Preface.

The extraordinary advance of the public mind, on the subject of Parliamentary Reform, within the last two or three years, is such as the most careless observer cannot overlook or dispute. Even the warmest friends of the existing system of representation are among the first to confess and to lament this ominous change; and those who recorded their disapprobation of the system, at a time when its deformities were less acknowledged, may congratulate themselves that their efforts, aided by recent events, have not been thrown away.

To any one who examines the signs of the times, there will appear a remarkable analogy between the present period and that which in France preceded the first French Revolution. The supreme power,—the source of all the painful restraints and burdens imposed upon society, has lost its hold on our moral feelings, and is becoming worn out and discredited. From ancient habit, and from the imperious necessity of one known standard of action, men still pay their taxes and obey the commands of the Legislature; and they have done so from the Revolution Edition: current; Page: [iv] of 1688 to the last few years, without ever seriously asking themselves what title that Legislature possessed to their confidence. The mere name of Parliament has sufficed to strike them with awe: a body of English gentlemen, variable under certain conditions, and bearing the same denomination as those assemblies which fought the battles of the people against the Stuart princes, has always been and still is sitting at Westminster: and the mass of the people, as it commonly happens, have been slow to perceive that the relations of that assembly towards them are the very reverse of what they were in the seventeenth century. A partial community of interest between the House of Commons and the people, prior to 1688, was created, not by the mode of their election, but by common fear of the Crown: and so soon as the alliance—equally profitable to both parties—between the House of Commons and the Crown, was organized, the divorce of the former from the people was an immediate and inevitable result. But no glaring evidence of such a divorce appeared on the face of affairs: on the contrary, the attention of intelligent observers was called more to the improvement in the administration of the Crown, than to the deterioration in the character of the House. Nor can we wonder at the general inattention to this latter fact, when we recollect that the formalities of election remained unaltered:—that the great and wealthy, and all the talented dependents on greatness and wealth, had the strongest interest Edition: current; Page: [v] in upholding the degenerated assembly, and in continuing to cry up the blessings of securities against the Crown, when the Crown, as a separate enemy, had ceased to be formidable: and farther, that the English Government during the last century was really both good and free, in comparison with even the best of those on the Continent.

During the last forty years two circumstances have been simultaneously operating to sharpen the insight of the English people into the real character of their Constitution—diffusion of knowledge, and increase of burdens. The number of those who read and talk politics has been prodigiously multiplied: newspapers, though their circulation is studiously restricted by a pernicious tax, are now numbered among the aliments of life by the population of every considerable town; and an extensive class of independent thinkers, unconnected with the leading strugglers for power, and refusing to be regimented either as Whig or Tory, has grown up all around. While political knowledge and feelings were monopolised by a small knot of gentlemen, the whole of their narrow circle, whatever might be their dissensions amongst themselves, had a separate and exclusive interest as against the whole community, and their debates were shaped accordingly. But the circle has now been so enlarged, as no longer to have any interest at variance with the whole community; and the tone of political discussion, instead of being purely personal and factious, has consisted, to a great Edition: current; Page: [vi] degree, of principle and philosophy, making their way by slow degrees against established corruptions and ancient prejudice. Whoever has watched the proceedings in Parliament during the last ten years, on the subject of Law Reform and Commercial Reform, must have seen ample evidence of this truth.

But, even if the intelligence of the English people had continued unexcited and stationary, it is scarcely possible that such taxation as ours could have been permanently endured without impairing their good will towards the Government which imposed it. The amount of money drawn from the nation and expended by the English Government, since the year 1793, is something which defies all power of conjecture, and which we can scarcely believe even when the Parliamentary returns are summed up before our eyes. No conqueror ever wrung from vanquished and despised aliens so severe a tribute as the English Aristocracy have extorted from their subjects and fellow-countrymen. During the war, men paid without murmuring, on the assurance that such exorbitant demands would only be temporary, and that peace would bring with it relief and abundance: during the first years of peace, promises of retrenchment in progress operated to appease their discontent; but when year after year passes, and the amount of taxation is still found most weighty and distressing, the sufferers become painfully disappointed and clamorous. Even the most patient and reverential men Edition: current; Page: [vii] begin to inquire into the system which hears upon them so heavily, and to look with an invidious eye on the receivers of the public money. They judge of the tree by its fruits: their painful sense of the effects is transferred to the cause. They listen with attention to criticisms on the Constitution, and a new light beams within them, when the character, the interest, and the working, of the House of Commons, as at present constructed, is made evident. Nothing short of impenetrable stupidity could make the English people continue to trust a House to which they owe such immoderate burdens, and from which they have at length ceased to expect relief.

These two causes taken together—diffusion of knowledge, and unrelenting taxation—sufficiently explain the growing discredit of that system which passed current with the thinking men of the last century. Taken as it now stands in public opinion, the English Government seems approaching to the condition of the old despotism of France, prior to the Revolution of 1789. Its anomalies, its abuses, its want of system and coherence throughout, its immoral and corruptive effects upon the whole community—are becoming too palpable and revolting to make it suffice as an engine of taxation. The men of wit and eloquence, like Mr. Canning, who undertook to deck out all these hideous deformities—arcem facere ex cloacâ,—have passed away, and few new orators venture to risk their reputation on the same dangerous ground. We may even congratulate Edition: current; Page: [viii] ourselves on possessing a Ministry, whose disapprobation of the existing system has been unequivocally proclaimed. At such a juncture, therefore, there is every reason to expect that the perilous consequences of keeping up the disgraced machinery will be duly appreciated, and that some attempts to amend it will no longer be postponed.

But whether such attempts will be sincere or deceptive—judicious or mistaken—comprehensive or superficial—is a point by no means equally certain. It is nevertheless of incalculable consequence. For, if the real defects of the existing representation are not accurately conceived—if the general principles, from whence alone these defects arise, are not laid bare and kept in mind—we run much risk of having some new delusion palmed upon us, equally objectionable in substance with the present, whereby mis-government may be rendered, for another half century, decorous and endurable. The workings of the sinister interest may be reproduced under another name, and with a slight variation in the external forms, unless the public are taught to recognise and detect the seeds of evil in an untried scheme, before its bitter fruits shall have been actually tasted.

There is much reason to fear that the amendments contemplated by the Whig Ministry will be of this insufficient description—that they will apply themselves rather to clear away the obnoxious symptoms of a rotten system, than to redress the real source of mischief. The various speeches of Edition: current; Page: [ix] Whig Reformers within the last ten years, and the doctrines broached in the great Party Review, display so erroneous a conception of the real vices of our representative system, and so decided an aversion to the only effectual remedies, that gentlemen of that school can scarcely be expected to recommend any such Reform as will really impart a new heart and spirit to the Sovereign Council. It will be something, indeed, to obtain even a partial Reform; and when we reflect on the opposition which the Boroughholders are likely to offer, a Ministry may deserve our thanks for accomplishing something widely removed from perfection. But it is of the last importance that the public should accept such a Reform only for what it is worth—that they should not mistake it for the whole improvement requisite—and that they should continue to withhold their confidence from the Parliament until it be so elected as to afford them full and adequate securities for good government.

It is to assist in guarding against this error that the present pamphlet is composed. Assuming that some Reform is admitted to be necessary, I am anxious to place in relief the leading features which are essential to its efficacy—to expose those mis-statements of its real end, and those sophisms as to the means, whereby half might be passed upon us for the whole, or changes of name and form for newly acquired securities—and to signalize, especially, some of the fallacies which I Edition: current; Page: [x] think most likely to mislead a Whig Ministry. In the year 1821, I published a pamphlet (entitled, “Statement of the Question of Parliamentary Reform,”) in refutation of an article in No. 61 of the Edinburgh Review. That article, ostensibly a review of Mr. Bentham’s work on Radical Reform, contained an elaborate exposition of the Reviewer’s ideas on the subject of Parliamentary Reform, and an earnest and deliberate recommendation of the theory of representation by classes, as the best security for a good Parliament. Some of the remarks which I then offered, in reply to that Reviewer, appear to me suitable to the present juncture, and I shall embody the substance of them in the following pages.