PARLIAMENTARY REFORM.

APRIL 25th, 1822.

LORD J. RUSSELL moved "That the present state of the representation of the people in Parliament requires the most serious consideration of the House."

Several members rose at the same time with Mr. Canning, but the call for Mr. Canning was so loud and prevalent that they gave way.

MR. CANNING.-In obeying the call which the House has done me the honour to make upon me, I should be unwilling to occupy their attention for any length of time, upon a subject with respect to which my opinions are sufficiently notorious, were it not for the pointed manner in which I have been alluded to by the noble lord (Lord Folkstone), who has lately addressed them. That noble lord has challenged me either to support my old opinions by new arguments, or to abandon them. He describes himself as having been converted by my former arguments against Parliamentary Reform, to an opinion in favour of it; and in his own conversion to a creed which he had before rejected, he fancies himself entitled to carry me with him, and to make me a proselyte against myself. Those arguments of mine which have

produced this unfortunate and unforeseen effect upon the noble lord's understanding, have been long before the public: and I have no disposition to complain that the noble lord has referred to them as pointedly and particularly as if they had been uttered in the debate of this night. It was natural too, perhaps, that the noble lord, with the ardour of a convert, should flatter himself that his new-born zeal would extend to all around him: but I must beg leave to say, that the noble lord has carried his expectations a little too far, when he desires me to read my own speeches backwards; and to avow myself, if not a confirmed democrat, at least a friend to moderate reform. With the permission of the House, I will state, in as few words as possible, the grounds on which I continue to hold the same opinions which I have heretofore professed; and to draw from them the same conclusion.

Never, Sir, could those opinions be advanced under more favourable auspices-never could a conviction of their truth and justness be expressed with better assurance of a favourable reception than on the present occasion; when we have just been informed by the noble marquis (Marquis of Tavistock), in presenting a petition for Parliamentary Reform, that the whole body of the nobility, of the gentry, of the clergy, of the magistracy, of the leading and opulent commercial classesin short, that the great mass of the property and

intelligence of the country, is arrayed against that question. To this singular and valuable admission of the noble marquis (singular as to the opportunity chosen for declaring it, and the more valuable for that singularity) have been added others, not less striking, on the part of the noble proposer of the motion. The noble lord (Lord John Russell), while contending for a change which he declares to be necessary for the salvation of the state, but which he admits to be a change serious and extensive in its nature, has acknowledged that, under the existing system, the country has grown in power, in wealth, in knowledge, and in general prosperity. He has detailed, accurately and laboriously, the particulars of this gradual and sensible improvement; and he has further acknowledged, that in proportion to the progress of that improvement, a silent moral change has been operated upon the conduct of this House-which is now, he allows, greatly more susceptible of the influence of popular feeling and of the impressions of public opinion, than it was a century ago. Nay, he has gone farther still. He has-in anticipation of an argument which I perhaps might have used, if the noble lord had not suggested it, but which I am glad to take at his hands--expressed a doubt, or at least has shown it to be very doubtful, whether a more implicit obsequiousness to popular opinion on the part of the House of Commons, would produce unqualified

good avowing his own belief that if the composition of the House had been altered at the Revolution, the purposes of the Revolution would not have been accomplished-the House of Hanover would never have been seated upon the throne. The composition of the House of Commons is now precisely what it was at the time of the Revolution. Whatever change there may be in its temper, is, by the noble lord's acknowledgment, towards a more ready obedience to the public opinion. But if the House of Commons had at the time of the Revolution been implicitly obedient to the people; in other words, if the House had been then entirely composed of members popularly elected-that great event, to which I am as willing as the noble lord to attribute the establishment of our liberties, would, according to the noble lord's declared belief, have been in all probability defeated.

Surely these admissions of the noble lord are in no small degree at variance with his motion. Surely such admissions, if not ample enough of themselves to overbalance the direct arguments which the noble lord has, in the subsequent part of his speech, brought forward in the support of that motion, do at least relieve me from much of the difficulty and odium which might otherwise have belonged to an opposition to Parliamentary Reform. If I contend in behalf of the constitution of the House of Commons, such as it is, I contend at least for no untried, no discredited, no confessedly

pernicious establishment. I contend for a House of Commons, the spirit of which, whatever be its frame, has, without any forcible alteration, gradually, but faithfully, accommodated itself to the progressive spirit of the country; and in the frame of which, if an alteration such as the noble lord now proposes, had been made a hundred and thirty years ago, the House of Commons of that day would, by his own confession, have been disabled from accomplishing the glorious Revolution, and securing the fruits of it to their posterity.

Thus fortified, I have the less difficulty in meeting the noble lord's motion in front-in giving at once a plain and direct negative to the general resolution, which is the basis of his whole plan. I do not acknowledge the existence of the necessity, which by that resolution is declared to exist, for taking into consideration, with a view to alteration and amendment, the present state of the representation of the people in the House of Commons. Knowing as I do, that what is in the contemplation of many persons who are calling for reform, could not be adopted; and not knowing what may be the ideas and designs of others; feeling an equal repugnance, both from what I know and what I do not know upon this subject, to a doubtful and equivocal proposition, which would have the effect of binding this House to enter into the consideration of an endless succession of schemes for purposes altogether indefinite;