would have been equally gracious and expedient, and in perfect accordance with the ruling principle of the constitution, which was the representation of ALL classes. So strongly were the interests of realised wealth then intrenched in the legislature, that a very small concession would have been gratefully received by the advocates of industry, then practically unrepresented, and it might possibly have postponed for a very long period, if not altogether averted, the entire transference of power to the buying and selling class, which by its refusal was so soon after effected. The division on the East Retford question was the first, and perhaps the most important, in the many causes which conspired to overturn the existing frame of government. The argument then so generally used and relied upon, that the constitution, with all its theoretical imperfections, had worked well, and therefore should be continued, was a palpable sophism decisively disproved by the clamour raised for its abolition. A whole nation never concurs in demanding a change in institutions which have proved universally beneficial. As long as the nomination boroughs had proved protective of all interests, they were the objects of no obloquy; it was when they fell into the hands of those who were actuated by an adverse interest, and pursued measures destructive of the prosperity of the working classes, that the cry for their abolition arose. In resisting the demand for representation on the part of the manufacturing districts, the Conservatives fell into the usual error of judging of things as they had been, not as they are. They applied the same measure to a grown man which they had found answered a boy; they kept looking for the sun in the east, because it had once risen there. Worse than this, they forgot the duties of power in the enjoyment of its sweets, and defended the nomination boroughs as if they had been their private property, not a trust for the public good. What they should have done at this crisis is now sufficiently apparent. They should have acquiesced in the VOL. IV. 2 C XXIII. 1832. XXIII. 1832. 139. should have CHAP. demand for representatives on the part of the great manufacturing towns and districts, and striven only to fix the constituency in them on such a basis as would have seWhat they cured an adequate attention to their interests, and not done. endangered the constitution. Neglect of those interests, measures subversive of them, had occasioned the demand for reform; attention to those interests, steps calculated to promote them, were the appropriate remedy. By transferring the franchise of every borough convicted of bribery to a great manufacturing town, a mode of solving the difficulty was presented, so just as to disarm complaint, so gradual as to remove apprehension, so frequent of recurrence as to inspire hope. No political party ever committed a greater mistake than the Conservatives did, in declining to avail themselves of this just and safe mode of adjusting an important and delicate political question, and missing the opportunity of accommodating the constitution without risk to the varying circumstances of society in the British Islands. 140. Conserva tives in throwing out the Duke of Wellington's Administration. The next great mistake committed, not by the whole, Error of the but by a considerable section of the Conservative party, was in coalescing with the Radicals in November 1830, to throw out the Duke of Wellington's Administration. There might have been steps taken by that Administration of which they did not approve the mode of carrying through Catholic emancipation might have been violent and unconstitutional; the men who did it might have been worthy, at the proper time, of parliamentary censure; but was it a fitting time to inflict such a chastisement, when the nation was convulsed by the reform movement, and the recent overthrow of the monarchy in France had roused in the very highest degree the revolutionary passions over the whole country? What was this but to expose the nation to the risk of great social and organic change, at the very time when it was most violently excited, and the example of successful revolution in the neighbouring kingdom had roused the XXIII. revolutionary passions to the very highest pitch? To CHAP. drive the Duke of Wellington from the helm at that juncture, was not to punish him or his Ministry, but themselves and their children. 1832. of Welling ration Reform. The Duke of Wellington's famous declaration against 141. reform, to which the Liberal party ascribe the subsequent The Duke irresistible strength of the democratic passion, was in one ton's decla respect wise, in another unwise. It was unquestionably against wise to declare against any change in the constitution, at a time when the nation was so violently excited, and when opening the door to innovation might induce revolution; and the Duke did right to say that the King's government would not at that time be a party to any such proceeding. But the result has proved that he did wrong in declaring against reform at all times and under all circumstances, and making the nation believe that, unless they forced it at that moment, they would never gain it at another. The necessary effect of this belief was to double the strength of the movement party at that time, by uniting to their ranks all who thought that the changes in society, which the last thirty years had induced, required an admission, as beyond all doubt they did, of the representatives of the new interests in the State into the constitution. The Duke of Wellington spoke of land being the only sure foundation of government, and of the popular party already enjoying as large a share of it as was consistent with the well-being of society and security of the nation; forgetting, or rather never having been sensible of, the vast increase of the commercial classes which had arisen from the peace purchased by his own victories, and the duplication of their strength owing to the effect of the monetary measures to which he himself had been a party. It is in vain to expect that men, having attained to majority, will be satisfied with the parental rule which was cheerfully submitted to during the helplessness of infancy or the docility of youth. The cry of nature is, "Give us self-government, though it be to our CHAP. XXIII. 1832. 142. the Libe rals, first in forcing on reform at all at this time. own ruin." What Wellington should have said was, "This is not the time or the mode for bringing on the great question of organic change in the constitution; but when the excitement of the moment has subsided, Government will be prepared to bring forward measures which will satisfy all the reasonable wishes of the people." Whether such a promise would have satisfied the majority of Reformers may well indeed be doubted; but at least it would have thrown the responsibility of ulterior and perilous changes on them alone, and relieved Government of the reproach of having, by an ill-timed declaration of implacable hostility, rendered the movement party unmanageable in the hands of their opponents. The faults committed by the Liberal party during the progress of this great contest were still more glaring, and they may be pronounced upon with more confidence than those of their opponents, because, as they were victorious in the strife, their measures were carried into execution, and have thus been brought to the test of experience. The first wrong step which they took, and which perhaps drew after it all the rest, was bringing forward the reform question at all, at a time when the nation was convulsed with the triumph of the Barricades, and all calm discussion of the proposed change, vital as it was, had become out of the question. Considered as a party advantage indeed, and as a stepping-stone by which they themselves might ascend to power, and terminate the long and hated dominion of the Tories, it was natural that the Whigs should make the most of the French Revolution; and no one can with reason blame them for having done all they could, by ordinary means, to turn it to the best advantage. They were fully entitled to do so they did so : they supplanted the Duke of Wellington's Administration, and seated themselves in power. But having done this, they went a step further, and resolved upon a change in the constitution so vast as should for ever prevent the return of their opponents to power. What was this but XXIII. 1832. setting fire to the house in which they both dwelt, in order CHAP. to drive their rivals out of the wing which they still occupied? The danger was imminent that the whole edifice, as had occurred in France, would be involved in the conflagration. Mr Pitt had, at no distant period, given a memorable example of what they should have done on occasion of their triumph. In 1784, when he defeated the coalition of Lord North and Mr Fox, he terminated the reign of the Whigs, which had lasted almost without interruption for a century, and the majority which he gained in the Commons (136) was just the same as Lord Grey acquired by his dissolution of Parliament in April 1831. But Mr Pitt made no change in the constitution, when the enthusiasm in his favour, and the majority he had acquired, enabled him to have done so with a certainty of success; he made no attempt to extinguish the Whig boroughs, numerous and corrupt as they were: though a reformer at that time, he abstained from reform when it might have imperilled the State. He had the strength of a giant, but he did not use it like a giant. Thence half a century of power to his party, and the glories of the Revolutionary war, and unexampled extension and prosperity to his country. The next, and by far the most serious fault which the Whigs committed at this time, was in the structure of the Reform Bill itself, which was of such a kind as rendered the existence of the British empire, as it then stood, for any considerable time a matter of impossibility. The boroughs. great, the irremediable error committed in this point of view, was that which, at first sight, seems its great recommendation, and what from its simplicity had, through life, recommended it to Lord Grey, viz. the uniformity of the borough representation. As three-fifths of the House of Commons was composed of the members for boroughs, and three-fifths of the constituents of the boroughs were persons renting tenements rented at from £10 to £20, the entire command of the country was vested in that class, a decided majority of which were shopkeepers, or 143. Great error in the uni form repre sentation |