1831.] Power and Prospects of the Country. 161 



place brute force on a level with moral force. We place crime on a level 

 with virtue ignorance with knowledge the shedder of blood with the 

 unpolluted servant of God. We place the safety of our property and 

 of our dearest institutions in the hands of those most interested in their 

 destruction. We confide the peace and welfare of society to the power 

 of men who would not hesitate to trample, in blood, upon the hearths 

 of our family, and the altars of our religion ! The only safe system of 

 self-government which a nation can enjoy, is that recognized by. our wise 

 and equal laws, in which the possession of interests to be preserved confers 

 the right of interfering in their preservation. 



The defects which time, and the consequent changes of society, have 

 produced in one elective system, have for years excited the attention of 

 men of every creed and party ; but we may safely assert that, until the 

 present crisis, these effects have never been so deeply felt in practice as 

 in theory. The question of reform was long used, by the party now in 

 power, as one of agitation and annoyance to government. The wildest 

 schemes of French philosophy were sought to be engrafted upon our 

 constitution ; and a constant tide of invective was levelled against many 

 of its noblest institutions. The influence of property was loudly decried, 

 and the doctrines of universal suffrage as loudly insisted on ; but, so long 

 as the reins of government were held by men of integrity and talent, and 

 the great and deserving portion of the community retains its station 

 and prosperity, the cry for Reform, coming, as it then did, from the vision- 

 ary theorists, who had sprung up into being before the flame of repub- 

 licanism and revolution which was then desolating the Continent; sup- 

 ported only by the disappointed amongst men of intellect, and by the 

 worthless and designing amongst their partisans, had little weight in 

 determining the course of measures in the state. At the close of the 

 war, however, this question assumed at once a more imposing aspect. 

 The revulsion, caused by a sudden transition from a state of war, to one 

 of profound peace, and the consequent embarrassments of the different 

 interests of the community, came upon men altogether unprepared, by 

 talent or energy, to meet the pressing exigency of the times. A feeble 

 and vacillating policy was pursued in all questions of public interest. 

 The administration of the affairs of the country became a game of stra- 

 tegy a petty trial of cunning between party and party ; each striving 

 for some privilege or some measure, important to its own members, but 

 worthless, and in some instances, destructive to the rest of the commu- 

 nity. The pressing demands of the people were daily sacrificed, to sup- 

 port some advantage of party, or to conceal some compromise of prin- 

 ciple; and, when the public patience became, at length, exhausted, and 

 the voice of public scorn demanded a change of measures, or of men, 

 the only result was some paltry arrangement some coalition, which, by 

 the happy balance of contending interests and measures, ensured the 

 public that each would be neutralized and rendered totally inefficient ! 

 The consequences of these pitiful shifts are now felt. The parliamen- 

 tary talent of the present day, nursed, as it has been, in compromise and 

 indecision of purpose, is infinitely below that which the increased in- 

 telligence of the age has called forth ; and the cause of reform has pro- 

 portionally gained ground. The shameless prostitution of the last par- 

 liament united alike the Tories and Whigs in its support; and we have 

 now a government formed on the express principle of entering freely and 

 decidedly into its arrangements. What this arrangement will be, it is 



M.M. New Series. Vol. XI. No. 62. Y 



