a a i ll 
1826.] New Parliament. 9 
efforts of that indefatigable society instituted for their ‘improvement '— 
scenes of the most corrupting iniquity—mixing, for the most part, the 
young with the old, the novice with the veteran, the tried with the 
untried, the debtor with the criminal, and almost every imaginable 
incongruity, revolting to sound sense, sound wisdom, and sound morals. 
Can any man believe for a moment that these depravations would 
ever have grown up to their existing enormity with a free and a freely- 
chosen representation? Or, seeing what we have seen and still see, 
can any man indulge the hope, that, without the change we have been 
contemplating, the country will be rescued from its embarrassments and 
oppressions ?—This is our case. 
But, by thus depriving the Government of the power of commanding 
majorities in Parliament, the machinery of the state must stand still—no 
ministers can keep their places a month. Why not? hy should we 
suppose them obstinately and gratuitously bent on pursuing measures 
adverse to the common good? or a ‘free and freely chosen’ Parlia- 
ment as wilfully bent on opposing such measures? They have only to 
be more careful and considerate of what they introduce. Ifrepulsed, 
they need not resign; they need only revise. They will be less per- 
plexed; they will be less frequently over-ruled ; they will have fewer to 
‘coax or conciliate. ‘We are seven,’ or, ‘I can bring sixteen,’ need 
no longer alarm them. They will be, in short, at liberty to consult solely 
the general interests of the nation, and scorn the control of both the 
land and the loom. 
Then might we hope to see if not a sudden reduction of the taxes, at 
Jeast a new arrangement of them. Why, with such a load of debt, what 
could even a free Parliament do? Put the saddle upon the right horse, to 
be sure. Are we thinking, then, of what has been termed ‘ equitable 
adjustment ?’ No truly; equitable adjustment could be nothing now 
but fraud. True it is, the Government borrowed in one state of cur- 
rency, and has to pay in another. But its creditors have changed— 
changed with its own concurrence, and are no longer traceable. The 
new creditors at least have given full consideration for their claim, and 
. are intitled to full re-payment. We have no desire to see the public 
creditor defrauded; but simply to change the pay-master—to make 
‘those, in short, who hold the property, and were mainly concerned in 
incurring the debt, pay the debt ; and if, at last, when all safe and prac- 
ticable retrenchments are made, they indeed cannot pay, then must they 
‘do as other bankrupt-debtors do, make the best composition with their 
creditors they can. 
it has been often said, this debt is, after all, nothing but a family con- 
cern. Ifmoney has been taken from one, it was given to another. The 
debt is merely nominal. The nation is indebted to itself It lends with 
‘one hand, and pays with the other. The property still exists, and the 
ation is as solvent and rich as before. ‘Taking this representation as 
true, as in one useless respect it nearly is, is it any consolation to me, 
that another has got what I have lost and cannot-recover? — Is the con- 
dition of a hundred persons the same, because ten have now got possession - 
of what the hundred held before? The average is still the same, says 
the economist, who of course regards us as nothing but mere machines, 
or rather as numerical units. But what satisfaction, again we ask, is 
‘this to the luckless wight, who falls below the average? The truth is, 
that the great mass of the people, having little, have lost that little, and 
M.M, New Series.—Vot. II. No. 7. e 
