rged Lord John with having neglected these plain
rules of prudence. I was perfectly thunderstruck when I read the speech:
for I could not but recollect that the most violent and democratic
change that ever was proposed within the memory of the oldest man had
been proposed but a few weeks before by this same Mr Walpole, as the
organ of the present Government. Do you remember the history of the
Militia Bill? In general, when a great change in our institutions is
to be proposed from the Treasury Bench, the Minister announces his
intention some weeks before. There is a great attendance: there is
the most painful anxiety to know what he is going to recommend. I well
remember,--for I was present,--with what breathless suspense six hundred
persons waited, on the first of March, 1831, to hear Lord John Russell
explain the principles of his Reform Bill. But what was his Reform Bill
to the Reform Bill of the Derby Administration? At the end of a night,
in the coolest way possible, without the smallest notice, Mr Walpole
proposed to add to the tail of the Militia Bill a clause to the effect,
that every man who had served in the militia for two years should have
a vote for the county. What is the number of those voters who were to be
entitled to vote in this way for counties? The militia of England is to
consist of eighty thousand men; and the term of service is to be five
years. In ten years the number will be one hundred and sixty thousand;
in twenty years, three hundred and twenty thousand; and in twenty-five
years, four hundred thousand. Some of these new electors will, of
course, die off in twenty-five years, though the lives are picked lives,
remarkably good lives. What the mortality is likely to be I do not
accurately know; but any actuary will easily calculate it for you. I
should say, in round numbers, that you will have, when the system has
been in operation for a generation, an addition of about three hundred
thousand to the county constituent bodies; that is to say, six thousand
voters on the average will be added to every county in England
and Wales. That is surely an immense addition. And what is the
qualification? Why, the first qualification is youth. These electors
are not to be above a certain age; but the nearer you can get them to
eighteen the better. The second qualification is poverty. The elector
is to be a person to whom a shilling a-day is an object. The third
qualification is ignorance; for I venture to say