2 New Parliament. (Jory, 
hortations as now when elections are proceeding? We are suffering the 
fleeting and felicitous hours to escape—the elections are nearly over. 
Not so folly-struck are we as to suppose any exhortations of ours could 
influence present returns, or we would have taken good care to be 
beforehand with them. No, such-exhortations must be utterly useless, 
_ whilst almost every seat is shackled or fixed. We care not, for our own 
parts, if not another friend to the principle eyer steps within the walls 
of Parliament, convinced as we are, that eventually the overruling and 
commanding voice of the UNREPRESENTED will make converts of them 
all; and seeing, as we have often seen, how suddenly such assemblies 
can change their tone. We are for urging this paramount question ‘in 
season and out of season,’ but we discuss it at this particular period, 
because the subject is in some measure forced upon us by the scene 
before us, and because men’s minds are more indelibly impressible when 
facts are at the very moment corroborating our representations. 
Except the higher and wealthier classes of society, and you find the 
nation in a state of deep dissatisfaction. Why, what is the matter— 
what does it want? All the freedom compatible with social existence ; 
all the equality consistent with the unchangeable variety of circumstance ; 
all the rights, the exercise of which tends to produce the greatest sum 
of happiness. For these purposes. it is that society exists, and the 
government that does not secure these purposes, ceases to accomplish 
the very thing for which it is instituted, and must be corrected. But 
the glorious constitution of England does secure these noble objects. 
Idle. vapouring. _ Of what importance is the letter of the constitution, 
if the practice have nothing to do with it? Is it to be endured, that 
the constitution shall be built upon one principle, and the exercise of it 
proceed upon another? That the House of Commons be the repre- 
sentatives of the people—meaning by the people, we suppose, all but. 
the king and his peers—and freely chosen, is, we believe, one written 
article ef the constitution. But is that House the representative of the 
universal people, and is it thus freely chosen? We know it is not. 
Then is this boasted right, after all, no article of the English consti- 
tution; and of course, with such a deficiency, it does not fulfil the 
purpose for which alone a constitution, one at least suited to an enlight- 
ened and intelligent. people, is established. But still, it will be said, 
though our representatives have by degrees come indeed to be elected 
very unequally, yet no essential injustice is done—some of all classes 
and all professions are in the House, and every member is a repre- 
sentative of the nation, and not of any particular spot. Is it meant by 
this, then, that the House of Commons really represents the sentiments 
of the nation fairly? How know we this? One half of the nation has 
not even the legal right of suffrage ; how know we what are the senti- 
ments of that excluded half? Of those again, who have the legal qua- 
lification, not one half can freely exercise it; how then know we what 
are their views and wishes? Not one fourth—the particular fraction is 
not at all material—not one fourth of the people, then, elect those who 
take upon them to legislate for the whole nation, and still you pretend 
the sense of the whole nation is correctly conveyed, and their interests 
carefully protected. It is a random guess, an idle assumption, an im- 
pudent assertion-made by those who have power, to blind those who 
have none. F “ 
_ Where all haye a cominon interest, as every member ofa particular 
