354 Parliamentary Reform. [ APRIL 



adverse to moderate reform. The true Tory is a lover of the Constitu- 

 tion for its merits, its security of property, personal freedom, and the 

 rights of conscience. On this principle there can be no more deter- 

 mined enemy of each and every abuse, which degrades the purity, that 

 enfeebles the protecting power of the Constitution. On this principle 

 he will go the farthest lengths with the corrector of real abuses, and on 

 this principle he feels it his duty to resist the suspicious corrector of 

 imaginary abuses. He preserves the whole frame of the Constitution 

 sacred, and for that purpose he uniformly and resolutely repels all the 

 tamperings which would attempt to renovate the Constitution by extin- 

 guishing its spirit and destroying its frame. 



But to put our readers in possession, for their own judgment, of the 

 chief arguments on both sides, we shall give a sketch of two speeches 

 which embodied, in the most direct manner, the principal grounds of 

 the measure and its opposition. Those of Sir Robert Inglis and Mr. 

 O'Connell. 



Mr. O'Connell. began by the natural, but sufficiently expressive decla- 

 rations, that he was a radical reformer, that he was an advocate for uni- 

 versal suffrage, a friend to shortening the duration of parliaments, and 

 a favourer of the vote by ballot. His only objection to the bill was, 

 that it did not go far enough. " Still," said Mr. O'Connell, " the 

 measure is a liberal and extensive measure, and it will demonstrate one 

 of two things, either that further reform is not necessary, by proving 

 that greater extension of suffrage and vote by ballot will be of no ad- 

 vantage, or it will give the vote by ballot without disturbance. . As a 

 Radical reformer therefore I heartily accept it." 



This was at least open enough, and the sincerity with which the 

 member for Waterford spoke was unquestionable. He plainly acknow- 

 ledged in it the principle of Radical reform, and rejoiced in the pros- 

 pect accordingly. After some general observations upon the injuries 

 still left unhealed in Ireland by the bill, he adverted to the argument 

 that the present state of the boroughs afforded an opportunity for the 

 introduction of men of talent into the House. This, which is certainly 

 a feeble argument, he ridiculed at some length : 



" Was it not that neither Peer nor Prelate should interfere with the freedom 

 of election ? "Was it then to he endured that gentlemen should tell the m n 

 that House, that a Duke or Earl had the right of appointing a member 

 of the Commons House of Parliament? Should gentlemen tell him, in the 

 teeth of that House, that the giving that power to a Lord was the ( Old Con- 

 stitution ?' The hypocrisy of that revolution was theirs, or they were parties 

 to it. If any gentleman attempted to violate that resolution clandestinely, it 

 was the duty of the Speaker to defeat the attempt. But if the violation of it 

 was, as gentlemen insisted, the < Old Constitution/ he would say, let the 

 question be regularly brought before the House, and let the resolution be re- 

 scinded. But let them not be told that a bill to enforce its observance, whilst 

 it stood upon their books, was a revolution." 



The borough patronage he turned into equal ridicule, and appealing 

 to those who talked of the robbery of the noble patrons, he demanded 

 where the right to that species of property was to be found ? 



Ct He had never heard of a royal charter, grant, or deed to any nobleman, 

 conferring on that nobleman the right of nominating members to sit in that 

 House. No ; but he had heard of such grants being made to the people. He 

 knew that the people had been robbed of those grants, and he liked this act 



