operatives, or labourers of the better sort, a step above the day-labourer, but that is all. Liverpool, it is said, will produce 25,000 voters; Manchester, 20,000; Edinburgh and Glasgow will certainly have at least 10,000 each. The influence of the landed proprietors in the counties will be generally merged in the votes of the shopkeepers and tenants in the villages and small towns in England, and in the feuars and shopkeepers in Scotland. This is precisely the class which, in every age and quarter of the world, have been found to be most democratical; and certainly their temper at present, and the tone of the revolutionary press, which they daily peruse, give no reason to suppose that they will form any exception to the rule.

It is said, an extension of the suffrage is requisite to let in the enlarged intelligence and property of the middle and working classes to a share of the representation. Granted but has not this effect taken place to as great an extent as is either safe or desirable, in consequence of the change in the value of money? A 40s. freehold in the time of Henry VI., when that standard was first fixed, was

* Lord J. Russell on the Constitution, p. 341.

This passage, to the extract from Sir James Mackintosh, p. 35, is abridged from other papers on Parliamentary Reform, in Blackwood's Magazine, July, August, and Oct. 1831. The passage from Sir James Mackintosh is now quoted in the text, in further illustration of these views.

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at least equal to a property worth £20 sterling a-year now. The silent unobserved lapse of time, and change in the value of money, have extended a privilege originally designed for the substantial yeoman, to the simple cottager. When so great a change in favour of the democratic interest has taken place, and is in progress, by a process of innovation which is perfectly safe, and, as the increasing democratic tendency of the legislature evinces, perfectly effectual, why accelerate it by one which is, to say the least of it, uncertain and hazardous ?

But new places and interests, such as Manchester and the great manufacturing towns, require representatives. Granted but because they require members, is that any reason for taking away the representatives from the colonies and the distant interests which now enjoy them through the medium of the close boroughs? It is not the addition made to the representation at home, by the proposed Bill, but the subtraction made from the representation abroad, which is the grand evil that it proposes to consummate. Schedules A and B are the real grave of the British empire.

Considered with reference to domestic interests, and the future balance of the town and country parties in the State, there is one glaring piece of injustice introduced by the Reform Bill, for which not a shadow of an apology has been or can be offered by its supporters. It gives every ten pound tenant a vote within burghs, but only a fifty pound tenant a vote in the counties. What is the reason of this great difference? Is it that the rural tenant, with his ploughs, waggons, and farm-stocking, is a less substantial person than the urban tenant with his casks of beer or spirits, or stock of goods, generally secured to the landlord for payment of his rent? Is it that experience has shown that the inhabitants of towns are so much more moderate in their habits, and tenacious of their ideas, so singularly quiet and peaceable, so little liable to be affected by demagogues or mobs, that the suffrage can safely be intrusted to a class in them paying a fifth of the rent which is required of a similar class in the counties? The thing can admit only of one explanation. The object of the Bill is to give an overwhelming majority to the urban and democratic interests in the Legis

lature, although at least two-thirds of the income of the State comes from rural labour. And to insure this result, not content with giving three-fifths of the seats in the House of Commons to the representatives of boroughs, they lower the suffrage in these boroughs to one-fifth of what is required of a similar class in the country.

Independent of this scandalous and barefaced inequality, there is a permanent reason in the nature of things why a representation, founded even on a uniform qualification for town and country, must, in a wealthy and commercial community, always in the long run give the majority of influence to the inhabitants of towns. It has been thus explained by Sir James Mackintosh, one of the supporters of the present Bill:-" A representation founded on numbers merely, would be productive of gross inequality in that very class to which all others are sacrificed. Every other interest in society is placed at the disposal of the multitude. No other class can be effectually represented; no other class can have any political security for justice; no other can have any weight in the legislature. No talents, no attainments, but such as recommend men to the favour of the multitude, can have admission into it. A representation so constituted would produce the same practical results as if every man whose income was above a certain amount was excluded from voting. It is of little moment to the proprietors whether they be disfranchised, or doomed in every election to form a hopeless minority. The difference, moreover, between the people of the town and country, is attended with consequences which no law can obviate. Towns are the nursery of political feeling. of political feeling. The frequency of meeting, the warmth of discussion, the variety of pursuit, the rivalship of interest, the fluctuations and extremes of fortune, direct the minds of their inhabitants to the public concerns, and render them the seats of republican governments, or the preservers of liberty in monarchies. Among the more numerous classes, no strong public sentiment can be kept up without frequent meetings. It is when they are animated by a view of their own strength and numbers, when they are stimulated by an eloquence suited to their characters, and when the passions of each are strengthened by the like emotions of the multitude which surround

him, that the thoughts of such men are directed so far from their common callings as the concerns of the commonwealth. All these aids are necessarily wanting to the dispersed inhabitants of the country, whose frequent meetings are rendered impossible by distance or poverty, who have few opportunities of being excited by discussion or declamation, and very imperfect means of concert or correspondence with those at a distance. All active talent would in such a case fly to the towns, where alone its power could be felt. If the whole political power of

the State, therefore, were thrown into the hands of the lowest classes, it would really be exercised only by the towns."*

Let not the landed interest imagine that they will be protected by the fifty-four additional members who are to be given for the counties. Nominally returned by the counties, the great proportion of these members will be really brought in by the £10 householders in the small towns the numbers of that class will render them omnipotent. Of the whole population of Great Britain, two-thirds are employed in trade and manufactures, and only one-third directly in agriculture. This vital fact

Lord

must be constantly kept in view, in all calculations upon the probable effect of the new system. Of the £10 householders, or freeholders, therefore, two-thirds will be found in the manufacturing or trading classes. The landed interest, even in counties, will find it utterly vain to struggle against such a numerical a numerical superiority. Brougham has said in the House of Lords, that the squires of Yorkshire were against him, but he canvassed the freeholders in the small towns, and soon convinced them that he had the superiority. If this was the case even under the old constitution, what will it be when all the £10 householders are let in?

But, in fact, the division on the Reform Question itself affords decisive evidence of what may be looked for in the first Reformed Parliament. The Radical papers have made the following summary of the composition of the votes on that vital innovation on the constitution :

*

Edinburgh Review, xxxi. 174; and Collected Essays, iii. 220.

This table the Reformers consider as decisive in favour of the Bill. To us it appears decisive against it. It certainly affords materials for the most profound medita

tion.

It here appears that the English and Irish county members in favour of the Bill were nearly double of those against it and that the equality was restored by the Scotch county members and the borough members over the empire, who were nearly two to one against it. This last body is precisely the interest in the house which is to be destroyed. That is to say, when in the legislature, as already constituted, the aristocratic and democratic parties are almost exactly equal, it is proposed totally to destroy one, in order to restore the balance of the constitution!! Can anything be clearer than that, with forces so nearly balanced, even a small addition to one party, and especially the one supported by the revolutionary press and the popular outcry, will give it a decisive preponderance? The disfranchisement of ten members in such circumstances, by making a difference of twenty votes, is sufficient to give the democratic party the ascendant. What shall we say, then, of 168 taken from the one side and added to the other?