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you do ? Govern without one ? Supersede representation ^—put the press under a censorship—and reduce the country to a proper monarchy ? Aye , there the boldest of your tribe must let ' I dar *
not wait upon I would- ' And yet to that , or to convulsion , must the nation be inevitably brought by the revival of Toiy domination . If you have any insight into futurity , my Lord Duke , this is the prospect you must contemplate . You once shrunk , or professed to shrink , from civil war in Ireland- This would be a more fearful struggle . The fortunes of your party weie not then so desperate . Have you become desperate with them ? Will you risk your own revenues and station for the lithe tax and the pension list ? It is not wise of you . In the dread convulsion you would occasion , thunderbolts would fall against which laurels would be no protection . But it will not come to this . The approaches towards military despotism would be too closely watched , too promptly encountered , for there to be any danger of the blood * shedding and violent revolution which must be its result . There is another way of looking at this subject . Suppose the elections got over according to your most sanguine hopes ; suppose a House of Commons , thoroughly corrupt and easily managed , let Sir Robert Peel lead it whithersoever he will , with a majority of two to one at his back and beck . Has it ever occurred to you to
inquire what the effect of such a state of things would be on public opinion ? To what points it would be directed , in what course it would flow , and what changes it would eventually realize . ' It is not difficult to predict . In the first place , there would be a general conviction of the necessity for another and more sweeping measure of Parliamentary Reform . This conviction prevails now to no very limited extent . It has been rapidly extending , eren
while there was not much apprehension of Toryism . A year ot your Parliament would not pass before petitions tor Triennial or Annual Parliaments , Household or Universal Suffrage , and the Ballot , would be pouring in from all quarters . The active adro * cates of these measures , or at least of Triennial Parliaments * Household Suffrage , and the Ballot , are even now as formidable as was the whole bodv of Parliamentary Reformers in 1830 . A
single Tory Parliament would give them the preponderance in the next Parliament . They would earn * the Hn > t election which took place . And the first session wouid carry these measures . And where wouid you then be , mv Lord Duke ?—With the Peers , your compeers . And where would they be !— Echo answers , where ?*
Certainly they would not long be—in opposition to the Commons . Another eflect of your brief rei ^ n would be to bring the privileges of tht > House of Veers into lively discussion as a practical Q uestion of immediate interest . The subject is afloat already . Hereditary legislation is a broad and standing mark , which tbm ahajts of those who ' shoot folly as it flies could uot hav *
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Warning * to the Tories . £ 03
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1835, page 503, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2648/page/3/
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