side. And what was on the other? The noble earl supposed that there would be some counterpoise on the other side but no, there would be 200 members taken from the conservative class, and added to their opponents; and was it possible, he would ask, for the government of the country, in its present form, to be carried on with a House of Commons so constituted? The House of Commons, having, as was known, the power of disbanding the army, would be the only power of the state. What necessity, then, was there of running such a risk,-of risking all on such a cast. There might be some risk, though he believed it would be but slight, in rejecting the bill,-but it would be nothing compared to the danger of passing it. The danger of having a House of Commons which might dispose of their lives and liberties without control, would be infinitely worse than any which had yet been pointed out. The danger of collision between the two houses, he treated as chimerical. The House of Lords had as much right to reject the bill a second time, as the House of Commons had to send it to them a second time.

Earl Grey, in his reply, repeated the answers which had been already put forward to the different views taken of the bill by its oppo nents, and, in particular, denied the charge of having either caused the excitement, or carried change to an unnecessary and extravagant extent. Heaverred, he said, without fear of contradiction, that the late ministers, when they quitted office in November, 1830, were unanimously of opinion, with the exception of the duke of Wellington, that the government could not be VOL. LXXIV.

carried on unless some degree of reform were conceded. Lord Lyndhurst himself had then expressed the same sentiments. "We," continued his lordship, "succeeding to that administration, found it necessary to look at some measure of reform, and the question, therefore, with us only was, how far the reform should go. Government may have erred-our views may have been wrong-but applying our best judgment to the best information we could obtain, and examining minutely the situation and prospects of the country, the view we took was this-that, something being to be done in the way of reform, it should be done to that extent as to give us a resting place, on which the constitution could repose in future free from all farther discussion and agitation. We acted on that principle. Reform being necessary, the other consequences were the result of our honest and unbiassed judgment. Then this measure of reform was introduced and was received with satisfaction by the whole country. In the progress of the feeling of reform it was strongly directed to those injurious systems, annual parliaments, universal suffrage, and vote by ballot. Those I have declared on other occasions, even when I was most eager for reform, to be in opposition to my principles; but this measure, founded on the satisfaction of the publicand without it I admit the measure would be good for nothing-was no sooner propagated, than all agitation became silent, and an unanimity manifested itself to a degree which was hardly conceivable." On the subject of the threatened creation of peers, which had been so frequently and so pointedly alluded to, his lordship said, that the best [L]

A comparison between Ridgway's Lists will account for the 56.

A. 17 peers who voted against the bill in 1831, voted for it in 1832, each counting as two; B. 10 peers who voted against it in 1831, did not vote at all in 1832;

C. 812 peers who had not voted at all

in 131, voted for it in 1832 :-56. A. (17.) Earls of Harrowby, Tankerville, Bradford, and Coventry. Lords De Roos, Calthorpe, Wharncliffe, Gambier, Gage, Ravensworth, Northwick, and Melros (Earl of Haddington). Bishops of Lincoln, Llandaff, Lichfield and Coventry, Bath and Wells, and one Irish Bishop, viz. Killaloe;

All the four Irish Prelates having voted against the measure in 1831.

B. (10.) Marquis of Bath, Earls of St. Germains, Stamford, and Dudley. Lords Carberry, Skelmersdale, Ribblesdale, Dufferin, and Ross (Earl of Glasgow. Bishop of Peterborough. C. (12.) Earls Stanhope, Somers, O'Neill, Stradbroke. Lords Middleton, Crewe, and Stuart (Earl of Moray). Archbishop of York. Bishops of London, St. David's, Worcester, and Chester.

HE majority, by which the second reading of the reform bill had been carried in the House of Lords, was greatly too insignificant to give the Ministers any confifidence of being masters of it in the committee. They had nevertheless gained much. A creation of an hundred new peers, fatal in any circumstances to the independent exist ence of the House of Lords, would have appeared, if possible, still more unjustifiable, if it had preceded the second reading, when it was yet unknown what effect might have been produced on the temper of the House by the continued excitement of the public, the determination of the government, and the changes which had been made in the bill itself. On the other hand, if the second reading were again lost, the bill was thrown out for the session, unless all parliamentary law were set at defiance; and, if the ministers did not become the victims of the violence which had hitherto been exerted in their behalf, they

would at least have forfeited the countenance of furious unions and more furious journals, which had hitherto been useful partisans. A great danger was thus avoided by getting the bill into committee, by however small a majority. As no proxies count in committees in the House of Lords, they might, perhaps, reckon on the more constant attendance of the friends of government, and the relaxed hostility of those who thought that the only position, from which the substantial mischiefs of the bill could have been effectually reseated, had already been abandoned. At the worst, they had still the same power of creating peers. They might expect to strip such a measure of part of its odium by representing the votes of the committee as contradictory to the decision of the House adopting the principles of the bill, and by insisting that the conduct of the majority was a disingenuous and insulting contrivance to destroy in detail what they had

been afraid openly to oppose. That they must have laid their account with having recourse at last to this extreme measure seems to follow from this, that, knowing as they did the sentiments of the peers who had now given them a majority, they could not reasonably expect to carry the bill unscathed through the committee by means of that majority, unless they were prepared to make greater concessions than they had yet shown any symptoms of granting.

Parliament met, after the Easter recess, on the 7th of May. The House of Lords went into committee on the reform bill, no attempt having been made by the opposition to move any instructions to it. In the committee, Earl Grey stated that the House would probably be inclined to follow the course which had been adopted by the House of Commons, viz. to dispose of the enacting parts of the disfranchising clauses, leaving the schedules for future consideration. Thus, in regard to the first clause, they had begun by determining that fifty-six boroughs should be disfranchised, and had delayed the schedule of the particular boroughs till the other clauses should be disposed of. As there were some, however, who objected to say, in the first instance, that the number of fifty-six should be disfranchised, it was his intention, when they came to that clause, to propose that the words "fifty-six" should be omitted, and to propose that each of the boroughs in schedule A., that is, the different boroughs in the schedule, as they were afterwards to be separately proposed to the House, should cease to send members to parliament. He thought this the best mode of obviating the objection to the clause as it now stood.

On this, Lord Lyndhurst suggested that it would be still more convenient to postpone altogether the consideration of the first clause. If this were done, he should likewise propose the postponement of the second clause; and he would take this course, for the purpose of entering on the consideration of the boroughs and places to be enfranchised, a matter which he thought ought to be discussed, before the House entered on the question of disfranchisement. This would involve nothing like a prejudgment of these clauses. To borrow the language of his profession, he desired that the clauses should be postponed "without prejudice,"-in fact, that the House should reserve itself for the consideration of them unprejudiced and unfettered, precisely as if they had not been postponed at all. He recommended this mode of proceeding, because a bill of this kind ought to be essentially a bill of enfranchisement, of which principle disfranchisement ought only to be the consequence. The proper mode of proceeding in disfranchising a number of places was, to begin by establishing the necessity of the occasion, and by ascertaining previously what places were to be enfranchised. Earl Grey's proposal met the objection in part, but not altogether; for by coming to the consideration of the first clause they would still make disfranchisement precede enfranchisement; but if his lordship would not only omit the number" 'fiftysix," but abstain from incorporating the schedule with the clause,the objection would be entirely obviated. It was more gracious to begin with an act of favour, or if they would, of justice. Now to begin with disfranchisement was to

begin with depriving persons of a right. The preamble of the bill admitted that it was a right; and before touching it, they ought to establish enfranchisement as the foundation and justification of the proceeding. If they pursued this course, they would disfranchise as a matter of necessity; but if not, on what principle would they disfranchise? In almost every plan of reform hitherto brought forward, enfranchisement had been the end, and disfranchisement had been regarded only as a means. Seventy years ago, the plan of Lord Chatham was, to add a hundred members, to be returned partly by the counties, partly by large towns; but disfranchisement formed no part of it. The next was Mr. Pitt's first plan in 1783, which likewise proposed the addition of an hundred members, and provided for disfranchisement only in this way, that if any borough should forfeit its right to return members, then the franchise should be thrown into the general mass. Mr. Pitt's second plan, that of 1785, was, to add seventy-two members, and raise a sum of money for the purchase of thirty-six boroughs; but this latter step was to be a subsequent measure, and was not to be resorted to, till it had been seen how the addition of the seventy-two members would operate. Mr. Flood's plan was, likewise, one of addition, without any mention of disfranchisement. Of Lord Grey's own earlier plan, the main feature was, the great increase of the county members. Some years ago, another plan had been introduced by Lord John Russell, comprehended in four resolutions, the second of which declared, that it was expedient to give members to the large towns then unrepre

sented; but the third resolution recommended the appointment of a committee to consider how the enfranchisement might be best effected without any inconvenient addition to the members of the House of Commons; and the very words of Lord John Russell on that occasion were, "Let us first agree as to what towns shall be enfranchised, and then we shall see what is to be the extent of disfranchisement, what alterations it may be necessary to propose." On the same principle he would now proceed. It was no prejudging the question of disfranchisement; for their lordships would afterwards measure the extent of disfranchisement by the extent to which they should have carried the principle of enfranchisement. He admitted, at once, that he considered the second reading of the bill to have fixed the three principles of disfranchisement, enfranchisement, and extension of suffrage; but yet the House was not fettered, in the slightest degree, as to the point to which these principles were to be carried, although he had no hesitation in saying that, after all that had passed in both houses of parliament, and looking at the state of the country, and the expectations which were abroad, neither he, nor those with whom he acted, were disposed to suggest any alterations which would render the measure unsatisfactory to intelligent reformers. He moved that the first and second clauses of the bill should be postponed.

The Lord Chancellor reminded the House that, although Earl Grey had proposed to omit the number, that had no connection whatever with any intention not to propose the disfranchisement of all the fifty-six.