mingled in this important measure. The removal of the disabilities has conciliated a few hundred reasonable men, who might possibly have been some time or other in life affected by the existing restraints; and it has inflamed with tenfold fury, several millions, who had nothing to lose or gain by the question, but saw only that by clamour, violence, and intimidation, they could prevail over the Government.

It is the mixture of these opposite principles, in every measure of concession to popular outcry, which can alone explain the apparently incongruous results which history exhibits on this subject, and furnishes the key both to the great number of wise and good men who were seduced into concession of the Catholic claims, and the total failure of that measure to remove any of the discontent or divisions in Ireland. The author is not ashamed to confess that he was among those who supported Catholic emancipation, in the belief that it was in itself just, and would have the effect of removing the distractions of that unhappy country. Subsequent events have explained the true nature of the illusion under which so many persons laboured on this subject. The liberal party in England were deceived by the names of justice, equality, and Christian toleration, which the agitators put forth; they were not aware of the malignant and insatiable passions which lurked beneath the surface. They gave admission, as they thought, to the fair spirit of religious freedom, and no sooner had they thrown open the gates, than the mask fell from the visage of the entrant, and the foul and fiendish features of democratic ambition appeared.

Thoughtful and sensible men might have been divided on this subject, because reason and equity had much to say on the other side; because a real grievance, how inconsiderable soever in itself, was complained of; because the experiment had not yet been tried in these islands, of the tremendous consequences of yielding to democratic passion. But what shall we say to those who pursue the same system, after experience has so completely demonstrated its failure; when France on the one side,

and Ireland on the other, are teeming with misery from its effects? who apply it to a subject where the union between the redress of wrongs, and concession to popular fury, no longer exist; to the destruction of a constitution which has conferred, and is conferring, greater practical blessings than any which ever existed; not to the redress of any experienced evil, but the reformation of the constitution upon new and hitherto unheard of principles; not to the doing of justice, but the inflaming of passion?

Look at Belgium; does it exhibit appearances different from either France or Ireland? Does the victory of the democratic party, the successful termination of an unnecessary Revolution, afford any encouragement for the adoption of a similar course in this country? Misery unprecedented since the persecution of the Duke of Alva, has overspread the fair face of Flanders since the glorious expulsion of the Orange dynasty; the kingdom is dismembered, its power destroyed; and the revolutionary monarch, in his first year's finances, is obliged to admit, that while the annual expenditure is 41,000,000 of gilders, the revenue is, from the general suffering, reduced to 29,000,000. Truly, if our Reformers are not influenced by these examples surrounding them on every side, on the south, east, and west, they would not be converted though one rose from the dead.

The existence of suffering in all classes now in this country, is so evident and universal, that it cannot be concealed by the Reformers. It is admitted prominently in the King's speech, and is felt by every man who lives by his industry in the three kingdoms. Bread! Bread! is the cry of the Manchester weavers; the radicals of Paisley are only maintained by the munificent subscriptions of the anti-reform proprietors in their vicinity. But, say the Reformers, this is not owing to Reform, but its refusal; trade was in a prosperous state during the first six months of the discussion of the question, and it has only declined since the bill was thrown out by the Peers; and if the Bill had then been passed, general tranquillity and hap piness would now have prevailed.

How, then, do they explain the grinding misery of France, the agitation and famine of Ireland, or the deplorable condition of the once flourishing Low Countries? No one can dispute that democracy has been triumphant in all these states; that a citizen king, surrounded by republican institutions, is on the throne of the first; that an overpowering demagogue shares with the English viceroy the government of the second; and that a revolutionary monarch, supported by a democratic faction, has been elected to the last. How do the Reformers, who so unanimously refer the existing distress in Great Britain to the resistance to Reform, explain the far greater misery and suffering which, in the three adjoining states, has followed its concession? How can the steadiness of the aristocracy in England be charged with consequences which, at the same moment, in France, Ireland, and Belgium, have attended their submission or overthrow?

The Reformers still put forth the miserable delusion that Reform is to calm the passions, and satisfy the democratic ambition of the country, and they adhere to this expectation in the face of the tenfold agitation which, in spite of all their predictions, concession to the Catholics has produced in Ireland. As well might they expect that victory is to extinguish the passion for conquest, spirits assuage the thirst of the drunkard, or the career of military triumph be cut short by the flight of the vanquished.

The more violent of this class have fairly avowed their motives, and if the English fall into the snare, they at least cannot complain that they have been misled or not duly warned both by their friends and their enemies. O'Connell, who, not three months ago, disclaimed in the House of Commons all ulterior objects, has now laid aside the mask he has openly avowed his determination to agitate till he obtains a repeal of the Union, and declared "that he is a reformer with ulterior views, and that he will never be satisfied till he sees a parliament in College Green." The majority of the Irish reformers in the

House of Commons, seventy strong, are actuated by the same desire: they will use Reform as a stepping-stone, as they have done with Catholic Emancipation, till they effect the dismemberment of the empire. The English radicals openly declare, with Cobbett at their head, that they have ulterior views; that no one but a fool can suppose that they want reform for any other reason than the liberation from burdens which it will produce; and that unless it is to lead to the confiscation of church property, and the abolition of the funds, they had much rather remain under the old boroughmongers." Even the Courier, a leading ministerial journal, in the very same leading article in which they declare, “from an authority on which they have been accustomed to rely," that the King is to create Peers in order to carry the question, expressly maintain that

this reform may do for two or three years, but that they have said a hundred times, and they say again, that nothing can satisfy the country butthe concession of the franchise to every man in the country who pays direct taxes, be they ever so small."* other words, the movement must continue till every man in the kingdom who pays a penny of taxes is to have a vote!

In

Now what must be the effect upon public credit, private expenditure, or manufacturing and commercial speculation, we do not say of the legislative adoption, but the serious and continued agitation for the attainment of objects such as these? Will not the distrust and terror of the rich increase, when after the great victory of Reform achieved by the clamour of the popular party, they see these fatal strokes levelled at the industry and wealth of the country? Must not the same stagnation pervade every branch of industry, the same appre hensions check the advance of the capitalist, the same fears paralyze the efforts of the merchant, which are now beginning to weigh down the exertions of the people? Is it to be supposed that landed property is to be encouraged to increase its expenditure, when an incessant outcry is raised to confiscate the whole pos

sessions of the church, or capital to renew its outlay, when the funded property is incessantly menaced? The very first effect of such proposals, supported as they then will be by the whole revolutionary press, and by at least eighty or a hundred radical members in the House of Commons, must be to shake to its foundation the whole funded property of the kingdom; the banks must all contract their discounts; credit will immediately cease; every man's creditors will be on his back at once; delay of payment will be out of the question, and the dreadful catastrophe of December 1825 renewed with far more desperate circumstances, and from causes then beyond the reach of control.

Such is the strength of the arguments against Reform that it will admit of almost any concession-and is equally conclusive whatever view of its consequences be adopted.-If the hopes of the Radicals be realized, and the prophecies of Cobbett and the Examiner prove true, that they are to get an accession of from eighty to a hundred members in the new House, of course, the subsequent revolutionary measures may very shortly be expected; for what chance will the Conservative Party, already so hard put to maintain the institutions of the country, have of continuing the combat when their own ranks are weakened by a hundred members, and their adversaries increased by as great a number? If, on the other hand, the new arguments of the Times and the other Ministerial Journals be well founded, and the measure proves, in its first effects, "highly aristocratic;" if, through the small boroughs and the divisions of the counties, the great Whig nobility acquire a preponderance over the Radical Party, the consequences will be hardly less disastrous. Increased discontent, unceasing agitation, the perpetuity of the miseries the country has endured since the Reform question began, may then be confidently anticipated, until the new bulwarks of the Constitution are overthrown, and the flood of democracy finally overwhelm the land. Can it be supposed, that after the people

have been excited to such a degree as they have been by the efforts of administration, and the fatal union of the Crown and the populace, they will sit down quietly under a new set of aristocratic proprietors? That nomination counties will be allowed quietly to succeed nomination boroughs; and wealth in the small towns to assume the place of wealth in those which have been extinguished? The thing is evidently out of the question; the new Constitution, deprived as it will be of the veneration and sanctity flowing from the weight of time, and all the endearing recollections arising from centuries of happiness, will be speedily swept away by the revolutionary tempest, and Britain put to sea without a rudder on that dark ocean of experiment from which no one has yet been known to return.

"It appears," says Sir Walter Scott, "to be a general rule, that what is to last long, should be slowly matured and gradually improved, while every sudden effort, however gigantic, to bring about the sudden execution of a plan calculated to endure for ages, is doomed to exhibit symptoms of premature decay from its very commencement. Thus, in a beautiful Oriental Tale, a Dervise explains to the Sultan how he had reared the magnificent trees among which they walked, by nursing their shoots from the seed; and the Prince's pride is damped, when he reflects that those plantations so simply reared, were gathering new vigour from each returning sun, while his own exhausted cedars, which had been transplanted by one effort, were drooping their majestic heads in the valley of Orez."*-Such also will be the fate of the new British Constitution. It will never be able to eradicate the original vice of having been struck out at a heat: forged during a period of violent excitement, and concluded at once, without receiving either the alternative of experience or the mellowing of time. Unlike its hardy predecessor which was sown amidst the struggles of Saxon independence, hardened by the severity of Norman rule, watered by the blood of the Pro

testant martyrs, and strengthened by the resistance to Stuart oppression, it will sicken and languish from the first moment of its existence, and before its authors are gathered to their fathers, be numbered among the things that have been.

The new Bill differs in few essential particulars from its monstrous predecessor; in a few details it is better; in its leading principles and practical tendency, if possible, worse. The number of boroughs retained in schedule A, in other words, which are to be wholly disfranchised, is still fifty-six. So that 112 members are lost by this clause alone to the Conservative Party.

The boroughs in schedule B, which are to lose one member each, are reduced from forty-one to thirty-one -in other words, ten members are there saved to the Constitution; but, on the other hand, an equal number of additional members are given to ten manufacturing towns, that is, to the radical interest.

The ten pound franchise is placed on a different footing: the payment of rent is no longer required; and in its stead the houses are to be valued once a year, under the control of Barristers in each county, appointed by the Lord Chancellor, and evidence of the value by the rating in King's books for taxes, and in the parish-books for rates, is to be taken

and residence for twelve months in a ten pound house, or houses, is required.

The old freeholders in boroughs, instead of being preserved as under the old Bill for their lives only, are to be permanently engrafted on the Constitution.

Very little examination is requisite to shew, that these provisions render the new Bill even more democratical in its tendency than the former.

Formerly, evidence of the payment of rent or taxes was required; now the latter is sufficient, and no payment of rent whatever is necessary. What is the necessary tendency of this change? clearly to let in ultimately a still lower and more dangerous set of constituents than the former bill admitted, by removing that slender check on pauperism which the necessity of paying rent occasioned.

VOL. XXXI, NO. CLXXXIX.

The houses claiming to be enrolled are all to be valued at first, and the valuation in the tax and parish books is to be given in evidence, fortified by the oath of the claimant if required. Now every body knows that when once a house is valued at a certain sum in any set of books regulating the paying of taxes, it is an easy matter to allow the valuation to remain; but a very difficult matter to get it lowered. If the owner or tenant makes no objections, the taxgatherer and overseer for the poor will allow the valuation to remain undiminished to the end of time. The result is, therefore, that how much soever the value of a house may be deteriorated, though it falls to be worth only L.2 or L.3 a-year only, still if the tenant is willing to have it rated at the old valuation in the public and parish books, and to pay burdens accordingly, it must confer a freehold. Thus the only test of the property, or respectability of these little householders, will be their ability to pay rates and taxes on a house valued at L.10 a-year, which, on an average, will not come to 30s. annually. And this is the constituency in whose hands it is proposed to place the nomination of 340 out of the 500 English members!

Houses, like every thing else, grow old; they decay rapidly, especially when built, as in England, of brick, and soon fall down to a lower class of inhabitants than at first possessed them. Under the new Bill, this progressive deterioration of the property, will be the means of admitting daily a more degraded and democratical constituency; and if nothing else brings the new constitution to an untimely end, the decay of the houses, on which it is based, will necessarily lead to its destruction. The owners or tenants of these frail and ruinous tenements will never think of proposing that their valuation should be lowered, when it brings so valuable a thing as the elective franchise; and the burden of paying ten or fifteen shillings additional ayear of taxes and rates, will be more than compensated by the periodical return of the good things with which a general election will be attended. The mere circumstance that the houses are to be valued once a-year,

H

is no security whatever against this progressive deterioration of the class of borough constituents, for on what data can the surveyors proceed, but the rating in the King's or parish books, and the declaration and oath of the householder what he considers the subject worth? and these will never be awanting when the question is, whether a valuable elective franchise is to be preserved.

Farther, while such is the perilous tendency of the new franchise in the great, and especially the manufacturing towns, what a broad gateway does it open to corruption in the smaller boroughs more immediately under aristocratic influence! The franchise is, literally speaking, vested now in the walls of houses; the Parliament is neither a representative of the wealth of the community, nor of its intelligence, nor its rank, nor its population, but of its buildings. Whoever can command the greatest number of houses, will carry the day at every election. A great proprietor wishes to get the command of a borough in his vicinity, he has nothing to do, but to purchase up all the L.10 houses as they come into the market, or build a great number within its limits, which can be done for L.150 a-piece, and put into them paupers, menials, or dependants of his own, who pay no rent, or a merely elusory one, and he must command the return. No matter how destitute, how indigent the householder may be; though he cannot muster up a farthing of rent, if he lives in a house rated at L.10, and paying 25s. or 30s. a-year of taxes, he must have a vote. The command of a borough containing 300 votes, may then be obtained to perpetuity, by expending L.30,000 on houses within it, besides the return which the rents of these houses will afford. And yet a system which throws open the gates in so shameless a way to the influence of corruption, is gravely put forth as a final settlement of the question, and an entire extinguisher upon the whole system of boroughmongering!

The multiplication of L.10 houses, like the multiplication of the L.10 freeholds in Ireland for electioneering purposes, will be a most serious evil under the new Bill. Sir Edward Sugden truly said, that it should be

entitled, "A Bill for the multiplication of L.10 houses." It is evident, that the proprietors in the neighbourhood of small boroughs will either themselves build, or promote the building, of such a number of houses, as may incline the balance in their own favour. Every body knows what a multitude of miserable tenants such a system of multiplying the poor has produced in Ireland. Those evils are not confined to the soil of that island; they will extend to England, if similar causes call them into operation. All these evils spring from that fatal innovation upon the constitution which the Re formers so obstinately insist upon introducing,-that of admitting, not the freeholder, who, in general, must be in some degree independent, because he is a proprietor, but the tenant, who cannot, in the general case, be so, because he is destitute of property.

The result, therefore, must be, what we have all along predicted,. that the existing abuses will be greatly increased under the new Bill, and the country doomed to oscillate be tween the infamy of corruption and the perils of democracy; inclining, in periods of tranquillity, to the former-driven, in times of agitation, by the latter. This will be the result, in the most favourable case, supposing the new institutions to prove stable, and not to yield speedily to the shock of revolution,-a supposition which all the experience of former times forbids us to entertain.

The litigation, electioneering intrigues, and political agitation, which must follow the annual making up of the lists of the freeholders, is another evil of the first magnitude under the new system. It is quite evident that it will keep the people in a continual state of hot water; the arts used to get their habitations raised up to the desired standard-the devices to prevent their being lowered below itthe perjury, chicanery, and falsehood annually adopted to accomplish these objects, must at once demoralize the people by habituating them to crime, and withdraw their attention from honest industry by keeping them continually immersed in a sea of politics. All the world knows how strongly these evils are felt on the eve of a ge neral election: it was reserved for a