356 Parliamentary Reform. 



ponding sentiment among the members,, that it was received with loud 

 cheers and laughter. " He would then ask them, was this the Old 

 Constitution so much talked of? He would ask the learned member 

 for Boroughbridge, and he assured him, that of no man's learning and 

 integrity he had a higher opinion, would he give his voice for the pre- 

 servation of a system which gave such an opening for corruption, 

 profligacy, and the violation of the privileges of that House every six 

 years, almost every year ? Would any one deny that such was the case 

 in all the half-open boroughs ? Who would deny that the votes of these 

 burgesses were sold as oxen were sold in Smithfield, and that the seats 

 which represent them were sold and let as the stalls in Leadenhall 

 Market ? Did any one suppose that the people of England would not 

 rise and destroy that system of corruption ? Not perhaps by any sudden 

 violence, but by the force of opinion rising calmly, gradually, and irre- 

 sistibly, as a giant rising from his sleep." 



The argument of the injury done to the corporations, he treated with 

 contempt. Out of the whole list of the sixty disfranchised boroughs 

 only sixteen were corporations. As to the general delicacy of touching 

 the popular franchises and rights, he could not discover it in the previous 

 practice of the House, and peculiarly with repect to Ireland, where at 

 the time of the Union two hundred boroughs were disfranchised by a 

 single Act of Parliament. Yet, was guilt charged upon those boroughs ? 

 Quite the contrary ; they were so innocent that the minister of the day 

 thought they deserved 13,000 a piece for compensation. 



The working of the boroughmonger system, he declared to have at 

 all times been hostile to national objects. From the returns of the di- 

 visions in 1822, on the question of retrenchment, it was clear that no 

 dependence for public objects was to be placed on the members for the 

 close boroughs. It appeared on that occasion, that of the nineteen 

 members for boroughs, with a population under 500, the whole voted 

 against retrenchment ; that of the members for boroughs, with a popu- 

 lation above 500, and under 1,000, thirty-three voted against retrench- 

 ment, and but twelve for it ; of those for boroughs with 4,000 inhabi- 

 tants, seventeen were for retrenchment, and forty-four against it, while 

 of the boroughs with a population beyond 5,000, sixty-six voted for it, 

 and but forty-seven against it ; an evidence that the greater the popu- 

 lation, or, in general, the more open the borough, the more attentive 

 the members were to the distresses and desires of the country, while 

 it was the working of the close borough system which had created our 

 wars, and with them our national debt, and the enormous pressure of 

 taxation. The common argument of the advantage of boroughs in 

 bringing men of ability into the House, was obviously answered by the 

 fact, that they had brought not one man of ability for hundreds of the 

 direct contrary stamp; that if they exhibited a few remarkable men, 

 half-a-dozen perhaps in a century, they appeared but at intervals, like the 

 theatrical stars, which went down from London among the provinces, 

 and the entire of the play was Hamlet, while Polonius and all the other 

 characters were forgotten. To the remark that the " system had worked 

 well/' the natural answer was, " look round you. Ask what the agri- 

 cultural population felt on the subject ? Was the fact reflected from 

 the fires which had lately blazed through the counties ? And would 

 they be content to take the statement from the unfortunate men who 

 filled their jails on account of the late disturbances?" 



