XXII. 1830. 2. of represen the commer number of considerable places, abounding in riches and CHAP. teeming with energy, which were wholly unrepresented in Parliament. If it is true that knowledge is power, still more is it true that wealth is power; and in the great Great want commercial cities of Britain both these were combined, tation for without the constitution giving their inhabitants any cial towns. channel by which they might make their influence felt by the Government. This was a serious defect, and was felt as a very great grievance. In early times it had been obviated by the practice which prevailed of sending writs to each borough or village which had become considerable, commanding them to send burgesses to Parliament. But this practice, which was entirely in harmony with the spirit of the constitution, had long fallen into desuetude, since it had been discovered that a majority in the House of Commons gave the party possessing it the command of the State; and now the great towns, many of which had quadrupled in population and wealth during the preceding quarter of a century, remained without representation; while vast numbers of little boroughs, which had declined with the changes of time to a mere fraction of their former inhabitants, still sent members to Parliament, many of them at the dictation, or in pursuance of the sale, of a neighbouring magnate. So far had this gone, that it was the constant asseveration of the movement party that a majority of the House of Commons was returned by two hundred and fifty individuals, most of them members of the Upper House, who had thus come to engross in their own persons the whole power of the State, by having got the command of both Houses of Parliament. 3. rests of the 2. This system, which had come to be styled the indirect representation, had worked well, and given rise to no The inteserious complaints, as long as the interests of those who boroughs got into the boroughs, either by purchase or the favour of now at va the proprietors, were identical with those in the unrepre- those of the sented great towns. As long as men see their interests riance with country. XXII. 1830. CHAP. attended to, and their wishes consulted by those intrusted with the administration of affairs, they are contented, even though they have had no hand in their selection. It is when a divergence between the two begins that discontent commences, and the cry for a change of institutions is heard. This divergence was first felt after the termination of the war. During its continuance, as prices of the produce of all kinds of industry were continually rising, the interests of the landlords, the capitalists, and the commercial men were the same-all were making money; and therefore all alike were interested in the support of the protective system, by which the prices of all the productions of industry were kept up, and the process of accumulation favoured. But when the war ceased, and prices rapidly fell, the interests of the different classes of society, so far from being identical, came into collision. To sell dear was the interest of the producers and those who rested on their industry; to buy cheap was the interest of those holding realised wealth, and the whole class of urban consumers. Thence a clear and decided breach between them, and the commencement of discontent and complaint against the proprietors of the close boroughs, and the members whom they sent to Parliament; for the measures which they pursued, suggested by their opulent constituents, were often not only noways conducive to those of the unrepresented towns, but directly at variance with them. the contrac currency on for reform. 3. This divergence appeared in the most striking Effects of manner, and became irreparable, upon the passing of the tion of the monetary bill of 1819, and the commencement of the the desire system of free trade and a restricted currency. As this great change rendered the fall of prices permanent, and ere long caused it to amount to 50 per cent on every species of produce, it placed the interests of the consumers and of the holders of realised wealth irrevocably at variance. The former were interested in measures tend XXII. 1830. ing to lower prices, because it augmented the value, and CHAP. in effect increased the amount of their fixed incomes; the latter were dependent on the rise of prices, because it diminished the weight of their debts and obligations, and increased the remuneration for their industry. It was impossible to reconcile these opposite interests: the amiable dream of the interests of all classes being the same vanished before this stern reality of their being at variance. The inhabitants of the great unrepresented boroughs were not aware to what their distresses were owing they ascribed it, at the dictation of their political leaders, to the weight of taxation, the extravagance of Government, or the like; but they all felt the pressure, and discontent was general, because suffering among the industrial classes was universal. The demand for reform, which was regularly hushed over the whole empire when suffering, from an extension of the currency, had disappeared, was revived with increased intensity when, by any of the measures which have been mentioned, the currency was rendered scanty. So invariable is this sequence, that it obviously stands in the relation of cause and effect.* "In times of distress or disaster," says Mr Roebuck, "reform excited much attention; but when prosperity and success returned, it seemed to have passed almost out of remembrance. The matter, however, was never entirely forgotten; for although pressing public exigencies 1 Roebuck, might induce the people occasionally to postpone their the Whig desires, although great prosperity led to a temporary for- 187. getfulness, the cry for reform always returned with the * PETITIONS TO PARLIAMENT IN FAVOUR OF REFORM. History of Ministry, i. -Quarterly Review, No. xc., July 1831; and TOOKE On Prices, ii. 381, 383. CHAP. reappearance of distress; and to the faulty constitution. XXII. of the House of Commons liberal politicians were ever prone to ascribe nearly all the national misfortunes." 1830. 5. Effect of Catholic 4. In this state of affairs the Catholic agitation began, and the great and dangerous example was presented to the world of a vast political change being and its suc- forced on the Government against its will, by the efforts stimulating of a well-drilled and numerous party in the State. agitation cess in reform. Ministers had, with more sincerity than wisdom, admitted that they had yielded to external pressure; the Duke of Wellington had declared, amidst the cheers of the House of Peers, in words more graceful in a veteran conqueror than judicious in a young statesman, that the point was yielded to avoid the terrible alternative of civil war. This important acknowledgment was not lost upon the friends of parliamentary reform. If agitation, kept within legal bounds, and steering clear of the penalties of high treason, had succeeded so well in Ireland, why might it not be attended with similar results in Great Britain, the more especially as the voice of the great numerical majority, particularly in the large towns, which was sure to be loudest and most attended to in the matter, was sure to be raised in its support? It was resolved accordingly by the liberal leaders to make this the next cheval de bataille with the Government; and although it was well known that most of the Whig aristocracy who influenced so many of the close boroughs would be reluctant to part with what they regarded as their birthright, yet it was anticipated, not without reason, that they would be overpowered by the loud voice of the people, and be constrained, in the last resort, to listen to their demands rather than lose their support. 5. In this expectation they were not disappointed, and very much owing to a defection in the ranks of their adversaries, which had never before been experienced, but was the natural result of the measures which had recently been adopted. Not only was the Tory party XXII. 1830. 6. among the the contrac currency. divided in consequence of the forcing of the Relief Bill CHAP. on the nation, but a considerable part among them, estimable alike by their courage, their sincerity, and their character, had been driven for the time into the ranks of Division their opponents. Their incomes had been halved by the Tories from contraction of the currency and the adoption of free the effect of trade, while their debts and obligations remained the tion of the same their petitions for inquiry and relief, again and again presented, and supported by a fearful array of facts, had been disregarded or derided; and almost every successive session had been marked by legislative measures which went to diminish their own fortunes and augment those of the urban capitalists, who had become their opponents. Capital, intrenched in the close boroughs which it had acquired by purchase or influence, disregarded the complaints of rural industry, as an enemy in possession of an array of strong fortresses despises the partial insurrection or general suffering of the inhabitants of the fields. Accordingly, discontent at existing institutions and the desire for change had become of late years. more general among the farmers and landholders than even the inhabitants of towns; and the question was often put in the form of the algebraic problem: "Given the Toryism of a landed proprietor; required to find the period of want of rents which will reduce him to a Radical reformer." emancipa fully aided 6. When the minds of the industrious classes, espe- 7. cially in the country, were in this state of discontent, Catholic owing to the constant difficulties in which they were kept tion powerby the fall in the price of every species of produce, and the desire the vexatious contrast which their situation presented to for reform. that of the monied classes, who were every day growing richer from the same cause, Catholic emancipation blew it into a perfect flame, and created that schism among the upholders of the constitution which gave it every prospect of success. Injured in their fortunes and circumstances by the measures which had been pursued, they |