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Untitled Article
Commons thoroughly identified with the people , and we may safely leate the Lords in their hands ; or if we choose to keep that question in our own , may rely upon what is essential to its Tbeing well disposed of , their hearty co-operation . You say " we cannot expect that any Ministry will initiate such a reform as this . " No , truly ; we know that the present Ministry will oppose it ; and so will any other Ministry that can
exist in the House of Commons , until the principle of representation be more completely carried into practice . Nor , till th « n , can we trust that House with the reform of the Peerage . How shall they accomplish the harder task who refuse the easier ? If they will not subject themselves to election by ballot , or by household suffrage , what shall make them bring down to such a mode of choice the hereditary legislators of the
empire ? If they will not abridge the length of their own legislative functions to the original term , how can we expect them to destroy the perpetual authority to which many of them aspia ? e ? If Ministers dare not , cannot , or will not , create the
seventy peerst hat would be necessary to sanction these changes ,
why should we reckon upon the creation of one hundred and seventy for the purpose of remodelling the Upper House altogether ? Whether " pressure from without" will ever make them do the latter , would be best ascertained by first trying it upon the former . If agitation be needful for one or the other , let there be agitation . Let societies be formed , and petitions
poured in , as you recommend . Let the political unions be a ^ ain called into existence ; and their fear fu l array show the physical force of the country ready to back its moral power . As adequate and efficient representation must render such demonstrations unnecessary , so it seems the primary purpose for which they should ever be made .
Will not your proposal to < c give up' what you most incorrectly , as I think , term " lesser pursuits " tend , instead of uniting Whigs and Radicals , to divide the latter amongst themselves ? Will it not widen the distinction pointed out in one of Mr . Roebuck ' s recent pamphlets as already existing , and fraught with danger ? ' One broad and very important distinction is that between the Radiculs of C » reat liritttin and those of Ireland . Hitherto these two bodies have nctei ! in concert ; but the time seems fast approuching
when » if eare he not taken , they will pursue different ends , and aet iii < JeAeiidentlv of each other .
u To mi Irish Liberal nothing is so hideous as Orange domination . The evils brought upon the mass of the population in Ireland b y the m ^ re , existence of a lory Government , can only he properly appreciated uy those , who have suffered the . infliction of Orange rulers . The terror of this Orange dominion nuturally overhears in the minds of tlie trish "tilberals ' all other fears . Their first great end is to ward off from their country this dreadful infliction ; and they feel that their
Untitled Article
60 Agitation of Peerage Reform .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1836, page 60, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2653/page/60/
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