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    nation is never roused , as this nation has been roused , by the somewhat refined perception and desire of this species of good . The motive must have been a strong sense of evil , from which'it seeks deliverance . The people require the power of electing , in order that they may choose other men who shall adopt other measures . They have wearied of the House of

    Commons because the House of Commons differed so little from the House of Lords . What then can be expected from a more popular House of Commons ? It will be continually thwarted by the Peers , and there must either be a new system of corruption introduced into the one body , or a principle of improvement infused into the other , to secure that degree of accordance which is essential to the quiet and government of the country *

    A fine opportunity has passed for preventing this mischief . It might have been done , once for all , at the Coronation . Opposition would have been cowed by the manifestation of such a spirit . There would have been no room for the delusive hope that the Ministers dared not , or the King would not , have recourse to the lawful exercise of the prerogative , on the people's

    bebalf . A smaller number would have sufficed than may now be needed * Probably had twenty staunch friends of Reform been then introduced , the Bill might by this time have been the law of the land . The recurrence of an equally propitious opportunity is a bold expectancy . Heaven realize it I We will suppose the Reform Bill adopted by the present Peers , and a

    new House of Commons chosen which shall represent public opinion * What would be the immediate consequence ? The topics most distasteful to the Lords , * most at variance with what they deem their peculiar interests , and with their known prejudices , would be the first and favourite topics of the Commons . A Bill would be sent up for reforming the temporalities of the Church , curtailing and equalizing its revenues : rejected . Another for

    promoting the diffusion of political knowledge through the great mass of the people : rejected ; or amended till good for nothing . Another for effectually breaking up the Corn Monopoly : rejected . Then on questions of foreign policy , the sympathies of the two Houses would be as hostile as Greeks and Turks , Poles and Russians , Belgians and Dutch , French and Austrians . And so things would go on ; or rather , so things could not go on . We should soon come to a crisis more formidable and fearful than

    even the present . . It is supposed that Ministers are disinclined to a creation of Peers unless in case of absolute necessity ; that they themselves entertain , or respect in others , the notion that' the order would be degraded by a large accession of new members for this specific object . It might be wished that the existence

    or non-existence of the necessity could be ascertained by experiments less perilous than that which has been tried . There are plenty of men whose introduction , even on the ground of ancient family , would add to , rather than diminish , the dignity of the order . Many of the oldest genealogical trees yet flourish in the outer forest , while mushrooms abound within the

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    Onthe present State of * the Reform Question . ' 777

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1831, page 777, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2603/page/53/