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to pass whatever laws it pleases; and, With regard to this bill of BARING'S, according to Mr. PLACE, the House has the real tendency of it is to enable the a right to pass a law, not only to shut, powerful and the opulent to shut out or turn, poor men out of Parliament; of the House of Commons any man but it has a right to pass a law to make offensive to them, who is not very rich, the qualification ten thousand or twenty or who has not great riches at his com→ thousand pounds a year in freehold mand. The very fittest men to be land; it has a right to pass a law to members of the House of Commons are prevent any man from being a member persons in trade. Such persons, and of a reformed Parliament, until he has taken an oath to maintain tithes and STURGES BOURNE'S Bills, and to do anything else that this rotten-borough Parliament shall dictate.

even professional men, barristers, and attorneys, and doctors, may, from some cause not arising from any fault or folly of their own, be unable to answer all the pecuniary demands upon them. So much for Mr. PLACE's doctrine There is scarcely any man who is enabout the right of Parliament; which gaged in extensive business, and who, doctrine, observe, would sanction an act if called upon on a sudden to pay every passed by this Parliament to make its debt that he owes, though he might be sittings perpetual; and if this bill of worth fifty shillings in the pound, might BARING pass and become a law, mark not have a judgment issued against him, my words, that this Parliament will not and thus be taken from the service of be dissolved for a pretty long time to the people. Observe, too, how easy it come; and that this is only one of a would be for the powerful and the rich series of measures for counteracting and to combine for such a purpose, if it were nullifying the effects of the Reform Bill. a formidable man that they wished to I trust that when Mr. PLACE has had get rid of. They would have nothing time for reflection, he will think and to do but to find out and bribe his say differently on this subject; if he do principal creditors. A squib at an not, I shall know what to think and say election; a libel real or pretended; the of Mr. PLACE, whom, in the mean time, venue laid so as to have a special jury "I take the liberty to beg to be assured, consisting of county magistrates, might that all the trickery that ever was con- souse a man of moderate fortune in tained in all the budgets of WHITEHALL damages, such as he would be unable is no longer capable of subjecting the instantly to pay; the next term issues people of England to a Government of forth the judgment against him, and in RUMPS, though partly consisting of a few weeks he exchanges his seat in moral majors, and "reverend " Unitarian the House of Commons for a jail, and parsons. I do not like your majoring corruption is ridded of her plague! And and colonelling and reverend patriots; this is what Mr. FRANCIS PLACE calls unless they distinctly disclaim receiving "insuring the moral honesty of memany money from anybody on account of" bers, as the best guarantee for their their glorious, or pious calling. As" political integrity !" Dame Quickly says of Swagger, “ I am But, BARING, quitting this PLACE, let the worse when one says major or reverend;" and I looked at this Union with great suspicion, when I saw that it was fitted out with soldiers and priests. The report states, that a man called Major REVEL said, that in the United States, there was a law like this. I deny this I assert, there is no such law in that country; that there is no qualification and no disqualification, in respect to any members of the legislature, including the President himself.

me now turn to you a bit, and ask you, in the first place, how this great anxiety for the "dignity and independence of the House of Commons" happened to pop into your head just at this time; happened to pop into your head just after a law had been passed to drive a hundred and fifty of mere nominees out of the House? I suppose it came into your head the moment you became the Duke's Chancellor of the Exchequer the other day. You have been, I think, about twenty years

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Young GEORGE ROSE, during the last

a member of the honourable set; you | saw a man, who was in the King's debate upon the Reform Bill, expressed Bench for debt, and who, while there, was elected for a rotten borough, taken out of prison upon the motion of old GEORGE ROSE, of Treasury notoriety; and you saw the honourable member swagger about at large, and laugh at his creditors. You have witnessed innumerable instances of this description, or very nearly approaching to it: you have seen scores of men who have been members of the House for years together, and who never possessed anything on which a sheriff or his officer could lay his hands: in short, you have seen the House a sort of an asylum for men who could not, or would not, pay their debts and now, when the nominees are about to be sent adrift, when the people are about to be permitted to enjoy part of their rights to choose representatives, you discover, all at once, that it is absolutely necessary to pass a most vigorous nieasure for upholding the " dignity and independence of the House!"

BARING, listen to me a bit. Is not this country in a most deplorable state; are you not at your wit's-end what to do with it; was not the whole thing within eight-and-forty hours of being overturned in the year 1825, and was it not within twenty-four hours the week before last? And, BARING, have not men of rank and of landed qualification brought the concern into this state? And, while they have been managing our concern in this manner, have not the Congress of America, the members of which have no rank and no pecuniary qualification whatever, carried that country to a point of prosperity and greatness which have astonished the world? Are not the members of that Congress generally poor men; and have not two of the Presidents out of the seven died insolvent; and were they not insolvent at the time of their being chosen? If all these questions be answered in the affirmative, and every one of them must, upon what ground is a bill like this to be justified, even supposing the present House competent to pass it?

his fears, from what he had seen in America, that the Reform Bill would cause poor men instead of rich men to be elected; and he told a story about a very rich man in PHILADELPHIA, who had been beaten by a stable-keeper. GEORGE was right as to the fact, but wrong as to the time. The time was when I was in PHILADELPHIA; and, it is truly curious that your father-in-law, the OLD ORIGINAL BINGHAM, was the very rich man, and Mr. ISRAEL ISRAEL was the stable-keeper. ISRAEL beat the very rich OLD ORIGINAL by, I think it was, more than two hundred to one. ISRAEL was a man of good sense, very great public spirit, generally known and respected, and everybody knew that he had not sprung up from being supercargo of a privateer, and that he had not amassed wealth by jobbing in loans, and by getting two or three hundred per cent. by dealing in the poor soldiers' certificates. The people, therefore, chose the poor man in preference to the rich man; this is what they have always done since the establishment of their government; and this is the great cause of their prosperity and their happiness.

But, BARING, is there nothing besides poverty that ought to exclude a man from a seat in Parliament or to turn him out of it? Does Mr. PLACE'S "moral honesty and political integrity," demand nothing more than the mere possession of money? Is the mere fact of possession to be considered as a proof of the right to possess ? If this be the case, then, where is the constable that will dare to take a bag of stolen gold from a thief? Let your bill be so amended, BARING, as to insure a strict inquiry into the source of the rich meniber's wealth; and then I assent to it with all my heart. What! you startle, do you? Well, then, I will drop that matter for the present, hereby pledging myself to the people, that, if I be chosen a member of Parliament, I will endeavour to cause such inquiry; aye, and to cause restitution, too, if, in any case, it shall be found to be just!

under the passing of this bill, and support the Whig Ministry afterwards, every man of sense will regard them as forming part of the Whig faction, and will look at all their acts with great, suspicion accordingly.

Encore un coup, as the French preach-UNION. Will the Whigs prevent this ers say. BARING, worthy son-in-law of bill from passing? We know that they the old original BINGHAM, it seems to me have the power; and if they do not do that you have wholly overlooked one it, that is a stupid or a base man who thing; namely, that if clear pecuniary does not regard them as having a desire possessions; if such a total absence of to do every thing they can to counteract poverty; if these be so necessary to and nullify the Reform Bill; and if the uphold the dignity and independence of BIRMINGHAM UNION continue silent. the House of Commons, they must be ten times more necessary to uphold the dignity and independence of the House of Lords!!! Whether any of their Lordships be in a state of insolvency; whether all of them be, at all times, ready to pay every farthing that they The bill is hastening along! The owe; whether their privilege is of no people should petition against it immesort of use to them against the pursuit diately, and particularly the people in of creditors; how these matters may be, the metropolitan boroughs and the great I cannot pretend to say, never having, I towns. I call upon the people of Finsthank God, had any accounts with them. bury, of Marylebone, of the ToWER But, BARING, while I see swarms of HAMLETS, of the city and liberties of their mothers, their wives, their chil- WESTMINSTER, of LAMBETH, of GREENdren, their brothers and sisters, their WICH, of SOUTHWARK, and of every uncles, aunts, and cousins, upon what great town in the North, especially that honest man, Lord ALTHORP calls those which are to be enfranchised, to the "list of charity;" while I behold petition immediately against this bill, this, common humanity compels me to the manifest tendency of which is to believe, that some at least of their Lord- shut out, or turn out, the greater part ships have no very great deal of that of those very men whom they ought to sort of substance which is tangible to choose. If the Council of BIRMINGHAMthe paw of a sheriff or his officer. At will not move in this work, I call upon any rate every one must see that it is the people of BIRMINGHAM, and partipossible, that some of them may fall into cularly the young men of BIRMINGHAM, this state; and, notwithstanding the to move themselves: let them once get wonderful ability which you have dis- together, and they will soon find that played, in proving that it was perfectly they want no little king in Council to honouring in you to assist the King" lead them by the nose. I call upon the in carrying through a Reform Bill, which good fellows of DUDLEY, of BILSTON, you had, a hundred times over, declared of WOLVERHAMPTON, and of WALSALL, to be "a revolutionary measure, striking to raise their voices, and to raise those at the very "root of the monarchy; hard, smuggy, and honest hands, by notwithstanding the possession of this which they contribute so largely to the wonderful ability, and another quality, wealth and power of the kingdom; I in which you certainly surpass all the call upon them all to come forth and rest of mankind, I defy you, though as- protest against this insidious bill, which sisted by FRANCIS PLACE, of CHARING-I believe to be the first of a series of CROSS, to show any one reason for bills intended to render the Reform Bill passing this bill, relative to the House not worth a straw. of Commons, which will not equally Lest any one should imagine` that well apply to a proposition for a similar I have here been pleading on my own bill, relative to the House of Lords. account, I will observe, that this bill, if passed into a law, will have no possible effect with regard to me. I deem my security against insolvency full as great, at the least, as that of this BARING him

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And, now, BARING, I have done with you for the present; but I have just a word or two to say to the Whig Ministry and to the COUNCIL of the BIRMINGHAM

self. Nor have I at present my eye upon us; or, in other words, to our upon any man, whom I should like to earnings being taken away from us, and have to assist me, who is at all likely given to those who give us nothing, ever to be exposed to the shutting out, and who render us no service in return. or the turning out, which is contem- When a man is robbed by a highwayplated by this bill. I plead for the man or a housebreaker, he clearly sees, right of the people to avail themselves that the property taken from him is of the talents that they may deem valu- a clear loss; and, my friends, no matter able, though those talents may be ac-how the fruits of our industry be taken companied with the absence of wealth from us; no matter as to the manner of and the want of money. If the people bestir themselves in time,fthis joint blow of BARING and of FRANCIS PLACE will fail; it will he beaten off at once; but I trust that we shall not be so ungrateful as not to take the will for the deed. WM. COBBETT.

TO THE ELECTORS

UNDER

THE REFORM BILL. On the Caution which they will now have to exercise, and on the Duties which they will have to perform.

MY FRIENDS,

Kensington, 1st June, 1832.

Owing to our own exertions, and to nothing else, we shall now have this REFORM BILL; and it becomes us now to consider what use we shall make of it; for the mere name of reform will do us

doing this; no matter by whom the act of taking away is performed, the effect is the same; the thing taken away is a clear loss, if there be not something given, or something done in return. This, then, is what we complain of. Our grievances are not fanciful and theoretical, but real and practical. We complain that our earnings are unjustly taken from us; and we always have ascribed, and now do ascribe, this to our not being represented in Parliament; to our having been robbed of the right of choosing those who impose taxes, and who dispose of the money taken from us in taxes. This has been and is our grievance.

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The Reform Bill, to redress this grievance completely, ought to secure the right of voting to every man of sane mind, and unstained by infamous crime ; but, for harmony's sake, we have, as the Manchester meeting in their address to the King say, agreed to try "the effect of a more limited suffrage, no good at all. I trust that we shall" and, for the present, to forego a part now cease to be amused with shadows," of this our undoubted right." But, and that we shall be satisfied with my friends, in order that this Reforin nothing but the substance. We want Bill may be of real use to us; in order the reform, and we have always wanted that it may be the means of removing it, to make us better off than we have our poverty and misery, and delivering been, and than we are. Our earnings our country from this mass of crime and have been taken away from us unjustly; disgrace, we must take care to choose we have been made poor and miserable trusty and able men to represent us; and by this; the most unfortunate of us we must take care not to be cheated by have been reduced to take, by force or intriguers, who, under the garb of paby stealth, the goods of our neighbours, triotism, will endeavour to make us the or to starve; new jails, new poor- tools of one or the other of the factions, houses, new mad-houses, fill and dis-and thus expose us to be plundered as grace our country; offences against the law have increased a hundredfold; those who have property dare not go to sleep, lest they should have it taken from them, or have it destroyed. We ascribe these evils to the burdens laid

mercilessly as we have been heretofore.

I have to address you, FIRST, on the recent proceedings relative to the Reform Bill; SECOND, on the arts which will be made use of to cheat us out of all the good that a reform ought to

produce us; THIRD, on the measures every shape and degree to the last hour which we want to have adopted; and of his life; and this is the case with FOURTH, on the sort of men who ought BROUGHAM, Lord JOHN RUSSELL, Lord to be chosen, and on the pledges which ALTHORP, little HOBHOUSE, and some they ought to give before they be of the rest of them. chosen.

How, then, can you believe that these men were ever sincere in their wishes

I. On the recent Proceedings relative to for a real reform of the Parliament?

the Reform Bill.

than any of the rest, until the present Reform Bill was brought in; that, in the year 1830, including the month of December 1829, I went in person into three-fourths of the counties of England, and delivered lectures, urging the people to demand a reform of the Parliament; that, when the Parliament met in the month of October 1830, the demand for reform was general throughout the country; that the Duke of WELLING= TON, who was then Prime Minister, declared in the most positive and most insolent manner, that there should be

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The facts are these: that the cause of On the conduct of the Lords, of the parliamentary reform had been a great King, of the Ministers and their sup- cause in ENGLAND from about the year porters, of WELLINGTON and his sup- 1770; that the late MAJOR CARTWRIGHT porters; of all these you have been was the great champion of that cause pretty well informed, in one way or from its beginning till the day of his another, through the channel of the death, which took place a few years newspapers; but, in order not to be ago; that I, converted to the cause by cheated, you ought to be cautioned MAJOR Cartwright, espoused it with against giving way to praises bestowed all my might in the year 1806; that upon anybody. We shall have the the reformers were persecuted,and I more Reform Bill, and we shall have it solely by our own exertions; we shall owe it to nobody but ourselves, and we never ought to forget how much we owe to the country labourers, and particularly to those of them who first resolved to live upon potatoes no longer. Those who live upon the taxes and the tithes are never willing to allow that the people have any merit at all; and though it is now evident to every one that it is the people them selves who have made the Reform Bill pass, the greatest possible exertions are making to cause us to believe that we shall owe that bill entirely to the good-no reform as long as he was in power; will, talents, and exertions of the Ministers and of their political party, which are commonly called the WHIGS. Now, my friends, nothing can be more false than this: it is a lie as impudent as ever issued from lips, or was ever put upon paper. The whole of the Ministry themselves, with the exception of my Lords GREY and HOLLAND, have either been the most bitter enemies of parliamentary reform all their lives, which is the case with PALMERSTON, GODERICH, MELBOURNE, GRANT, GRAHAM, and AUCKLAND; or who expressly It is equally clear that the Ministry abandoned the cause of reform in 1827, entered upon the work of reform with and joined CANNING, who had always extreme reluctance. They put the work been the reviler of that cause, and the off, in a most unaccountable manner, from persecutor of all reformers; and who, the first week in November 1830, to the at the very time when they joined him, first day in March 1831; and, from the and when he was Prime Minister, de- statements of several of them, it was clared, that he would oppose reform in made very clear that they had done

that the people were so enraged at this that he could neither walk nor ride the streets with safety; that Lord GREY then took the place of WELLINGTON, promising the nation that he would make a reform of the Parliament. It is, therefore, clear as daylight that the reform arose out of the will and resolution of the people; and that Lord GREY could not have kept his place any more than WELLINGTON had done if it had not been for his promise to make a re form of the Parliament.

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