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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

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 superiority. Lord 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.

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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 meditation.

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?

From this table may also be seen how vain are the hopes of those who imagine that the county representation is to form any barrier against the democratic inroads of the manufacturing interest. Twice as many Irish and English county members, and thrice as many for open places, voted for the Bill as against it. This evinces, in the most convincing manner, the democratic tendency of the electors, even without the £10 freeholders. What will be the result of the elections with that portentous addition to the popular force?

But this table furnishes another and a still more alarming subject for consideration. It appears from it that a considerable majority of English and Scotch members are against the Bill, and that it was carried by the preponderance of the Irish.

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Thus there were 266 members for Great Britain against the Bill, and 251 for it; in other words, a majority of fifteen members were against it. Ireland threw in her weight to cast the balance: if she does so successfully, she will more than repay, by that single stroke, the oppression of four hundred years.

Now, what will be the result of the next election under the new constitution in Ireland, with every £10 householder voting for a member of Parliament ? At least sixty out of the 103 members she is to return, will be not only in the Radical, but in the Anti-Union interest. They will, in fact, be nominated by O'Connell, as completely as his son was recently named by him for the county of Clare. Here is ample subject for serious consideration. Sixty Catholic Radicals returned by O'Connell ! That will indeed make England feel the bitterness of Irish Immigration. With a powerful body of this description, supported by the incessant clamour of seven million Irishmen on the other side of the Channel, how is the Union to be maintained? How is the empire to be saved from

dismemberment ? What security will remain for the institutions or property of Great Britain, when the Catholics. combine with the English Radicals?

Catholic Emancipation has brought the empire to the perilous position in which it is now placed on the Reform Question. The Catholic members carried the majority in the House of Commons: the Duke of Norfolk was the first peer who declared in the Upper House in its favour. The first return they have made for admission into the pale of the constitution, has been to combine with its enemies for its destruction. Such is the effect of a great concession to popular clamour.

The unanimous support which the Radicals have given to the bill, in every part of the country, is the clearest proof of its democratic tendency. Hunt and Hume, O'Connell and O'Gorman Mahon, the Times and the Examiner, are equally loud in its praise. These Radicals know well what will increase the influence of their own party they have an eagle's eye for discovering anything which has a tendency, however remote, to continue the hated power of the aristocracy. Can it be supposed that they would support the bill, unless it went to subvert the power of their enemies? Their boast, their glory is, that it will have this effect: "Let this bill be passed," says the Examiner, " and the settlement of the government upon a democratic basis is certain."

Where, says Lord Brougham, were the rotten boroughs in the days of Saxon liberty? How can it be called revolution, which only restores the constitution to the days of pristine liberty? Where, we ask in reply, was the democratic press in the days of Alfred? Where was the power of the people in the days of Magna Charta, when all that the nobles who obtained it thought proper to stipulate for the cultivators of the soil, was, that their plough-goods should not be distrained in seed-time? Where the weight of the commons, when their representatives in Parliament concluded their petition with, "for God's sake-and, as an act of mercy?" When the feudal nobility lived in rude magnificence in their castles, surrounded by their armed retainers-when the commons were few in number, ignorant, and dispirited-when the greatest city in the kingdom,

London excepted, did not contain twenty thousand soulswhen printing was unknown, and the daily press unborn, it might be perfectly safe to send writs to every borough as it rose to anything like eminence; though the same course would be highly perilous at this time, when the power of the people has so enormously increased, when a democratic press incessantly stimulates their ambition, and the change in the mode of warfare, consequent on the invention of firearms, has caused the sword to fall from the hands of the country nobility. An increase of borough representation was then required, to counterbalance the exorbitant power of the feudal nobility; an increase of the influence of the peers is now required, to counterbalance the turbulent vigour of the commons.

No change can be safely introduced in favour of popular power, except what is done by slow and imperceptible additions. Lord Brougham has, indeed, ridiculed all plans of "bit-by-bit" reformers; but a greater man than Lord Brougham has pronounced them to be the only safe and beneficial innovations. "Prudenter igitur faciunt homines," says Lord Bacon, "si in innovationibus suis a tempore exemplum petant: tempus enim innovat vel maxime sed tacite, pedetentim, ac sine sensu. Expedit præterea experimentis novis in corporibus politicis medendis, non uti, nisi urgens incumbat necessitas, aut evidens se ostendat utilitas ; et sedulo cavere ut reformationis studium mutationem inducat, non autem studium mutationis reformationem prætexat." *

The democratic tendency of the daily press, and its prodigious influence even on powerful minds, must be calculated upon as a fixed power in future in the constitution. Its operation will be always felt, except during those periods of excitement from foreign war, when the ordinary bent of the popular mind is for a time diverted. It arises partly from the extension of the power of reading and thinking on political subjects to the mass of the community, and partly

"They act wisely, who, in their innovations, follow the example of timewhich is indeed the greatest of all innovators; but is so step by step, silently and unperceived. It is of importance also to attempt no new experiments in the body politic, unless urgent necessity, or evident utility, recommend it: and, above all, to take care, that desire of reformation should induce the change, not the desire of change induce the reformation."-BACON, x. 66, De Innovationibus.

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