this House were composed; I cannot forget that the majority contained
almost all those gentlemen who are returned by large bodies of electors.
It is, I believe, no exaggeration to say, that there were single Members
of the majority who had more constituents than the whole minority put
together. I speak advisedly and seriously. I believe that the number of
freeholders of Yorkshire exceeds that of all the electors who return the
Opposition. I cannot with propriety comment here on any reports which
may have been circulated concerning the majority and minority in the
House of Lords. I may, however, mention these notoriously historical
facts; that during the last forty years the powers of the executive
Government have been, almost without intermission, exercised by a party
opposed to Reform; and that a very great number of Peers have been
created, and all the present Bishops raised to the bench during those
years. On this question, therefore, while I feel more than usual respect
for the judgment of the House of Commons, I feel less than usual respect
for the judgment of the House of Lords. Our decision is the decision of
the nation; the decision of their Lordships can scarcely be considered
as the decision even of that class from which the Peers are
generally selected, and of which they may be considered as virtual
representatives, the great landed gentlemen of England. It seems to me
clear, therefore, that we ought, notwithstanding what has passed in the
other House, to adhere to our opinion concerning the Reform Bill.
The next question is this; ought we to make a formal declaration that we
adhere to our opinion? I think that we ought to make such a declaration;
and I am sure that we cannot make it in more temperate or more
constitutional terms than those which my noble friend asks us to adopt.
I support the Resolution which he has proposed with all my heart and
soul: I support it as a friend to Reform; but I support it still more
as a friend to law, to property, to social order. No observant and
unprejudiced man can look forward without great alarm to the effects
which the recent decision of the Lords may possibly produce. I do not
predict, I do not expect, open, armed insurrection. What I apprehend
is this, that the people may engage in a silent, but extensive and
persevering war against the law. What I apprehend is, that England may
exhibit the same spectacle which Ireland exhibited three years ago,
agitators stronger than the magistrate, associations stronger than the
law, a Government powerful enough to be hated, and not powerful enough
to be feared, a people bent on indemnifying themselves by illegal
excesses for the want of legal privileges. I fear, that we may before
long see the tribunals defied, the tax-gatherer resisted, public credit
shaken, property insecure, the whole frame of society hastening to
dissolution. It is easy to say, "Be bold: be firm: defy intimidation:
let the law have its course: the law is strong enough to put down the
seditious." Sir, we have heard all this blustering before; and we know
in what it ended. It is the blustering of little men whose lot has
fallen on a great crisis. Xerxes scourging the winds, Canute commanding
the waves to recede from his footstool, were but types of the folly
of those who apply the maxims of the Quarter Sessions to the great
convulsions of society. The law has no eyes: the law has no hands:
the law is nothing, nothing but a piece of paper printed by the King's
printer, with the King's arms at the top, till public opinion breathes
the breath of life into the dead letter. We found this in Ireland. The
Catholic Association bearded the Government. The Government resolved
to put down the Association. An indictment was brought against my
honourable and learned friend, the Member for Kerry. The Grand Jury
threw it out. Parliament met. The Lords Commissioners came down with a
speech recommending the suppression of the self-constituted legislature
of Dublin. A bill was brought in: it passed both Houses by large
majorities: it received the Royal assent. And what effect did it
produce? Exactly as much as that old Act of Queen Elizabeth, still
unrepealed, by which it is provided that every man who, without a
special exemption, shall eat meat on Fridays and Saturdays, shall pay a
fine of twenty shillings or go to prison for a month. Not only was the
Association not destroyed: its power was not for one day suspended: it
flourished and waxed strong under the law which had been made for the
purpose of annihilating it. The elections of 1826, the Clare election
two years later, proved the folly of those who think that nations are
governed by wax and parchment: and, at length, in the close of 1828, the
Government had only one plain choice before it, concession or civil war.
Sir, I firmly believe that, if the people of England shall lose all hope
of carrying the Reform Bill by constitutional means, they will forthwith
begin to offer to the Government the same kind of resistance which
was offered to the late Government, three years ago, by the people of
Ireland, a resistance by no means amounting to rebellion, a resistance
rarely amounting to any crime defined by the law, but a resistance
nevertheless which is quite sufficient to obstruct the course of
justice, to disturb the pursuits of industry, and to prevent the
accumulation of wealth. And is not this a danger which we ought to fear?
And is not this a danger which we are bound, by all means in our power,
to avert? And who are those who taunt us for yielding to intimidation?
Who are those who affect to speak with contempt of associations, and
agitators, and public meetings? Even the very persons who, scarce two
years ago, gave up to associations, and agitators, and public meetings,
their boasted Protestant Constitution, proclaiming all the time that
they saw the evils of Catholic Emancipation as strongly as ever. Surely,
surely, the note of defiance which is now so loudly sounded in our ears,
proceeds with a peculiarly bad grace from men whose highest glory it
is that they abased themselves to the dust before a people whom their
policy had driven to madness, from men the proudest moment of whose
lives was that in which they appeared in the character of persecutors
scared into toleration. Do they mean to indemnify themselves for the
humiliation of quailing before the people of Ireland by trampling on the
people of England? If so, they deceive themselves. The case of Ireland,
though a strong one, was by no means so strong a case as that with which
we have now to deal. The Government, in its struggle with the Catholics
of Ireland, had Great Britain at its back. Whom will it have at its back
in the struggle with the Reformers of Great Britain? I know only two
ways in which societies can permanently be governed, by public opinion,
and by the sword. A Government having at its command the armies, the
fleets, and the revenues of Great Britain, might possibly hold Ireland
by the sword. So Oliver Cromwell held Ireland; so William the Third held
it; so Mr Pitt held it; so the Duke of Wellington might perhaps have
held it. But to govern Great Britain by the sword! So wild a thought has
never, I will venture to say, occurred to any public man of any party;
and, if any man were frantic enough to make the attempt, he would find,
before three days had expired, that there is no better sword than that
which is fashioned out of a ploughshare. But, if not by the sword, how
is the country to be governed? I understand how the peace is kept at New
York. It is by the assent and support of the people. I understand also
how the peace is kept at Milan. It is by the bayonets of the Austrian
soldiers. But how the peace is to be kept when you have neither the
popular assent nor the military force, how the peace is to be kept
in England by a Government acting on the principles of the present
Opposition, I do not understand.
There is in truth a great anomaly in the relation between the English
people and their Government. Our institutions are either too popular or
not popular enough. The people have not sufficient power in making the
laws; but they have quite sufficient power to impede the execution of
the laws when made. The Legislature is almost entirely aristocratical;
the machinery by which the degrees of the Legislature are carried into
effect is almost entirely popular; and, therefore, we constantly see
all the power which ought to execute the law, employed to counteract the
law. Thus, for example, with a criminal code which carries its rigour
to the length of atrocity, we have a criminal judicature which often
carries its lenity to the length of perjury. Our law of libel is the
most absurdly severe that ever existed, so absurdly severe that, if it
were carried into full effect, it would be much more oppressive than
a censorship. And yet, with this severe law of libel, we have a
press which practically is as free as the air. In 1819 the Ministers
complained of the alarming increase of seditious and blasphemous
publications. They proposed a bill of great rigour to stop the growth
of the evil; and they carried their bill. It was enacted, that the
publisher of a seditious libel might, on a second conviction, be
banished, and that if he should return from banishment, he might be
transported. How often was this law put in force? Not once. Last year we
repealed it: but it was already dead, or rather it was dead born. It
was obsolete before Le Roi le veut had been pronounced over it. For any
effect which it produced it might as well have been in the Code Napoleon
as in the English Statute Book. And why did the Government, having
solicited and procured so sharp and weighty a weapon, straightway hang
it up to rust? Was there less sedition, were there fewer libels, after
the passing of the Act than before it? Sir, the very next year was the
year 1820, the year of the Bill of Pains and Penalties against Queen
Caroline, the very year when the public mind was most excited, the very
year when the public press was most scurrilous. Why then did not the
Ministers use their new law? Because they durst not: because they could
not. They had obtained it with ease; for in obtaining it they had to
deal with a subservient Parliament. They could not execute it: for in
executing it they would have to deal with a refractory people. These
are instances of the difficulty of carrying the law into effect when the
people are inclined to thwart their rulers. The great anomaly, or, to
speak more properly, the great evil which I have described, would,
I believe, be removed by the Reform Bill. That bill would establish
harmony between the people and the Legislature. It would give a fair
share in the making of laws to those without whose co-operation laws are
mere waste paper. Under a reformed system we should not see, as we now
often see, the nation repealing Acts of Parliament as fast as we and
the Lords can pass them. As I believe that the Reform Bill would produce
this blessed and salutary concord, so I fear that the rejection of
the Reform Bill, if that rejection should be considered as final, will
aggravate the evil which I have been describing to an unprecedented,
to a terrible extent. To all the laws which might be passed for the
collection of the revenue, or for the prevention of sedition, the people
would oppose the same kind of resistance by means of which they have
succeeded in mitigating, I might say in abrogating, the law of libel.
There would be so many offenders that the Government would scarcely know
at whom to aim its blow. Every offender would have so many accomplices
and protectors that the blow would almost always miss the aim. The Veto
of the people, a Veto not pronounced in set form like that of the Roman
Tribunes, but quite as effectual as that of the Roman Tribunes for the
purpose of impeding public measures, would meet the Government at every
turn. The administration would be unable to preserve order at home, or
to uphold the national honour abroad; and, at length, men who are now
moderate, who now think of revolution with horror, would begin to wish
that the lingering agony of the State might be terminated by one fierce,
sharp, decisive crisis.
Is there a way of escape from these calamities? I believe that there
is. I believe that, if we do our duty, if we give the people reason to
believe that the accomplishment of their wishes is only deferred, if
we declare our undiminished attachment to the Reform Bill, and our
resolution to support no Minister who will not support that bill, we
shall avert the fearful disasters which impend over the country. There
is danger that, at this conjuncture, men of more zeal than wisdom may
obtain a fatal influence over the public mind. With these men will be
joined others, who have neither zeal nor wisdom, common barrators in
politics, dregs of society which, in times of violent agitation, are
tossed up from the bottom to the top, and which, in quiet times, sink
again from the top to their natural place at the bottom. To these men
nothing is so hateful as the prospect of a reconciliation between the
orders of the State. A crisis like that which now makes every honest
citizen sad and anxious fills these men with joy, and with a detestable
hope. And how is it that such men, formed by nature and education to be
objects of mere contempt, can ever inspire terror? How is it that such
men, without talents or acquirements sufficient for the management of a
vestry, sometimes become dangerous to great empires? The secret of their
power lies in the indolence or faithlessness of those who ought to take
the lead in the redress of public grievances. The whole history of low
traders in sedition is contained in that fine old Hebrew fable which we
have all read in the Book of Judges. The trees meet to choose a king.
The vine, and the fig tree, and the olive tree decline the office. Then
it is that the sovereignty of the forest devolves upon the bramble:
then it is that from a base and noxious shrub goes forth the fire which
devours the cedars of Lebanon. Let us be instructed. If we are afraid
of political Unions and Reform Associations, let the House of Commons
become the chief point of political union: let the House of Commons
be the great Reform Association. If we are afraid that the people may
attempt to accomplish their wishes by unlawful means, let us give them
a solemn pledge that we will use in their cause all our high and ancient
privileges, so often victorious in old conflicts with tyranny; those
privileges which our ancestors invoked, not in vain, on the day when a
faithless king filled our house with his guards, took his seat, Sir, on
your chair, and saw your predecessor kneeling on the floor before
him. The Constitution of England, thank God, is not one of those
constitutions which are past all repair, and which must, for the public
welfare, be utterly destroyed. It has a decayed part; but it has also
a sound and precious part. It requires purification; but it contains
within itself the means by which that purification may be effected.
We read that in old times, when the villeins were driven to revolt by
oppression, when the castles of the nobility were burned to the ground,
when the warehouses of London were pillaged, when a hundred thousand
insurgents appeared in arms on Blackheath, when a foul murder
perpetrated in their presence had raised their passions to madness, when
they were looking round for some captain to succeed and avenge him whom
they had lost, just then, before Hob Miller, or Tom Carter, or Jack
Straw, could place himself at their head, the King rode up to them and
exclaimed, "I will be your leader!" and at once the infuriated multitude
laid down their arms, submitted to his guidance, dispersed at his
command. Herein let us imitate him. Our countrymen are, I fear, at
this moment, but too much disposed to lend a credulous ear to selfish
impostors. Let us say to them, "We are your leaders; we, your own house
of Commons; we, the constitutional interpreters of your wishes; the
knights of forty English shires, the citizens and burgesses of all your
largest towns. Our lawful power shall be firmly exerted to the utmost
in your cause; and our lawful power is such, that when firmly exerted in
your cause, it must finally prevail." This tone it is our interest and
our duty to take. The circumstances admit of no delay. Is there one
among us who is not looking with breathless anxiety for the next tidings
which may arrive from the remote parts of the kingdom? Even while I
speak, the moments are passing away, the irrevocable moments pregnant
with the destiny of a great people. The country is in danger: it may be
saved: we can save it: this is the way: this is the time. In our hands
are the issues of great good and great evil, the issues of the life and
death of the State. May the result of our deliberations be the repose
and prosperity of that noble country which is entitled to all our love;
and for the safety of which we are answerable to our own consciences, to
the memory of future ages, to the Judge of all hearts!
*****
PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. (DECEMBER 16, 1831) A SPEECH DELIVERED IN THE
HOUSE OF COMMONS ON THE 16TH OF DECEMBER 1831.
On Friday, the sixteenth of December 1831, Lord Althorpe moved the
second reading of the Bill to amend the representation of the people in
England and Wales. Lord Porchester moved, as an amendment, that the bill
should be read a second time that day six months. The debate lasted till
after midnight, and was then adjourned till twelve at noon. The House
did not divide till one on the Sunday morning. The amendment was then
rejected by 324 votes to 162; and the original motion was carried. The
following Speech was made on the first night of the debate.
I can assure my noble friend (Lord Mahon.), for whom I entertain
sentiments of respect and kindness which no political difference will,
I trust, ever disturb, that his remarks have given me no pain, except,
indeed, the pain which I feel at being compelled to say a few words
about myself. Those words shall be very few. I know how unpopular
egotism is in this House. My noble friend says that, in the debates of
last March, I declared myself opposed to the ballot, and that I have
since recanted, for the purpose of making myself popular with the
inhabitants of Leeds. My noble friend is altogether mistaken. I never
said, in any debate, that I was opposed to the ballot. The word ballot
never passed my lips within this House. I observed strict silence
respecting it on two accounts; in the first place, because my own
opinions were, till very lately, undecided; in the second place, because
I knew that the agitation of that question, a question of which the
importance appears to me to be greatly overrated, would divide those on
whose firm and cordial union the safety of the empire depends. My noble
friend has taken this opportunity of replying to a speech which I made
last October. The doctrines which I then laid down were, according to
him, most intemperate and dangerous. Now, Sir, it happens, curiously
enough, that my noble friend has himself asserted, in his speech of this
night, those very doctrines, in language so nearly resembling mine that
I might fairly accuse him of plagiarism. I said that laws have no force
in themselves, and that, unless supported by public opinion, they are
a mere dead letter. The noble Lord has said exactly the same thing
to-night. "Keep your old Constitution," he exclaims; "for, whatever may
be its defects in theory, it has more of the public veneration than your
new Constitution will have; and no laws can be efficient, unless they
have the public veneration." I said, that statutes are in themselves
only wax and parchment; and I was called an incendiary by the
opposition. The noble Lord has said to-night that statutes in themselves
are only ink and parchment; and those very persons who reviled me have
enthusiastically cheered him. I am quite at a loss to understand how
doctrines which are, in his mouth, true and constitutional, can, in
mine, be false and revolutionary.