Lord Goderichpresented a Petition from the Mayor, Sheriffs, and Commonalty of the City of Lincoln, praying that the Ministerial Plan of Reform might become a law. The petitioners said, that, as this 591 Bill had been considered by some to be an invasion of corporate and municipal rights, and as they were persons participating in such rights, they were anxious to declare it to be their opinion, that such an argument, however well founded, ought not to be an obstacle to a measure which had the public voice in its favour.
The Duke of Norfolkpresented similar petitions from the borough of Horsham, from Cove, from Waterford, from the Corporation of Barbers in Glasgow, from Perth, and from several other places.
Lord Farnhamsaid, that as some of those petitions came from Ireland, and as he had received petitions from that country of an adverse nature, he could not refrain from making one observation upon the subject. He considered it a most extraordinary thing that, while the second reading of the Reform measure for England was fixed for that night in the other House of Parliament, the Bill for Ireland had not yet been introduced into Parliament. The noble Lord who had brought forward the plan of Reform elsewhere, had opened it as an entire measure, and yet they were now proceeding to deal with it in a mutilated form. He did not think that it was possible to debate the general measure fairly without having the details of the Irish measure before them. He begged, therefore, to know from the noble Earl (Grey) opposite, when the Irish measure would be produced by the Ministers. At present their Lordships were totally ignorant of the nature of that measure. It had been supposed, indeed, that the Irish measure would be analogous to the measure for England, but there were peculiar features in Ireland which would render such a measure wholly inapplicable to that country, and which would cause such a measure to be productive of very detrimental consequences.
§ Earl Greysaid, it appeared to him that the course which the noble Lord had pursued was somewhat irregular. The noble Lord had asked him when a Bill—which could only be brought into the other House of Parliament—would be introduced by the Government. Now it was quite impossible that he, consistently with the respect which was due to the other House of Parliament, or consistently with the proceedings of that House, could answer the question of the noble Lord. It was a Bill, however, which those who were employed in framing it were using all dili- 592 gence upon, and which would be brought in without loss of time. As to whether the measure would be productive of very detrimental consequences, if it were analogous to the measure for England, that was a matter which could not be properly discussed at present. Allow him, however, to observe, that this was the first time he had ever heard it said, that a general measure of Parliamentary Reform could not be fairly discussed without debating at the same time that part of the details of such measure as applied to Ireland. He old enough to have voted with Mr. Pitt when Mr. Pitt supported Parliamentary Reform, and to have strongly opposed Mr. Pitt, when Mr. Pitt opposed a similar measure to that which Mr. Pitt had supported at the outset of his political career. But in all those discussions, he had never heard it said, that it was necessary for them to know what Reform it was proposed to make in Scotland before they could debate the principle of Reform fairly. No; the measures had always been allowed to rest on their own merits; and he must say, therefore, that there was no foundation for the complaint of the noble Lord. As far as he could be permitted to state any thing regularly in answer to the noble Lord, he had no objection to inform the noble Lord, that the Bill was prepared, and that it would be produced at the first convenient opportunity.
§ Petitions laid on the Table.
The Lord Chancellorsaid, that he had to present a mass of Petitions to their Lordships on the subject of Reform. He could do no more than read the names of the places from which these petitions came, and he took that course, not out of any disrespect to the petitioners, but because he felt that it would be impossible to do more without occupying far too much of their Lordships' time. The petitions, which were fifty-six in number, came from different corporate bodies in various parts of the kingdom, all of whom would be affected by the Reform Bill; that was to say, they would all be disfranchised, either wholly or in part; and yet the prayers of the petitioners were, that the measure might be passed into a law. After reading the names of the thirty places from which the petitions came, being chiefly in Scotland, the noble and learned Lord said—"After presenting these petitions to your Lordships, I spare your Lordships the presentation of eighty or ninety more which have 593 been intrusted to me, because I am desirous not to encroach unreasonably upon the time of your Lordships. I selected these from corporate bodies, because I wish to give an illustration of that noble disinterestedness which so many classes have displayed upon this momentous question. While, my Lords, we cannot be too grateful to those distinguished individuals—Members of this House, and of the other House of Parliament—who have come forward so gallantly with expressions of their readiness to sacrifice their personal interests, and to give up cheerfully the most enticing of all possessions—I mean the possession of political power,—while I say, my Lords, we cannot be too grateful to those high-minded individuals, we must not forget to award the same meed of praise to persons in a lower class of life, who have displayed the same disinterestedness and public spirit. From this display, my Lords, I would fain, with your Lordships' permission, draw one moral. How grievously mistaken, my Lords, those persons must have been, who, either in Parliament or out of Parliament, have endeavoured to stir up a feeling of opposition and discontent to his Majesty's Ministers. [A slight laugh.] This is not the first time, my Lords, that I have been witness to a premature laugh,—to a laugh, my Lords, which if those who indulged in it had only had the patience to wait a little, the laugh would most assuredly have been postponed sine die. However, my Lords, I do not complain, and I trust that my noble friends who are inclined to laugh will forgive me if I goon with my moral to this,—not fable,—but, happily for the honour and the character of our country, —passage of history. This shows, then, how great is the delusion under which those persons labour who have attempted to excite feelings hostile to this great measure among—the lowest classes I was going to say, but I will not call them so, for their conduct has placed them above their tempters and seducers, and I will call them, therefore, the humblest classes, not the lowest. They who have resisted the arts and snares of the seducers must be higher at least than the seducers themselves. These tempters have gone among the people, and endeavoured insidiously to excite them against the Bill, by holding the following language to them:—'You common people will get no votes, for the Bill is founded on the principle of property, 594 and you have got no property.' But the people turned round upon them and said, 'This is the first time that you, or any of your kidney, have shown that you ever thought about the welfare of the people, or their want of property.' This, my Lords, is not the first time that such an argument was addressed to the people. It is an old argument, my Lords,—as old as the commencement of the Christian era —and the person who used it is well known in sacred history. The moral that I would impress upon your Lordships is to be found in a passage of the sacred writings, and is this:—'Then saith one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, which should betray him, why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence and given to the poor?' 'But this,' adds the sacred historian, with indignation, and contempt, and scorn,—' this he said, not that he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief.'"
§ The Duke of Wellingtonthought, that their Lordships would do well to adhere to their original resolution of not discussing this measure until it came regularly before them. He should have thought that the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack would have adhered to that resolution, but the noble and learned Lord had not done so, and had referred to arguments which had been used in the other House of Parliament.
§ The Duke of Wellingtonsaid, well the argument was one which had been adduced to the common people; and, since the noble and learned Lord had thought proper to go so far, he wished the noble and learned Lord had gone a little further, and adverted to certain other arguments which had been used to the same class. One of those arguments was, that this measure would lead to ulterior measures; that the measure must undoubtedly and inevitably lead to Radical Reform and Universal Suffrage. If the noble and learned Lord thought proper to allude to one part of an argument, let him allude to the other part of it also. However, he disclaimed any desire to continue the discussion of this subject, and he thought that their Lordships would do well to confine themselves to the statements of the petitioners.
The Lord Chancellorperfectly concurred in the propriety of the rule, generally, 595 which the noble Duke had advocated, and assured the noble Duke, that he should not have deviated from it, except that in presenting fifty-six petitions from persons so circumstanced as the petitioners were, he had thought it right to do justice to the disinterestedness which the petitioners had displayed. Whatever argument had been addressed to the people with regard to ulterior measures, he was wholly at issue with the noble Duke, if the noble Duke meant to say that the people supported this measure with the view of procuring by means of it such ulterior measures of Reform as the noble Duke had designated. He would not go into the argument of this point now, but content himself with stating one fact. He knew that thousands of those who had signed the Edinburgh petition had said,—" We are aware that we can get nothing by this Bill, but we will petition for it, because it will give to the country a proper system of Representation."
§ Earl Greypresented Petitions to the same effect from Greenwich, from Birmingham signed by 21,000 inhabitants, and from Manchester, signed by 20,000 inhabitants. Though he felt that the occasion of presenting petitions was not the most fitting for a discussion of the great measure of Reform now in progress through the other House of Parliament, he could not but observe with reference to the imputations against the supporters of that measure thrown out by the noble Duke (Wellington)—namely, that they supported it as a step towards the attainment of "ulterior views," extending to a very extensive change in our Representative system; that the chief object which Ministers proposed to themselves in bringing it forward was, to effectually put an end to the clamour and discontent which the withholding of a sound and constitutional Reform had generated, and thereby add to the stability of the existing institutions of the country; and that, even as far as they had gone they had been eminently successful, for that the demand for Universal Suffrage, Vote by Ballot, and Annual Parliaments, had been silenced since their plan of Reform had been promulgated.
§ Petitions laid on the Table.