1831.] Europe, and the British Parliament. 255 



The Last topic which forces itself on the public attention is Parlia- 

 mentary Reform. To speak of the ministerial plan would be premature. 

 But the real sentiment of the nation is easily ascertained. The conduct 

 of the apostate parliament of 1829, so thoroughly disgusted every man 

 of honour, that all are now satisfied that some change in the mode of 

 choosing representatives is necessary. Nothing could be clearer than 

 that the Parliament of 1829 represented a party and not the people. The 

 abominations too, of the hustings, the bribery, treating, and collusions 

 of all kinds, the purchases, and other vilenesses, which have been 

 declared to be notorious as the sun at noon-day, have entirely disturbed 

 the confidence with which the people looked to the old system. And 

 the Tories are now perhaps the loudest and the most determined in 

 seeing that the system shall be purified. They desire to keep aloof 

 f romthe extravagant theories of Radicalism : they pronounce the doc- 

 trine of universal suffrage a gross absurdity, annual parliaments a 

 burlesque, and the ballot an indignity to the common sense and charac- 

 ter of England. They have no objection to see rank and wealth, 

 particularly when connected with high character and public spirit, exert 

 their natural influence in elections, as they have a right to do in all 

 public interests. But they fully agree with those who say that the sale 

 of seats in parliament is a scandal, that the purchase of votes at 

 elections is an incitement to perjury, and that the return of members for 

 places which have no electors, or next to none, the Old Sarums, West- 

 burys, and others of their class, is not to be endured any longer. 

 They say that their resistance to Parliamentary Reform arose merely 

 from their suspicion that its most violent advocates meant Parliamentary 

 Revolution, and from their belief that from various counteracting 

 causes, it, on the whole, " worked well." But having at length worked 

 ill, in the most signal instance that had put public good or evil into the 

 hands of a parliament, for a century, they have altogether acknow- 

 ledged the necessity of some change, not which would give the House 

 of Commons more power, for it has enough ; nor the people more, for 

 in a legislative sense they should have none ; but which would make it 

 more difficult for men to enter the House by dishonest arts for dishonest 

 purposes. They agree with those who desire to see every Englishman 

 of mature age and a certain property, entitled to vote, whether the rate 

 of property be regulated by actual income, or by the simpler way of 

 the amount of his taxes payable to the king. The Tories have no 

 quarrel with the present ministry, they charge them with none of the 

 vilenesses of the last, they wait to see what they will do and then by 

 their deeds they will judge them. 



