and chief means of the political education of the
people out-of-doors, but is indispensable to the working of our
parliamentary system such as it has now become. The successive Reform
Bills, which have placed the electoral power in the hands of so vast a
body of constituents as was never imagined in the last century, have
evidently regarded the possession by the electors of a perfect knowledge
of the language held and the votes given by their representatives as
indispensable to the proper exercise of the franchises which they have
conferred. And, even if there had previously been no means provided for
their acquisition of such information, it is certain that the electors
would never have consented to be long kept in the dark on subjects of
such interest. In another point of view, the publication of the debates
is equally desirable, in the interest of the members themselves, whether
leaders or followers of the different parties. Not to mention the
stimulus that it affords to the cultivation of eloquence--an incentive
to which even those least inclined or accustomed to put themselves
forward are not entirely insensible--it enables the ministers to
vindicate their measures to the nation at large, the leaders of the
Opposition to explain their objections or resistance to those measures
in their own persons, and not through the hired agency of pamphleteers,
and each humbler member to prove to his constituents the fidelity with
which he has acted up to the principles his assertion of which induced
them to confide their interests and those of the kingdom to his judgment
and integrity. Secrecy and mystery may serve, or be supposed to serve,
the interests of arbitrary rulers; perfect openness is the only
principle on which a free constitution can be maintained and a free
people governed.

It seems convenient to take all the measures which, in this first
portion of the reign before us, affected the proceedings or constitution
of Parliament together; and, indeed, one enactment of great importance,
which was passed in 1770, it is hardly unreasonable to connect in some
degree with the decision of the House which adjudged the seat for
Middlesex to Colonel Luttrell. Ever since the year 1704 it had been
regarded as a settled point that the House of Commons had the exclusive
right of determining every question concerning the election of its
members. But it was equally notorious that it had exercised that right
in a manner which violated