On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
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.
-
-
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
importance ; arid the conditions ' which they exacted were only . Tot the limited period of the duration of a Parliament ; that period , moreover , being terminable at any time by the resignation of their representative / thus reducing the amount of inconvenience to that ' of a fresh choice of a Member of Parliament . Yet there
was a very general , though tacit , combination in the class of society to which your Lordship belongs , and from which- the raw material of our representatives is chiefly derived , to treat thfe pledged candidate as a degraded character . There was an outcry against not confiding * in an unlimited discretion . Now if sucn ; or any , discretion be desirable for a simple member of the Legislature , how much more for a member of the Government . There
can be no comparison between the rashness of the people ' s pledging a Reform candidate to support organic change , and a Reform Minister ' s pledging himself to resist organic change . Who can calculate the future embarrassments and disasters which may arise from this precipitancy ? Had Canning ' s life been spared , he and the country might nave had cause dearly to rue the hasty
expressions into which he was betrayed on the Test and Corporation Acts , and on the Catholic question . By a premature declaration against the Reform of the House of Commons , the Duke of Wellington destroyed a Tory Government : your Lordship may perhaps destroy a Whig Government by a premature declaration against a Reform of the House of Lords .
If your Lordship meditates a junction with the Tory party , your language may be well timed . Happily you are above the suspicion of such baseness . You cannot contemplate such wanton and gratuitous disgrace . But , if there be such traitors in the camp , you have furnished them with a flag of union under which they may march side by side with the enemy . However
incorruptible yourself , you have provided them with a pretext for apostacy . You have indicated a rallying point for a junction of false-hearted Whigs and inveterate Tories . Coalitions have often been formed under far less plausible pretences . You and Si * Robert Peel alike g stand pledged to the constitution of the country in all its branches , ' sound or ' rotten . And , if not
yourself , yet many will be glad to ask , Would you desire better sympathy ? ' Should-some such union , by no means improbable , be formed , your Lordship will have placed yourself in no very enviable position for the maintenance of that consistency of which public men are so tenacious . Consider the effect of vour language on the Tory faction .
Was k expedient to tell them that you have gone the whole length of organic change ? that you contemplate , that you will tolerate ,- no further abridgement of that undue power whioh y « fct remains to them in the Legislature ? that influence , corroptioft , hereditary and irresponsible authority , are now perfectly iecujw ? Y 6 u Jmve offered th * -frreimtim * fcf ptrataitent immunity iot i *
Untitled Article
On Organic Rejbnris . 6 W
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1835, page 697, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2651/page/5/
-