ments of their opponents, even under the present constitution of the House of Commons: what would they do if forty were withdrawn from their ranks, and added to those of their enemies?

When we use the word aristocracy, we mean the possessors of property, the higher classes generally, and not the titled proprietors in particular. In this sense, it includes all those whose expenditure and influence vivifies and directs the remainder of society.

No argument can be more unfounded than that which contends, that because the peers have a separate house of their own, therefore they should be excluded from any share in the commons, and that that branch of the Legislature should be yielded up entirely to the popular representatives. Whatever the theory of the constitution may have been, its working, as Delolme long ago observed, is, that the three powers balance themselves in the House of Commons. It is there that the real struggle is sought, and the equipoise of the constitution maintained. Nothing could be more discordant to society, more dangerous in its consequences, than to see the House of Peers and the House of Commons arrayed in open contest with each other the one urging the ambition of the populace, the other actuated by the tenacity of the aristocracy. The example of France proves, that such a contest could not go on, without the peace of the state being endangered, and blood flowing from the collision of such opposing bodies. But if the peers are to be deprived of all influence in returning members for the lower house, how is such a collision to be prevented? If the House of Commons is composed of mere popular representatives, the aristocracy must either resign the struggle, or defend themselves within the precincts of their own branch of the legislature. And thus, on all the numerous questions in which the interests of the different classes of society run counter to each other-in the corn laws, the regulations of trade, the church tithes, &c., the indecent and ruinous spectacle would be presented of one branch of the legislature arrayed in open hostility against the other. All

this is prevented at present, by the unobtrusive and unnoticed contests between these different classes which go on in the House of Commons; and of this immense advantage we should be deprived, if reform were carried.

Farther, the supporters of reform forget that the peers are disqualified for such a contest by the important circumstance, that, by immemorial custom, they are excluded from the management of the public purse; and, consequently, do not possess the means of maintaining their ground against their adversaries. It is quite evident, that a body, possessing the exclusive control of a revenue of L.50,000,000, would speedily annihi late one that could reckon on nothing but the revenue of their private estates. Without supposing that they actually came to blows, the influence and ascendency of the Commons, from this circumstance, would be paramount. In all societies of men, those who keep the purse speedily become the ruling power.

Are, then, the reformers prepared to concede to the House of Peers an equal share with the Commons, in originating, modifying, or negativing money bills?. Are they willing to have a Chancellor of Exchequer in the House of Lords, whose jurisdiction and powers are to be coextensive with those of the same office in the House of Commons? And on what principle of justice can this be denied to the aristocracy, if they are to be deprived of the boroughs which alone permit them to be represented in the money assembly of the lower house? At present they are represented, because the members returned from their boroughs attend to their interests in the matter of taxation: but if they are deprived of their members, who is to attend to their interests? Certainly it will not be the members for the great cities, for they will be instructed by their constituents to lay as large a portion of taxation as possible on the nobility. Certainly it will not be the county members, for they will be sufficiently burdened with the maintenance of the interests of the commoner proprietors, without adopting those of the other branch of the Legislature. Certainly it will not be the tribunes of the

people, for they will be incessantly waging war with the aristocracy. Thus the result will be, that the greatest mass of property in the country must remain unrepresented in an assembly, disposing, with absolute sway, of the powers of taxation, and professing to represent all the great interests in the community.

The aristocracy, say the reformers, return a large proportion of the House of Commons. This is the eternal theme of complaint; and such a state of things is said to be an entire perversion of the object of the popular branch of the legislature. Unquestionably they do, and unquestionably they ought ever so to do. The greatest proprietors in the country ought to return the largest part of the representatives who are to dispose of the money concerns of the whole community.

The objection is founded entirely on the sound of words. It is inconsistent with freedom, say the reformers, that the peers should return any considerable number of members in the House of Commons. Call the House of Commons " the Finance Committee of the Nation," which it really is in the matter which we are now discussing; and the futility of the objection is at once apparent. Can any thing be more reasonable, than that the persons who have the greatest interests at stake, should have the principal voice in the management of the common purse?

Suppose an objection were made to the proceedings of a copartnery, or a body of creditors on a bankrupt estate, upon the ground that the greatest partners, or the largest creditors, had contrived to get a preponderating influence in the management of the common stock; would such an objection be tenable? Does not the law of every country, the practice of every copartnery, the common sense of mankind, demonstrate that such a result is indispensable for the common good? And what else is it that is so much complained of in the influence of peers in the House of Commons?

But property, it is urged, would still have its weight, even under the reformed system: its influence can

Lacret:lle, vii. 124.

never be destroyed: what is desired, is not to deprive it of its just preponderance, but of the undue ascendency which it has acquired.

The private, or, as they are called, the rotten boroughs, are the channel by which this influence is now exercised, and it is this channel which it is proposed to stop up. If it be removed, in what way is the influence of property to be felt, except by bribing the electors? It is quite clear there is no other means of attaining the object: for experience has demonstrated, that when the elective franchise is generally thrown open, the lower orders become inaccessible to any other influence from the higher. In America, under the system of universal suffrage and vote by ballot, men of the greatest fortunes cannot command a single vote; their own menial servants vote against them. In France, upon the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly in 1791, the experiment was tried on a great scale, of the effect of universal suffrage; and the consequence was, that not one member was returned in the interest of the crown or the nobility. "The influence of the aristocracy," says Lacretelle, "was totally sunk in the Legislative Assembly; not one deputy was returned either in their interest, or that of the throne."* In so far, therefore, as experience goes, there is no reason to believe that wealth would possess any influence upon elections, if the elective franchise were considerably extended, except through the medium of actual corruption.

Bribery, it is said, is the immoral influence of wealth. Its genuine and legitimate influence is independent of such base expedients, and will remain the same under any, even the most liberal, system of government.† The argument is plausible, and has been ably put; but its sophistry is apparent upon attending to a wellknown distinction.

Great possessions in the country, and among the rural population, unquestionably secure a certain degree of influence, if the landlords are resident among their tenantry, and conduct themselves with an ordinary degree of humanity towards the poor.

If England were composed, as it once was, of such a peasantry, there would be comparatively little danger in reform. But the case is widely different with the manufacturers in towns, or with the manufacturing population in country villages. They have no sympathy with their employersthey are bound to them by no ties of affection-swayed by no feelings of common advantage. The landlord generally knows his tenantry, and the connexion between them descends from father to son: the master manufacturer knows nothing of his operatives, and his employment of them is often as transient as their affections. History, in every age, has recorded examples of the country proprietors taking the field, supported by their tenantry; but it has none to produce of manufacturers appearing, backed by their workmen, except in support of revolutionary projects. Santerre, and the great manufacturers of the Fauxbourg St Antoine, came forth at the head of their terrific bands of pikemen, to besiege the National Convention, and attend the cars that led the victims from the prisons to the guillotine: but on none but such occasions have the manufacturing classes been in the least swayed by their employers.

It is impossible it should ever be otherwise. Large bodies of men, when assembled together, are always governed by their passions: the manufacturers, from being permanently put in close contact with each other, are everlastingly in the condition of a mob. Attachment to their superiors or employers they have none; jealousy and animosity towards them they have in abundance. The radical press rapidly circulates through their dense columns, incessantly stimulating their passions, and urging them to measures of hostility to the higher classes in the state. It is in vain to say, their interests will teach them to act otherwise. Interest and the deductions of reason have no influence when the passions are excited. It had none at Paris, though the first effect of the glorious three days was to steep the artisans who gained them in unheard of misery: it had none at Brussels, though the Flemings were immediately reduced to the most squalid wretchedness: it had none in Ireland, though the con

tinued agitation of that unhappy country blasts its inhabitants with a desolation worse than the simoom of the desert.

Indeed, if the matter be considered abstractly, there seems no reason to doubt that this always must be the case with representatives chosen by the great body of the people. There is a natural jealousy in the middling orders of their superiors; an aversion which is so nearly allied to noble and independent feeling, that it is impossible either to wonder at or blame it. It will subsist as long as the human race. It was as strong in the days of Gracchus and Marius as at this time. It will be found admirably stated in the speech of Marius in the Jugurthine war. Declamations against the vices of the nobility; invectives at patrician corruption; extravagant eulogiums on plebeian virtue, always have, and always will be, the most popular topics with the middling and lower ranks. It consoles them for the inequality of fortune, to have the pleasure, at least, of abusing those who are above them.

Nothing can demonstrate the prevalence of this feeling so strongly in the people in this country, as the character of the journals which have the largest circulation among the middling ranks. Read the papers which are most in request with that numerous body. Are they the moderate or aristocratic papers, those which support the Constitution as it stands, and throw cold water on the sanguine anticipations of the reformers? These journals are universally abandoned, and the whole columns of the popular newspapers filled with invectives against the higher orders. This disposition, being a fixed principle in human nature, may be calculated upon with perfect certainty, as one of the moving powers in society. in society. Every plan of reform must be founded on this, as an inherent principle in the machine.

But if this be the case even at this time, how much more strongly would the same principle operate, if reform were carried, and the ambition of the lower orders continually excited by exercise of their franchise! The abuse of the higher orders in the London press is already sufficiently strong, but it is nothing to what would ensue if reform were carried. This is the usual

cause we have not the real grievances to complain of which weighed down the French peasantry prior to the first revolution. He is but a novice in history who imagines that real grievances have much influence in producing revolutions. It is not experienced evil which excites the passions, but anticipated power. In no part of the world is oppression so severe as in Turkey; but in none is a revolution less likely in none is it felt so little as in England, but in none is the revolutionary spirit in a certain class more powerful. France had not, for centuries, enjoyed such general prosperity as from 1815 to 1830; but the government under which all these advantages had been experienced, was annihilated, with out any practical evil being felt, the moment it attempted to invade the influence of the people.

The state into which society has grown in Great Britain, in consequence of the immense extent of our manufacturing establishments, renders our population in a peculiar manner open to the seduction of revolutionary principles. Hundreds of thousands of men are assembled within a narrow compass, incessantly kept in communication with each other, and fed by the intemperate discussions of the public press. When they are told that all their distress is owing to the borough-mongers-that justice, equality, and universal prosperity, would immediately follow reform-that the public burdens would be instantly reduced by a popular parliament, is it surprising, if they imbibe revolutionary principles, and become ripe for any convulsion? In England, property is more unequally divided than in any other country in the world: 1,800,000 persons are stated by Colquhoun to be vagrants and paupers, while the great bulk of the national property is in the hand of a comparatively small number of individuals. The land is almost entirely engrossed by a few hundred great proprietors, and the labourers have seldom any fixed interest in the soil. This is a most dangerous state of society; at least as likely to lead to a convulsion as the old régime in France.

But if the condition of a large portion of the people renders the spread of revolutionary principles unavoid

able, the state of another affords the best security against their excesses. All that is necessary, is to rouse this great but inert mass into action. The higher and more enlightened classes possess a vigour and determination, a habit of acting for themselves, and combining for the public security, which do not belong to the aristocracy of any other country. The moment property is endangered, the most respectable part of the middling ranks will join them. The most unthinking must perceive, that if the property of the freeholders is menaced, (and reform, notwithstanding all the efforts of Ministry, would speedily lead to that,) public credit is gone: that every bank in the island would break-every man's creditors be instantly brought upon him, and universal bankruptcy deprive the lower orders of their only means of subsistence. The only danger consists in this powerful body being disunited: in timidity paralysing their ranks, and division of opinion rendering them incapable of any exertions for the common cause. Now, therefore, is the time: this is the moment to come forward, and steadily resist all those projects which, commencing with reform, would terminate with revolution. As yet, they are the ruling party; a powerful demonstration of strength, a triumphant vote in Parliament, would at once dispel the danger: if they are absent from their posts, or disunited, all the efforts of patriotism may hereafter be unable to avert unheard of public calamities.

It is worthy of especial consideration, what would be the consequence of any sudden accession, however small, to the influence of the popular party in the House of Commons. If twenty boroughs, now in the hands of the aristocracy, are disfranchised, and the representations given to twenty considerable unrepresented towns, there will be forty votes added to the popular, and forty subtracted from the aristocratic side. This, of itself, is sufficient to overturn the constitution. No one can doubt, that the whole, or nearly the whole, members returned by these great towns would be on the popular side. Every one knows with what difficulty the aristocracy maintain their ground against the encroach