SUPPOSE the people of the island of Tongataboo, in the Pacific ocean, had advanced to such a degree of civilisation, that they were ripe for political institutions; and suppose, that hearing of the pre-eminence of Great Britain in these matters, they were to send one of their wisest men for the express purpose of acquiring a practical knowledge of all the principles of the British Constitution. Might we not imagine such a dialogue as the following to take place between the Tongataboo philosopher, and the Englishman, whoever he might be, who undertook to expound the theory and practice of our admirable system of government?

Philosopher. I comprehend distinctly, from your explanations, the separate functions, and the combined energies, of the three estates of the realm; and the more I reflect upon them, the more deeply I am impressed with that amazing wisdom which has perfected so noble a scheme of civil polity.

Englishman. It has been the progressive work of past ages, and will remain the admiration of future ones. Philosopher. The welfare of that country is thrice secure, where nothing depends upon the will of one man, but where the sages of the land assemble in council to deliberate upon all that concerns the public good. I have been a witness of the laborious zeal with which they discharge this duty; unmindful of all personal inconvenience, and denying themselves, night after night, the needful rest which nature has ordained. In what other nation will you find such devotion, such ardent, such exalted patriotism?

Englishman (smiling,) The results are pretty nearly as you describe; the causes, I apprehend, somewhat more complicated. You see that lady who is in the act of drawing her pursestrings, to bestow her charity upon a poor crippled mendicant who has solicited it. I know her. She knows me; and she knows I am observing her. What a graceful attitude! How well that sandal becomes her foot and ankle! How the diamond on her

finger sparkles in the sun! And what can be more beautifully con trasted than her white, delicate hand, and the squalid, shrivelled palm which is extended to receive her bounty? And now she steals a glance from beneath those jet-black arches, her eyebrows, to be certain she is noticed. It is a piece of acting, intended to be seen by all, but admired by one. What need the supplicant care? He is benefited. His wants

are relieved as effectually as if pure and holy charity had administered the alms.

Philosopher. I understand you. Where good is done, it is not for man to look beyond the deed. The mo tive and the act are linked together in His sight only, who is alone able to unite them.

Englishman. Exactly

Philosopher. Still you are a happy and an enviable people, to possess such beneficent legislators, who do nothing to complain of upon earth, and who, in their account with Hea ven, may set off value received, against any deficiency of just inten tions in their balance sheet. But be fore we quit this branch of our dis course, I must beg of you to explain a matter which I do not clearly com prehend. I perceive, in that illustrious and august assembly of sages, whom you call, in their collective capacity, the House of Peers, a class of nobles who are known by the title of PROXIES. They seem to be very numerous, and to exercise a most important influence in determining the final issue of all great public questions, on which occasions only, they take any part in public affairs. Isuppose they are the wisest of your wise men: venerable seers, or individuals gifted by nature with extraordinary powers of mind, who constitute a sort of college of arbitrators, their functions being to listen to all that is urged on both sides, to enquire dispassionately into facts, to weigh evidence with scrupulous impartiality, to mingle with none, to know no parties, but as far as human faculties can stretch into the regions of pure, unmixed truth, to do so, and then, by

Englishman. You shall know. That college of arbitrators, as you designate them, those wisest of the wise, those venerable seers, gifted with extraordinary powers of mind, those disciples of pure, unmixed truth, who exercise such an important influence in determining the final issue of all great public questions, (and I admit they do exercise this influence,) those PROXIES to whom you assign the exalted function of giving effect by their voices to such measures only as they believe, in the sacred depths of their hearts, are founded upon perfect justice, are persons who are never present, who never hear one word of what is said on either side, but deposit their "voices" in the pockets of their friends, to use them at their pleasure. Philosopher. Impossible!

Englishman. Most true, notwithstanding. The constitution accords a privilege to Peers of Parliament, which is not granted to the other branch of the legislature, that of having their votes registered for or against a question in their absence, with the same validity and effect as if they were present; so that a noble may be fox-hunting, laid up with the gout, travelling abroad, or discharging a lucrative office in some of our foreign possessions, without being thereby incapacitated from exerci sing a direct influence in the national councils at home.

Philosopher. How! Does your constitution sanction such an absurdity?

Englishman. It never struck me as an absurdity till this moment. The practice is coeval, I believe, with the constitution itself.

Philosopher. Alas! what a veil time throws over deformity! The things that are, we reverence, because they stand before us covered with the dust of antiquity; when, if they were now to do, we should blush to ordain them so. We venerate what is old; but it is by a perverse misapplication of the term in all that relates to living man and his oncerns. The age which is our own

is older than that which was our fathers, even as that of our fathers numbered more years than that which was their fathers; and still the further we go back to old times, the nearer we approach to the infancy of time itself. I pray you resolve me this:-Are we to look for the perfection of things in their first beginnings? If so, all change since, has been from good to bad; and the palace and the city should be abandoned for the mountain cave and the deep forest. But it is not so. Do aged men ask counsel of children? Why then should nations, in the vigour of manhood, fetter themselves with the maxims or practices of their own youth? Could you summon to your presence those lawgivers by whom it was agreed that men should be allowed to approve or reject, without knowing what it was they approved or rejected, they would give you a reason for it as applicable to themselves, which would make you ashamed of it, as part of your own system. Imagine, for a moment, that such a privilege as you have described, did not exist, but that to-morrow, one of your peers were to propose it should be conferred on his order. Would he not be overwhelmed with ridicule? Or, if the proposition were so urged, that it must be gravely discussed, would it not be with one feeling of reprobation? "What?" it would be asked, "shall we consent to strip ourselves of all claim to confidence and respect in the eyes of our countrymen? Shall we seek a privilege which we could not exercise without disgrace to ourselves, and insult and injury to them? Shall we dare say to the people, that their rights and interests, their liberties, their welfare, of which we are the hereditary guardians, and with which our own are indispensably blended, are so worthless in our estimation, that we will not bestow upon them the same degree of attention we do in purchasing a house, or settling the liveries of our household servants? Shall we proclaim, that while in the most ordinary transactions of private life, which concern ourselves, we employ our best judgment in determining upon them, and delegate to no second self the power to act for us, in what concerns the nation, in all that relates to the well-being of the people, we will see, and hear,

and understand, through the eyes, and ears, and minds, of others? What is this but to deliver the people, and all that most nearly concerns them, into the hands of forty or fifty senators? and will not the people murmur, and require that the peerage itself should be remodelled; that ribbons, and garters, and trifles, and descent, should not carry with them the prerogative of being legislators, but that the capacity to think, and the disposition to exercise the capacity, should be the superior qualification?" My friend, you would laugh at the man who should propose to make love by proxy, to eat by proxy, to be married by proxy, or to inherit a fortune by proxy; yet, because custom has thrown her mantle over it, you cannot see the equally gross absurdity, and the infinitely greater evil, of statesmen governing by proxy.

I know not how the arguments of my Tongataboo philosopher could be overthrown. They might be neutralized a little, perhaps, by the consideration that it comes to the same end, whether men vote upon a question without knowing any thing about it, or whether, after knowing every thing, they vote at the nod of a minister, or by the compact of a party; in both cases, alike regardless of the votes they ought to give, and of the votes they would give, if neither minister nor party interposed. Still, there is a marked, undisguised prostitution of principle in the one case, which does not glare so hideously upon us in the other. The peer, who, in his place, votes with the minister, may be supposed (by a great stretch of charitable interpretation, in some cases, I allow) to be convinced of the expediency or justice of the measure he supports; it is possible he may be sincere, as well as consistent; and when inconsistent, that he may be honourably converted from former heresies. But he who pins his vote upon the minister's sleeve; who says to him, Do what you please; I am your ready, obsequious, unreasoning slave; use me whenever you want me, and for whatever purpose you want me; count me as one in every division, be it upon the dirtiest job, the most atrocious injustice, or the vilest sacrifice of national honour that ever disgraced a cabinet; unknowing, unenquiring, unsatisfied

VOL. XXVIII. NO. CLXVIII.

of all, save this, that a bargain has been struck between us, and that I abide by it to the uttermost condition;-he, I say, who does this-and every absent peer who leases out his vote by proxy, does in effect do it— commits an act of self-abasement, of public wrong, and of legislative mockery, which, it might be thought, only required to be thus stated, to be for ever abolished.

Let us look for a moment how the system operates. On the 25th February, Earl Stanhope brought forward his motion for the House resolving itself into a committee to consider of the internal state of the country. It was no mere party question, but one raised upon the petitions of the people, who complained of unparalleled distress, and implored the legislature to enquire into its causes, with a view to devise, if possible, some mode of relief. When the House divided, after a debate of nine hours, the numbers stood thus:

Here, then, were sixty-one peers, (nearly one-half of the whole declared votes,) who, without hearing any one reason assigned for or against the motion, without knowing in a regular and constitutional manner what were the complaints of the people, with what justice they were urged, or with what justice they are disregarded, took upon themselves, nevertheless, to record their silent opinions (if, indeed, they had any opinions at all upon the question.) Ten of these omniscient sages were for granting enquiry; and so far as there must always be a prima facie equity in allowing those who complain to have the benefit of investigation, so far, it may be said, they were less obviously reprehensible than the 51 who intuitively saw that it would be most improper, or that it was perfectly

unnecessary, to have any enquiry. On the 18th of February, the Duke of Richmond, in a speech which produced a powerful effect--(not in the House, but upon the country)-as well from its range of research, and the facts consequently accumulated,

as from the reasonings with which these facts were elucidated and applied, attempted to shew the absolute necessity, the positive duty, of appointing a select committee to enquire into the condition of the labouring classes, and also relative to those taxes which pressed more immediately on the productive classes of the country." A debate of eight hours ensued, in the course of which Earl Bathurst, that great man and honest politician Lord Eldon, the Earl of Winchelsea, Lord Holland, the Marquis of Lansdowne, and the Duke of Wellington, among others, stated their views of the expediency or inexpediency of the proposed committee. Upon the division the num bers ran thus:

Here the omniscients and the intuitives multiply upon us in a fearful ratio-an advance from 61 to 94; the difference being but fourteen in favour of those present! Let it be soberly considered for five minutes, that a motion, affecting the vital interests of the country, is brought before the House of Lords; that, in the fiction of Parliamentary language, the sense of the House is taken upon it; that 202 members of the House are represented as gravely and anxiously and solemnly deliberating upon this motion, but that, in point of fact, 94 of that number are mere paper Lords, deposited in the pockets of the remaining 108-and what man will be hardy enough to undertake the fence of such a system?

On the 23d of March, the Marquis of Clanricarde moved sundry reso lutions, part of them declaratory of admitted facts, respecting the arrival in this country of the Queen of Portugal, her recognition by his Majesty, and the departure of the Portuguese constitutionalists; and part of them condemnatory of the

Present, 21-Proxies, 10, . 31
Non-contents.

Present, 61-Proxies, 65, . 126

I have selected these three ques tions, first, because, up to the present moment, they furnish the only divisions upon which the strength of the ministry has been exerted; and, se condly, because such an exposition speaks home to the understanding better than the most forcible arguments. It is strange that this extra ordinary privilege has never been adverted to with reference to that which constitutes its extraordinary character, its solemn burlesque upon legislative deliberation. Nor let it be for gotten, that the ministerial majorities, by which enquiry into grievances, real or alleged, is so peremptorily stifled, and by which measures of real or alleged mischief are so promptly carried, consist of a much larger proportion of these proxies than the minorities. The system is bad and odious both ways; but it has at least a tendency to work more injuriously this way, except, indeed, we compound the matter, by considering, that if there were no proxies, there would still be majorities; though even then I should say, "Assume a virtue if you have it not," and give us the decency of apparent deliberation, and of supposed conviction, instead of the open demonstration of an utter disregard of both,

We are a droll people. Last year, the tables of both Houses of Parliament groaned under the weight of petitions from all classes of the people, and from every corner of

the country, beseeching the legislature not to pass the bill for granting political power to the Roman Catholics. The petitions were received with all possible respect, read

with all possible decorum, discuss ed with all possible solemnity, and the bill was passed into a law with all possible contempt of the petitions and the petitioners. This year, numerous petitions are presented to both Houses of Parliament, imploring the legislature to grant relief to the Jews from the civil and political disabilities under which they labour; not one petition, I be lieve-not one solitary petition-has been brought forward in opposition, and the measure actually before the House for giving effect to the prayer of these petitions is rejected! It is said, the only sure way of making a pig go the way you wish, is to pull him by the tail in an opposite direction. It would certainly seem, that to petition Parliament for a thing, is the infallible mode of not getting it, as it is no less an infallible mode of getting it, vehemently to protest against having it. Upon the whole, indeed, the last and present session may be considered as singularly propitious with regard to ascertaining the exact value of that invaluable right, as Mr O'Connell might say, The Duke of Wellington (it was before he was a minister) once called the petitions of the people "a mere farce." He would not, perhaps, call them so now, content with the power of proving them no better. It cannot be long, I should think, before the people themselves will be of his Grace's opinion; before they will disdain, with "bated breath," and

in a "bondman's key," to approach the honourable House with acres of parchment and oceans of ink, for the sake of asserting a privilege, the whole and exclusive benefit of which consists in its assertion; like certain forms, that are still kept up when the purposes for which they were origi nally instituted are gone to decay, making of an ancient ceremony a modern mummery. Should this time come, it will be followed, in the first instance, by a state of sullen apathy or quiescence-the sure precursor of a national feeling, that the period had arrived when the people must look after their rulers.

With respect to the Jews, it is a question upon the lips of every ra tional man- "Why should we play the squeamish hypocrite, and after having gulped down the camel, make such wry faces at swallowing the gnat?" We have built a bridge broad enough to allow of the passage of seven or eight millions of Catholics and Unitarians into the citadel of the constitution, and we refuse to make it a few inches wider to accommodate thirty thousand Jews! It is like the prudery of a prostitute, who limits the number of her bedfellows, fixing the boundary of virtue between ten and a round dozen; or rather, like that same prostitute, admitting every denomination of Christians to her embraces, but, in the spirit of my, Lord Darlington's political chastity, denying her favours to "Turks, Jews, and Infidels."* It is rank af