had been wrong. Attention was naturally drawn to the conditions that made possible such a disaster, and they were found to depend upon the influence of the crown on the Commons. As Pitt put it in 1783: The disastrous consequences of the American war, the immense expenditure of the public money, the consequent heavy burden of taxes, and the pressure of all the collateral difficulties produced by the foregoing circumstances gradually disgusted the people, and at last provoked them to "turn their eyes inward on themselves," in order to see if there was not something radically wrong at home. That was the chief cause of all the evils they felt from their misfortunes abroad.' The result was the county movement' of 1779 and 1780, which issued in the abortive motion introduced by Pitt to abolish the representation of certain of the smaller boroughs and transfer it to the more independent county electorate.

'1

The American war was the clearest and most palpable example of the consequences to be feared from the personal influence of the Crown, but from that time onward the question was never dropped. In the circumstances of the great French war Fox imagined that he saw a repetition of those of the war with America; in both he maintained that a contest which was unpopular and unjust had been perpetrated against the declared sense of the nation by the corrupt influence of the minister in power;

1 Speeches, vol. i., p. 45.

and in 1797 he supported the cause of reform against Pitt, on precisely the same grounds that had been advanced by Pitt himself in 1783.1

After the peace, the same point of view recurs. The disturbed state of the country, from 1815 on, provoked the government to drastic measures. The Habeas Corpus Act was suspended, and the right of free speech and of public meeting practically suppressed. Once more it was felt that the liberties of the subject were not safe, that the government was approximating to an irresponsible tyranny; and Lord John Russell, writing in 1823, is so far from anticipating the advent of democracy that he professes to fear the extinction of the constitution in a despotism. 'The influence of the Crown has increased to an alarming extent, and the recurrence of periods of popular ferment, instead of checking this influence, as it was wont to do in old times, is made the occasion of passing new laws, chipping away something every time from the established liberties of the nation. It seems impossible to imagine signs more unfavourable to the maintenance of freedom, or more ominous of that despotism which Mr. Hume has styled the euthanasia of the constitution.' 2

It seems clear, then, that it was dread of the influence of the sovereign and his ministers that was the main motive swaying the Whigs to reform.

2

1 See his speech of May 26, 1797.

Essay on the History of the English Government and Constitution, ed. 1823, p. 455.

But that influence was exercised mainly through the medium of the smaller boroughs. These were the seats that were open to purchase, and for which such members were returned as were ready to sell themselves to the government. It was observed that every attempt to introduce retrenchment or reform was defeated by a solid phalanx of borough members. They, then, were the root of every public evil, of disastrous expeditions, of extravagant finance, of the debt, the increased taxation, and the consequent disturbance and distress. It followed that if the control of the executive was the object of the Whigs, the means to that control was a reform in the machinery of representation.

Of this attitude of the Whigs the Act of 1832 is the clearest record and exponent. Its object was to disfranchise all the boroughs which were most obviously open to sinister influences, and by transferring the seats thus gained to the counties. and the larger towns to replace the nominees of a Tory government by members of more independent, perhaps of more whiggish views. But never for one moment did the Whig ministry intend to alter the essential character of the House. In the changes they introduced they were bound, it is true, to be guided to some extent by considerations of property and numbers. But, as they were careful to explain, it was never their idea to accept

1 See the examples given by Russell in the same work.

1

2

either wealth or population as a sole and sufficient basis of representation; 'wealth, probity, learning, and wit' are all to be considered; more than one hundred seats are still preserved to the smaller boroughs, to represent the general interest of the nation against the particular interests of localities; the supremacy of the landed interest is to be maintained; the influence of the peers, if anything, is to be increased; and the balance of the powers in the constitution is to be maintained."

3

4

5

Whether we consider, therefore, the theory held by the aristocracy as a whole, or the particular modification of it which prompted the Reform Act of the Whigs, it is clear that that Act was never intended by the governing class either to be or to lead to a fundamental change in the constitution of the House of Commons; it was not directed primarily against inequality of representation as such, but against certain specific abuses which were supposed to have resulted incidentally therefrom, and especially against the increasing influence of the Crown and the ministry.

But the views and the intentions of the aristocracy were but one factor in the situation. For though it was the Whigs who introduced the Bill, it was popular agitation from without that

1 See, e.g., Russell's speech, Hansard, vol. iii., p. 1519.

2 Ibid. vol. ii., p. 1086.

3 Ibid. vol. iv., p. 338.

4. See, e.g., Althorpe's speech, Annual Register, 1832, p. 30. 5 Hansard, vol. vii., p. 934. 6 Annual Register, 1831, p. 245.

carried it through. No measure that has ever been introduced, from that day to this, has excited an enthusiasm in any way comparable to that of 1832; and there can be little doubt that, unless the House of Lords had been forced to yield, violent revolution would have ensued. As it was, the agitation was pushed to the extreme limit of legality-the Commons were petitioned to withhold supplies; the public were invited to refuse taxes, and to paralyse industry by a run upon the banks; and, as a last resort, a plan of armed insurrection had actually been made out. Such a popular upheaval, it might well be supposed, must be more significant of the real opinion of the nation than the wishes and hopes of the aristocracy; and it therefore becomes important to consider what the agitation really meant, and whether, or to what extent, it was based on democratic ideas.

2

One thing is clear to begin with. Whatever

1 The Court of Common Council of the City of London presented a petition to that effect. See the account by Francis Place preserved in the British Museum, Add. MS. 27793, f. 29 and f. 43.

2 Add. MSS. 27789, f. 253; 27790, f. 11; 27794, ff. 38 and 152. In May 1832, the following placard was distributed: 'I, John Bull, tired of oppression of boroughmongers, am now resolved to obtain my constitutional rights. Therefore I will not be taxed until I am represented. I will have a voice in choosing those who make the laws I am to obey. I will not continue to support the enemies of the people. I will call on the House to stop supplies. I will purchase only of those who refuse to pay the excise. I will not pay taxes in money. I will not pay rent to my landlord. I will not deal with any tradesmen who pay taxes in money. I will not take bank-notes. I will not trust the Funds, but I will have gold.'--Ibid. 27793, f. 181. Cf. the concise placard drawn up by Place, To stop the Duke, go for gold,' ibid. 27793, f. 148.

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