put into operation with respect to the members of the
House of Commons, should this Bill be passed. Let your Lordships, then,
for a moment, compare the system this Bill would establish, with the
system of representation which has so long existed in this country, and
under which this country has been raised to such an eminence of glory,
and power, and prosperity.

We have, under the existing system, the county representation, and the
representation in cities and boroughs. The county representation
consists principally of freeholders, and the members for counties
represent not only the lower classes, but the middle and higher orders.
The representatives for the great maritime towns, and for the larger
description of towns in the interior of the country, represent likewise
the lower and middle classes. The representatives for the pot wallopping
boroughs, for the scot-and-lot boroughs, and for the single borough of
Preston, where the franchise is vested in the inhabitants at large,
represent the lowest orders of the people; and in this manner this
borough representation represents all classes and descriptions of
persons, who have any thing to do with the business transacted in the
House of Commons. Instead of this system, which has raised this country
to its present elevation, we are called upon to establish by this Bill a
system of elections which will be confined to one single class of the
community; and as the county representations will be no check upon this
class of persons, the voters in the counties being mostly of the same
description, and as the united representation of Scotland, and of
Ireland, will be a check upon them, such a system will tend at once to a
complete democracy. This, then, is the system which we are called upon
to establish in the place of that which at present exists, and under
which all classes and interests of the country are represented in
Parliament, and it is under such a system as this that it is pretended
the general business of the state can be carried on, and the government
maintain sufficient power to preserve existing institutions.

_April_ 10,1832.

_Popular tendency of the Old System of Representation._

I would call the attention of your Lordships to the changes which have
taken place in the government of the country during the last twenty
years,--to go no further back,--and to the improvements which have taken
place in what is called the popular sense. A noble friend of mine, la