thened by everything which, since I last professed
them, has passed in Europe. We now know, by the clearest of all proofs,
that universal suffrage, even united with secret voting, is no security
against the establishment of arbitrary power. But, Gentlemen, I do look
forward, and at no very remote period, to an extension of the franchise,
such as I once thought unsafe. I believe that such an extension will,
by the course of events, be brought about in the very best and happiest
way. Perhaps I may be sanguine: but I think that good times are coming
for the labouring classes of this country. I do not entertain that hope
because I expect that Fourierism, or Saint Simonianism, or Socialism, or
any of those other "isms" for which the plain English word is "robbery,"
will prevail. I know that such schemes only aggravate the misery which
they pretend to relieve. I know that it is possible, by legislation, to
make the rich poor, but that it is utterly impossible to make the poor
rich. But I believe that the progress of experimental science, the
free intercourse of nation with nation, the unrestricted influx of
commodities from countries where they are cheap, and the unrestricted
efflux of labour towards countries where it is dear, will soon produce,
nay, I believe that they are beginning to produce, a great and most
blessed social revolution. I need not tell you, Gentlemen, that in those
colonies which have been planted by our race,--and, when I speak of our
colonies I speak as well of those which have separated from us as of
those which still remain united to us,--I need not tell you that in
our colonies the condition of the labouring man has long been far more
prosperous than in any part of the Old World. And why is this? Some
people tell you that the inhabitants of Pennsylvania and New England
are better off than the inhabitants of the Old World, because the
United States have a republican form of government. But we know that the
inhabitants of Pennsylvania and New England were more prosperous than
the inhabitants of the Old World when Pennsylvania and New England were
as loyal as any part of the dominions of George the First, George the
Second, and George the Third; and we know that in Van Diemen's Land, in
New Zealand, in Australasia, in New Brunswick, in Canada, the subjects
of Her Majesty are as prosperous as they could be under the government
of a President. The real cause is that, in these new countries, where
there is a