a seditious libel might, on a second conviction, be
banished, and that if he should return from banishment, he might be
transported. How often was this law put in force? Not once. Last year we
repealed it: but it was already dead, or rather it was dead born. It
was obsolete before Le Roi le veut had been pronounced over it. For any
effect which it produced it might as well have been in the Code Napoleon
as in the English Statute Book. And why did the Government, having
solicited and procured so sharp and weighty a weapon, straightway hang
it up to rust? Was there less sedition, were there fewer libels, after
the passing of the Act than before it? Sir, the very next year was the
year 1820, the year of the Bill of Pains and Penalties against Queen
Caroline, the very year when the public mind was most excited, the very
year when the public press was most scurrilous. Why then did not the
Ministers use their new law? Because they durst not: because they could
not. They had obtained it with ease; for in obtaining it they had to
deal with a subservient Parliament. They could not execute it: for in
executing it they would have to deal with a refractory people. These
are instances of the difficulty of carrying the law into effect when the
people are inclined to thwart their rulers. The great anomaly, or, to
speak more properly, the great evil which I have described, would,
I believe, be removed by the Reform Bill. That bill would establish
harmony between the people and the Legislature. It would give a fair
share in the making of laws to those without whose co-operation laws are
mere waste paper. Under a reformed system we should not see, as we now
often see, the nation repealing Acts of Parliament as fast as we and
the Lords can pass them. As I believe that the Reform Bill would produce
this blessed and salutary concord, so I fear that the rejection of
the Reform Bill, if that rejection should be considered as final, will
aggravate the evil which I have been describing to an unprecedented,
to a terrible extent. To all the laws which might be passed for the
collection of the revenue, or for the prevention of sedition, the people
would oppose the same kind of resistance by means of which they have
succeeded in mitigating, I might say in abrogating, the law of libel.
There would be so many offenders that the Government would scarcely know
at whom to aim its blow. Every offender would have so many accomplices
and protectors that the