On this page

• Text (2)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    Untitled Article

  • 

    Untitled Article

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    of proud or sordid factions . England had to wait , and suffer sore disgrace , until a new and nobler principle of resistance was matured ,, when the battle for humanity , which had been fought and lost by Enthusiasm and Physical Force , should be again waged by Popular Intelligence .

    The most glorious victory ever achieved by this principle was the reinstatement of the Grey Ministry in office , in May , 1832 . Never was triumph more pure or perfect . The Court , the Peers , the Tories , all were at the feet of the People , —the peaceful , forbearing , trusting , generous , determined people . At that moment , all reform needful for keeping down sinister interests , and securing the public interest , seemed practicable , certain , and rapidly to be realized . From that moment the tide has ebbed .

    To confirm the people ' s triumph , even for a brief space , a large creation of peers was essential . To carry the Reform Bill in any other way , was to forfeit much of the advantage to be expected from its enactment . The new peers eventually , or at any rate their heirs , would no doubt have fraternized with the old ones . Still some time would have been gained for unchecked popular legislation ; and that time , well employed , might have provided

    against future revulsion . By what infatuation , or what treachery was it , that this golden opportunity was lost ? What could induce the Whigs to consent to pass the Bill by an irregular influence , and thus leave themselves and the Reformed Commons crippled by an unreformed peerage ? They were sure of a lower House in accordance with their professed principles ; it was ( at that moment ) in their option whether the upper House should be friendly or hostile ; and they acquiesced in its remaining hostile . Hence , ever since , they have been pleading that their measures do not go so far as they wish ; so far , that is , as in their own opinion the public interest requires ; because they are only able to carry them in an imperfect form . They left , intact , an opposing power , with which they have incessantly been compelled to compromise , and which has occasionally beaten them in order to show its strength .

    At the same time , with marvellous inconsistency , they have resisted all propositions for augmenting the people ' s influence in the Legislature . They will not become yet stronger in the Commons , stronger for all reforming purposes , and so put an end to compromising with the Lords . According to them , the country must remain content with such mutilated measures as will he

    allowed by an anti-liberal peerage . That the new House of Commons has hitherto supported Ministers in this temporizing and compromising course , is the worst feature of the present times . On that House rest the hopes of the community for a peaceful and continued amelioration of the condition of its members . If having ceased to exist merely by the nomination of the peerage , it should spontaneously , or by the influence of Ministers , become the mere organ of the will of the

    Untitled Article

    Forwards or Backwards ? &

    Untitled Article

    B 2

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1834, page 3, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2629/page/3/