=Source.=--_Lord Macaulay's Speeches_, 1854.
Sir, the public feeling concerning reform is of no such recent
origin, and springs from no such frivolous causes. Its first faint
commencement may be traced far, very far, back in our history.
During seventy years that feeling has had a great influence on the
public mind. Through the first thirty years of the reign of George
the Third, it was gradually increasing. The great leaders of the
two parties in the state were favourable to reform. Plans of reform
were supported by large and most respectable minorities in the
House of Commons. The French Revolution, filling the higher and
middle classes with an extreme dread of change, and the war calling
away the public attention from internal to external politics, threw
the question back; but the people never lost sight of it. Peace
came, and they were at leisure to think of domestic improvements.
Distress came, and they suspected, as was natural, that their
distress was the effect of unfaithful stewardship and unskilful
legislation. An opinion favourable to parliamentary reform grew
up rapidly, and became strong among the middle classes. But one
tie, one strong tie, still bound those classes to the Tory party.
I mean the Catholic question. It is impossible to deny that, on
that subject, a large proportion, a majority, I fear, of the middle
class of Englishmen, conscientiously held opinions opposed to those
which I have always entertained, and were disposed to sacrifice
every other consideration to what they regarded as a religious
duty. Thus the Catholic question hid, so to speak, the question of
parliamentary reform. The feeling in favour of parliamentary reform
grew, but it grew in the shade. Every man, I think, must have
observed the progress of that feeling in his own social circle.
But few reform meetings were held, and few petitions in favour of
reform presented. At length the Catholics were emancipated; the
solitary link of sympathy which attached the people to the Tories
was broken; the cry of "No popery" could no longer be opposed to
the cry of "Reform." That which, in the opinion of the two great
parties in parliament, and of a vast portion of the community, had
been the first question, suddenly disappeared; and the question of
parliamentary reform took the first place. Then was put forth all
the strength which had been growing in silence and obscurity. Then
it appeared that reform had on its side a coalition of interests
and opinions unprecedented in our history, all the liberality and
intelligence which had supported the Catholic claims, and all the
clamour which had opposed them.