ity of more than
a hundred thousand inhabitants would be left without Representatives in
the nineteenth century, merely because it stood on ground which in
the thirteenth century had been occupied by a few huts. They framed
a representative system, which, though not without defects and
irregularities, was well adapted to the state of England in their time.
But a great revolution took place. The character of the old corporations
changed. New forms of property came into existence. New portions of
society rose into importance. There were in our rural districts rich
cultivators, who were not freeholders. There were in our capital rich
traders, who were not liverymen. Towns shrank into villages. Villages
swelled into cities larger than the London of the Plantagenets.
Unhappily while the natural growth of society went on, the artificial
polity continued unchanged. The ancient form of the representation
remained; and precisely because the form remained, the spirit departed.
Then came that pressure almost to bursting, the new wine in the old
bottles, the new society under the old institutions. It is now time for
us to pay a decent, a rational, a manly reverence to our ancestors, not
by superstitiously adhering to what they, in other circumstances, did,
but by doing what they, in our circumstances, would have done. All
history is full of revolutions, produced by causes similar to those
which are now operating in England. A portion of the community which had
been of no account expands and becomes strong. It demands a place in the
system, suited, not to its former weakness, but to its present power.
If this is granted, all is well. If this is refused, then comes
the struggle between the young energy of one class and the ancient
privileges of another. Such was the struggle between the Plebeians and
the Patricians of Rome. Such was the struggle of the Italian allies for
admission to the full rights of Roman citizens. Such was the struggle
of our North American colonies against the mother country. Such was
the struggle which the Third Estate of France maintained against the
aristocracy of birth. Such was the struggle which the Roman Catholics
of Ireland maintained against the aristocracy of creed. Such is the
struggle which the free people of colour in Jamaica are now maintaining
against the aristocracy of skin. Such, finally, is the struggle which
the middle classes in England are maintaining against an aristocracy
of mere locality,