HC Deb 18 March 1831 vol 3 cc576-7
Mr. Benett

presented Petitions from Wiltshire, Bradford, Malmesbury, Warminster, Swindon, and Devizes, in favour of Parliamentary Reform. All these petitioners highly approved of the measure proposed by his Majesty's Ministers, and hoped that it would pass into a law.

Sir J. Dugdale Astley

supported the prayer of these petitions.

Sir C. Forbes

took occasion to express his regret that so many persons should be induced to express themselves in favour of a measure which was not reform, but revolution, and which must prove ruinous to the Constitution of this country.

Mr. Hobhouse

was equally surprised that any person of common sense could suppose that the Reform measure would have such an effect as that which the hon. Baronet attributed to it.

Sir C. Forbes

said, he could not understand why the hon. member for Westminster had not, after the decision of the House that evening, asked his usual question of "When do the Ministers mean to resign?" Why had not the hon. Member, after so decisive a defeat, put the same question they had so often heard him put to the late Government, of "When does the noble Lord propose to resign."

Mr. Hobhouse

said, his memory was not so defective but that he could recollect the opinions of the hon. Baronet to have been, on former occasions, different from what they were now. The question, which the hon. Baronet wished him to put was not, however, quite so appropriate at the present moment. The country would not be gulled by the trickery of the vote of that evening. The question for them was, whether they were to have Reform or not, and whether those who had for fifty years been labouring to obtain Reform were now to be tricked out of their object? He was convinced that the day when the Ministers resigned would be a bad day for the country; but he was satisfied that the country would not be baulked in their wishes by the vote of that night. He had frequently heard the hon. Baronet pledge himself to Reform, and would now call upon him to prove his consistency.

Sir C. Forbes

declared, that he was still a friend to Reform, but not to Revolution.

Petitions to lie on the Table.