PETITIONS FOR A REFORM OF PARLIAMENT.

HC Deb 25 April 1822 vol 7 cc49-51

Mr. Pelham

rose to present a petition from the county of Lincoln, for, a reform in the representation. A noble lord had given notice of a motion on that subject, who was looked up to from all parts of the country as a friend of constitutional liberty. He would not pledge himself to support the noble lord's motion but he thought the subject entitled to every degree of attention.

Sir R. Heron

said, that the meeting was most numerously and respectably attended. The population of Lincolnshire was almost exclusively agricultural. Formerly, contented with their lot, they were little inclined to interfere in political questions, but now, seeing around them the most severe and menacing distress—finding that the legislature was either unable or unwilling to look the state of the country manfully in the face, and administer those remedies by which alone their distresses could be mitigated they were convinced, that no relief was to be expected but from substantial and effective reform.

Lord Ebrington

presented a petition from Crediton in Devonshire, praying for an effectual and complete reform of parliament. It had been unanimously agreed to at a numerous meeting of the inhabitants regularly convened by the portreeve. This was the twelfth petition on this subject which he had presented from Devon, in the course of the present session and among the petitioners were a large portion of the most respectable gentry, clergy, and yeomanry, of that county. Many more would have petitioned but that feelings now existed, very generally, throughout the country, which discouraged the people from doing so. From the manner in which their petitions were treated they were becoming daily more and more convinced that it was utterly useless to petition that House. Although he was not surprised at this, it was to him matter of the greatest regret; and he could not but express his hope, that the people of England from one end of the kingdom to the other, would persevere in public meetings and in using every means which the law allowed them for the declaration of their opinions on the great and vital question of parliamentary reform. He hoped, too, that the conviction which was so universally prevalent among all ranks of persons out of doors, as to the necessity of correcting the present state of the representation, would, ere long, be enforced even upon the House of Commons itself.

The Marquis of Tavistock

presented a petition from the county of Bedford, agreed to at a numerous and respectable public meeting, praying for parliamentary reform. He admitted, that it was fruitless to petition the House on such a subject; and he knew that the petitioners were well convinced of this. They had seen every application for a reduction of expenditure resisted by the minister, backed by the overwhelming majorities of that House. They knew well that ministers would meet their statement with perfect indifference. Still they considered it due to themselves and their suffering fellow citizens once more to approach that House with their complaints. They would probably hear from the ministers of the Crown, and particularly from a right hon. gentleman (Mr. Canning), that parliamentary reform was a question merely taken up in the emergency of distress, and that its propriety was not felt, by what they considered the well-disposed part of the community. If by the well-disposed part of the community was meant a large proportion of the landed interest, borough proprietors, magistrates, and clergymen, he was bound in truth and candour to admit that they were unfortunately correct. But if they comprehended within their view of the well-disposed part of the community, the great body of the Commons of England, the industrious and intelligent and moral middle class of society, the men who lived not on the taxes, and who speculated not on the patronage of the ministers; then he denied the correctness of the assertion, convinced as he was, that there existed, from one end of the kingdom to the other, in that great body, a want of confidence in that House, and a firm conviction of the necessity of a parliamentary reform.

The petitions were ordered to lie on the table, and to be printed.