part of that sum. In the new constituent bodies
there are no ancient rights reserved. In those bodies, therefore, the
expense of an election will be still smaller. I firmly believe, that it
will be possible to poll out Manchester for less than the market price
of Old Sarum.

Sir, I have, from the beginning of these discussions, supported Reform
on two grounds; first, because I believe it to be in itself a good
thing; and secondly, because I think the dangers of withholding it so
great that, even if it were an evil, it would be the less of two evils.
The dangers of the country have in no wise diminished. I believe that
they have greatly increased. It is, I fear, impossible to deny that
what has happened with respect to almost every great question that
ever divided mankind has happened also with respect to the Reform Bill.
Wherever great interests are at stake there will be much excitement; and
wherever there is much excitement there will be some extravagance. The
same great stirring of the human mind which produced the Reformation
produced also the follies and crimes of the Anabaptists. The same spirit
which resisted the Ship-money, and abolished the Star Chamber, produced
the Levellers and the Fifth Monarchy men. And so, it cannot be denied
that bad men, availing themselves of the agitation produced by the
question of Reform, have promulgated, and promulgated with some success,
doctrines incompatible with the existence, I do not say of monarchy, or
of aristocracy, but of all law, of all order, of all property, of all
civilisation, of all that makes us to differ from Mohawks or Hottentots.
I bring no accusation against that portion of the working classes which
has been imposed upon by these doctrines. Those persons are what their
situation has made them, ignorant from want of leisure, irritable
from the sense of distress. That they should be deluded by impudent
assertions and gross sophisms; that, suffering cruel privations, they
should give ready credence to promises of relief; that, never having
investigated the nature and operation of government, they should expect
impossibilities from it, and should reproach it for not performing
impossibilities; all this is perfectly natural. No errors which they may
commit ought ever to make us forget that it is in all probability owing
solely to the accident of our situation that we have not fallen into
errors precisely similar. There are few of us who do not know from
experience