A Short History of English Liberalism - Part 19
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Part 19

[176] _Hansard_, I. xl. 338, 671; xli. 421, 892.

[177] Tooke's _History of Prices_, ii. 4, 18.

[178] _Hansard_, I. xli. 924.

[179] Pellew's _Life of Sidmouth_, iii. 276. The name "Radical" was just coming into use. It was explained in the Commons as a new word in 1817 (_Hansard_, I. x.x.xvi. 761).

[180] Yonge's _Life of Liverpool_, ii. 429. There were one or two flashes of imagination. Peel, just rising into prominence in the Tory party, thought that Reform could not be long delayed. "Public opinion is growing too large for the channels that it has been accustomed to run through"

(_Croker Papers_, i. 170).

[181] _Hansard_, I. x.x.xvii. 570, 680, 682; xli. 230. Bamford's _Pa.s.sages in the Life of a Radical_, _pa.s.sim._

[182] _Castlereagh Correspondence_, xii. 162, 259.

[183] _Annual Register_, 1819, _Hist._ 107. Hunt and his a.s.sociates were afterwards sentenced to imprisonment for conspiracy, Hunt for two and a half years. _A. R._, 1820; _Chron._, 898.

[184] See the speech of Lord Grenville in _Hansard_, I. xli. 448.

[185] Burdett's motion of 1818 for Radical Reform was beaten, as already described, by 106 votes to 0. See _ante_, p. 105, and _Hansard_, I.

x.x.xviii. 1185. For the official Whig view see Brougham, _ante_, p. 105.

[186] Yonge's _Liverpool_, ii. 365. Wilberforce supported State grants in aid of education from a similar motive. See _ante_, 52.

[187] _Hansard_, I. xli. 1212.

[188] Twiss, _Life of Eldon_, ii. 124.

[189] _Hansard_, II. xvi. 397.

[190] _Hansard_, II. xxi. 1632.

[191] _Wellington Despatches_, v. 409.

[192] _Hansard_, II. xxi. 1646, 1655. For the Liberal arguments see _ibid._, xix. 1719; xxi. 1601, 1795; xxii. 591; xxiii. 75, 738; xxiv. 126.

[193] _Catechism of Parliamentary Reform_ (1817).

[194] _Theory of Legislation_, ch. xiii. -- 10.

[195] _Const.i.tutional Code._

[196] It was Macaulay who, during the debates on the Reform Bill, contrasted "the beauty, the completeness, the speed, the precision with which every process is performed in our factories, and the awkwardness, the rudeness, the slowness, the uncertainty of the apparatus by which offences are punished and rights vindicated" (_Speeches_, 5th July, 1831). This is pure Utilitarianism.

[197] _Hansard_, I. xxiii. 1166.

[198] _Report of Lords' Committee on the State of Ireland_ (1825), 558.

[199] _Commons' Committee_ (1825), 414.

[200] _Ibid._, 810.

[201] Catholics were expressly excluded from the places of Lord Chancellor and Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. These disabilities still exist.

[202] _Hansard_, II. xviii. 711.

[203] _Ibid._, II. xviii. 869.

[204] A declaration was subst.i.tuted for the old tests, that the candidate for office would never attempt "to injure or subvert" the Established Church. The Lords added the words "upon the true faith of a Christian." In freeing the Dissenters they disabled the Jews.

[205] Macaulay's _Miscellaneous Writings; Westminster Reviewer's Defence of Mill_.

[206] Macaulay's _Speeches_: Speech on Reform, 16th December, 1832.

[207] _Ibid._

[208] Macaulay's _Miscellaneous Writings; Mill on Government_.

[209] Macaulay, _Speeches_, on Reform, 20th September, 1831.

[210] _Works_ (1869), 670 (written in 1830).

[211] _Speeches_, on Reform, 16th December, 1831.

[212] Speech on the People's Charter, 3rd May, 1842.

[213] _Hansard_, III. xxiii. 101, 102.

[214] Bulwer's _Palmerston_, ii. 174, 178. See also his _Memoirs_, iii.

322, 323; Torrens' _Life of Melbourne_, i. 437; Walpole's _Life of Russell_, i. 264; and the _Edinburgh Review_, July, 1834. The King included the Catholic a.s.sociation, the Orangemen, the Political Unions and the Trade Unions in one dislike, and wished they could all be put down by law (Walpole's _Russell_, _ubi sup._).

[215] See, for instance, Webb's _Local Government; The Parish and the County_; Peet's _Liverpool Vestry Books_, vol. i.

[216] _Speeches_, on Ten Hours Bill, 22nd May, 1846.

[217] Morley's _Life of Cobden_, i. 464.

[218] Hodder's _Life of Shaftesbury, pa.s.sim_; Oastler's letters on _Slavery in Yorkshire_ (1830); Hutchin and Harrison's _History of Factory Legislation_, ch. iii.-vi.

[219] The Acts were the Common Law Procedure Act (1832) and the Fines and Recoveries Act (1833).

[220] The House of Lords did its utmost to maintain the old abuses. The Bill was sent back to the Commons "with the t.i.tle altered but the preamble changed.... Out of 140 clauses 106 have been in substance omitted, 18 other clauses have been introduced, and of the whole purport and intention of the original Bill little is to be found in the Bill which is now come down to us" (Lord John Russell in _Hansard_, III. x.x.xiv. 218). The Government stood firm, and, with the help of Peel, obtained the greater part of what they wanted.

[221] The contending principles were most clearly expressed in the Lords.

The Duke of Richmond and Lord Wharncliffe supported the Bill because it abolished a cla.s.s distinction. Wellington opposed it for precisely that reason (_Hansard_, III. vii. 129).

[222] Romilly, _Memoirs_, iii. 252; _Memoir of Earl Spencer_, 185.

[223] _Hansard_, III. xlviii. 1252.