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Untitled Article
gether . There must be further organic changes . It is evident that nothing else can secure to the people the promised advantages of the Reform Bill . There will be no permanent Government till such changes are accomplished . The ministry , of which his lordship is a prominent member , could not have been restored to office , and cannot hold office a month ,, but by the hearty support of that large body of reformers which is pledged to those changes .
And what says his lordship of them ? * Even were the changes meditated useful in themselves , I am of opinion that the public mind , and the public energies , will be far better occupied in considering and urging practical improvements , than in squaring our ancient institutions to abstract theory , or suiting them to forei gn bxample . ' And are we to be sickened with such twaddle as this from the future leader of the House of Commons ? ' Abstract
theory !* ' foreign example ! ' Why SiF Robert Peel himself could Hot have written the words without laughing in his sleeve . What is the old story of the balance but an c abstract theory ; ' very milch abstracted from all truth and practicalness ? What is Lord John ' s notion of reformed corporations but an abstract theory , seeing it has never yet existed ? Or , if he avoid that character b y talking of
* the principle of free election known to our ancient laws / why that is the very principle which the Radicals say is but imperfectly 4 established by the Reform Act , ' and which they would efficiently establish by the ballot and triennial parliaments . There is plenty of home ' example' for both , as Lord John may learn from his club and his library . Were there not , the silly sneer would be not the less inexcusable . It is levelled , we suppose , at the United States ,
where our ' ancient institutions have been * squared to abstract theory ' with some advantage , the theory being thereby rendered no longer abstract , and the example not at all foreign to the purposes of good government . Would that Lord John would square his wits by the'foreign example' of some of the Transatlantic statesmen , and not spot the character of a great national movement by such pettinesses !
Notwithstanding this bit of wet blanket , the reformers must carry the South Devon election triumphantly , or they will disgrace themselves and their cause . An excellent spirit has been shown hitherto in the ministerial re-elections , and one which augurs well for the good fight against Toryism . The people are never wanting to their leaders when those leaders do their duty .
Untitled Article
350 Note ' * on tke-ttetoipapert .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1835, page 350, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2645/page/58/
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