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which those of the Castlereagh and Sidmouth times were trifles; conspiracies at both extremes of society, one under the steps of the throne, the other under the shadow of the workhouse. Of them we shall speak presently; but we must first show the reflex agitation of both as apparent in a remarkable movement in an intermediate portion of society.

the Peers.

It is unnecessary to present again the conduct of the majority Conduct of of the Peers during the reform struggle. It is, and ever will be, fresh in men's minds; the disgrace of the bishops above all; and, next, the insolence and rancor of the least enlightened of the lay Peers. From year to year, they protracted the provocation they gave to the people at large, by obstructing and damaging measures of improvement which they could not wholly get rid of. They did this with a rashness which appeared unaccountable, till revelations were made that showed how the most violent of the obstructive Peers had reckoned on political changes which should give them justification for the past, and their own way for the future. We have seen how they came to yield the point of parliamentary reform; but it was not known at the time how confidently they expected soon to repeal the Reform Bill. We have seen how they repeatedly extinguished the Irish-Church bills sent up by large majorities of the Commons; how fifteen bishops assembled at Lambeth to concert measures for intimidating the Ministry; and how the Primate began his agitation in the Upper House before the measure was introduced there. We have seen how materially they injured the Municipal-Reform Bill, in its principles as well as its details ; and how they went up in a crowd to address the sovereign in opposition to a liberal, though extremely small, educational measure, and received their due rebuke. If it were necessary to follow their action, step by step, through the legislation of the time, we should see that these were but a small part of the obstructions opposed by the majority of the Lords to necessary or desirable reforms.

Peerage

It was not to be expected that the nation would bear this. The question, "What must be done with the Lords?" so familiar in 1830-32, was not dropped; and a succession of replies to this question was proffered in the other House. Various reform. members there proposed a reform of the House of Lords as a fitting sequel to the reform of their own; and the seriousness with which the question was discussed during the years 1835-37 is rather startling to the reader of the present day, till he remembers the then recent abolition of the hereditary peerage in France, the triumphant reform of our own Lower House, and the insolent attitude of defiance assumed at the time by the Kenyons, Rodens, Wynfords, and Newcastles, who were secretly

O'Connell's

expecting a speedy restoration of their domination in the State. The most favorable circumstance, perhaps, for them was, that Mr. O'Connell early pledged himself to procure a reform of the House of Lords. On Irish questions, Mr. O'Connell was supremely to be feared by his opponents, but not on questions which must be agitated elsewhere than in Ireland. At the close of the session of 1835, he went on what he called “ a mission" to the north of England and Scotland, to rouse the tour. people to require an elective peerage, the election of a Peer, for a term of years, by every 200,000 electors; which would yield a House of 130 Peers for the 170 then sitting. He was received and feasted, with acclamations, by large numbers of people at Manchester, Newcastle, Edinburgh, and Glasgow. Yet no visible effect was produced, at least, none to the injury of the cause of the Peers; for O'Connell's oratory, so powerful in Ireland, seemed to astonish or amuse, rather than persuade, his English and Scotch audiences. The following seems a fair specimen of his methods of incitement; and no Englishman or Scotchman will wonder that it did not assist the subversion of so time-hallowed an institution as the British House of Peers. On meeting the Edinburgh trades, he said: "We achieved but one good measure this last session; but that was not our fault, for the 170 tyrants of the country prevented us from achieving more.1 Ancient Athens was degraded for submitting to thirty tyrants; Modern Athens will never allow 170 tyrants to rule over her.2... It was stated in one of the clubs, that at one time a dog had bitten the bishop; whereupon, a noble lord, who was present, said, 'I will lay any wager that the bishop began the quarrel.' Now, really the House of Lords began the quarrel with me. They may treat me as a mad dog if they please: I won't fight them; but I will treat them as the Quaker treated the dog which had attacked him. Heaven forbid,' said he, that I should do thee the slightest injury! I am a man of peace, and I will not hurt thee;' but, when the dog went away, he cried out, 'Mad dog! mad dog!' and all people set upon him. Now, that is my remedy with the House of Lords. I am more honest than the Quaker was; for the dog that attacked me is really mad. Bills were rejected in the House of Lords simply because Daniel O'Connell supported them; and I do say, that, if I had any twelve men on a jury on a question of lunacy, I would put it to such jury to say if such men were not confirmed madmen. So you perceive the dog is really mad, and accordingly I have started on this mission to rouse the public mind to the necessity of reforming the House of Lords; and I have had 50,000 cheering me at Manchester, and 100,000 cheering me in Newcastle; and I heard one 2 Spectator, 1835, p. 916.

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1 Annual Register, 1835, p. 369.

simultaneous cry, 'Down with the mad dogs, and up with common sense!' The same cry has resounded through Auld Reekie. The Calton Hill and Arthur's Seat re-echoed with the sound; and all Scotland has expressed the same determination to use every legitimate effort to remove the House of Lords. Though the Commons are with us, yet the House of Lords are against us; and they have determined that they will not concede a portion of freedom which they can possibly keep back. Sir Robert Peel, the greatest humbug that ever lived, and as full of political and religious cant as any man that ever canted in this canting world, feeling himself quite safe on his own dunghill, says that we want but one chamber, one House of Radical Reformers. He knew that, in saying this, he was saying what was not true. We know too well the advantage of double deliberation not to support two Houses: but they must be subject to popular control; they must be the servants, not the masters, of the people." It was true that Auld Reekie caught up the sound, and that the Calton Hill and Arthur's Seat re-echoed with the cry. O'Connell had a magnificent reception by the Edinburgh trades and the United Irishmen; and the Calton Hill was covered with a dense mass of the well-dressed inhabitants of the city. "The reception of O'Connell by the immense assembly," we are told, "combined solemnity with enthusiasm." But the enthusiasm melted away, and the cry died out, without producing any effect on the constitution of the Lords' House. O'Connell could not lead a political reform anywhere but in Ireland; even where, as now, he began with every advantage.

Attacks on the House of Lords.

Much more effectual was the action within the walls of the House of Commons, on the ground of the petitions sent up during the mutilation of the Municipal Bill by the Peers. On the 2d of September, Mr. Roebuck declared his intention of moving for leave to bring forward, in the next session, a Bill for the removal of the veto possessed by the House of Lords; substituting for this veto a suspensive power which should cause the reconsideration of any measure which the Peers should object to, but which suspensive power should not intercept the royal assent to any Bill after its second passage through the Commons.1 Mr. Hume gave notice, the same night, that he should move, early in the next session, for a select committee to inquire into the constitution and condition of the House of Peers; who the Peers were, how qualified, and how they discharged their duties. Some amusement was caused by Mr. Hume's courageous repudiation of all poetical feeling, and all antiquarian associations, when he complained of "the farce" of the forms of conference between the Lords and Commons, when the Peers were seated and covered,

1 Hansard, xxx. p. 1268.

and the Commons standing and bareheaded," to exchange two bits of paper," as Mr. Hume said. He saw nothing of the old days which his words called up before the mind's eye of those who heard him, the days when the peers were like princes, each with a little army at his call; and when the unwarlike burgessrepresentatives really did half worship or tremble before the valorous nobles of the land. It might be time, as Mr. Hume thought, to give up forms which had ceased to contain any truth; but Mr. Hume's way of setting about it amused some people, and shocked others, with the sense that he did not know what he was about. But, before that day twelvemonths, Mr. Hume stood higher than any other man in the House or in the kingdom, in connection with the people's quarrel with the House of Lords. By him, the Lords had, by that time, been humbled, awed, brought to their senses; and this by no vulgar clamor or extreme devices, but by industry and sagacity and courage applied in ascertaining and revealing facts which placed the most insolent of the Peers at the mercy of the Crown and the Commons. Of this matter, however, the members were not generally aware on this 2d of September, 1835; and a third notice of motion was added to those of Mr. Roebuck and Mr. Hume. Mr. Cuthbert Rippon gave notice, that next session he should ask leave to bring in a Bill to relieve the archbishops and bishops from their attendance in the House of Lords.

After the prorogation, the various political parties and leaders were watched with anxiety by the enlightened Liberals of the country, who saw that something must be done to remove the obstructive quality of the Peers, if the legislation of the country was to proceed at all, in pursuance of the purposes of the Reform Bill. The ministers were watched. Some of them used strong language on public occasions respecting the recent conduct of the obstructive Peers; and on Mr. O'Connell's return to Ireland, after his "mission" was concluded, he was invited to dine with the Lord-lieutenant, an incident which was regarded by the Tory Peers as a declaration of war on the part of the Viceroy. On the other hand, Lord John Russell made a public and emphatic avowal, that he was opposed to all further organic change; and the government newspapers declared, now without comment, and now with expressions of regret, that no views of any important modification of the structure of the Upper House were at present held by the Administration.1 Few of any party doubted that Lord John Russell would learn to see the necessity of reform, by some means or other. There was a strong party in Parliament, and a large body of the nation, occupied in thinking of what should be done; and, on the whole, the conclusion, in the

1 Globe, Oct. 7, 1835.

autumn of 1835, was that the subject was ripe for discussion, but that it must take more than one session to bring the matter to a practical isssue. There were few who imagined how prodigiously the inflation of the insolent section of the Peers would have subsided, without danger of organic change, before the close of the next session.

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any

On the 26th of April, 1836, Mr. Rippon made his promised motion to release the spiritual Peers from their attendance in Parliament. It was opposed by Lord John Russell, on the plea that it would lead to no practical result. On a division, 53 members voted with Mr. Rippon, and 180 against him. In May, Mr. O'Connell gave notice of his intention to introduce his proposal to make the Upper House elective. Some laughed, laughed in loud shouts; and others were very grave, thinking the matter too serious in the existing state of affairs, for laughter. One member, Mr. G. Price, wished to move that the notice should be expunged from the notice-book; but here Lord John Russell interposed in defence of the right of the Commons to entertain proposition for what any member might consider a reform in any branch of the Legislature, even if it should extend to regulating the succession of the throne; in which he was clearly supported by historical precedent. Mr. Price withdrew his motion. The question, however, was not brought on; the events of the close of the session rendering any further humiliation of the obstructive Peers unnecessary. Sir W. Molesworth, who knew more of the singular history than almost any one, quietly dropped the motion for peerage reform of which he had given notice for 1837. But the Bishops were not yet to be left in peace. Mr. Charles Lushington moved, on the 16th of February, for the exclusion of the spiritual Peers from the Upper House, and was ably supported by Mr. Charles Buller, whose opinion was that the Bishops had abundant employment elsewhere; that they were seldom prepared to enlighten legislation on subjects which lay peculiarly within their province; and that they were invariably found voting with the Minister who gave them their sees.2 Lord John Russell opposed the motion with the question, Where, if Parliament once began to modify the constitution of the country, would they stop? How far would they go? —a question which Mr. Buller declared to be easily answered. They would go only as far as the door of the House of Lords, to show the Bishops out, and then leave them to go where they pleased. He, who had a great respect for the Bishops, thought them most honorably seated in their own dioceses, where they had as much business to do as would quite engross them. On this occasion, 92 members voted with the reforming mover, and 197 against him. 1 Hansard, xxxiii. p. 320. 2 Hansard, xxxvi. p. 609.

8 Hansard, xxxvi. p. 625.

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