nt. The effect of the reform act on the balance of the
constitution was not, at first, fully appreciated. The grievance of
nomination-boroughs had been all but completely redressed, and that of
political corruption greatly diminished, but the hereditary peerage
remained, and the right of the lords to override the will of the commons
had ostensibly survived the conflict of 1831-32. But far-sighted men
could not fail to perceive that, in fact, the upper house was no longer
a co-ordinate estate of the realm. The peers retained an indefinite
power of delaying a measure, but it soon came to be a received maxim
that on a measure of primary importance such a power could only be
exercised in order to give the commons an opportunity of reconsideration
or to force an appeal to the country at a general election, and that a
new house of commons, armed with a mandate to carry that measure, though
once rejected by the peers, could not be resisted except at the risk of
revolution.

The best safeguard against collision, however, was to be found in the
latent conservatism of the house of commons itself. Reformed as it was,
it had not ceased to be mainly a house of country gentlemen, and the
non-payment of members was a security for its being composed, almost
exclusively, of men with independent means and a stake in the country. A
very large proportion of these had been educated at the great public
schools, or the old English universities. They might accept on the
hustings the doctrine, against which Burke so eloquently protested, that
a representative is above all a delegate, and must go to parliament as
the pledged mouthpiece of his constituency. But in the house itself they
could not divest themselves of the sentiments derived from their birth,
their education, and their own personal interests; nor was it found
impossible, without a direct violation of pledges, to act upon their own
opinions in many a critical division. Still, it has been well pointed
out that, with the flowing tide of reform there arose a new and
one-sided conception of statesmanship as consisting in progressive
amendment of the laws rather than in efficient administration, so that
it is now popularly regarded as a mark of weakness on the part of any
government to allow a session to pass without effecting some important
legislative change.[107]

[Pageheading: _CORONATION OF WILLIAM IV._]

The supreme interest of the reform bill and its incidents naturally
dwarfed