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The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria cover

The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria

Chapter 813: MOTION FOR PARLIAMENTARY REFORM
By Edward Farr
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About This Book

The volume traces British political, parliamentary, and military developments from the accession of George III through the early nineteenth century, chronicling changes of ministry and cabinet, debates over colonial taxation and the American conflict, parliamentary controversies involving figures such as Wilkes and Warren Hastings, questions of Catholic relief and slave-trade abolition, and responses to the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, including major naval and continental campaigns, the union with Ireland, and domestic legislation on finance, civil liberties, and parliamentary reform.

MOTION FOR PARLIAMENTARY REFORM

Early in this session Lord John Russell called the attention of the commons to the subject of parliamentary reform. The scheme he proposed was to add one hundred members to the house, to be returned by the counties and larger towns, and to divest the minor boroughs of half the privileges they enjoyed. This was a moderate proposal, and yet it met with the most strenuous opposition, and especially from Mr. Canning. He conjured the house to oppose the introduction of any visionary schemes; and asserted, that a search after abstract perfection in government was not an object of reasonable pursuit, because it would prove vain. He added:—“I conjure the noble lord to pause before he again presses his plan on the country. If, however, he shall persevere, and if his perseverance shall be successful, and if the results of that success be such as I cannot help apprehending—his be the triumph to have precipitated those results, mine be the consolation, that to the utmost, and the latest of my power I have opposed thorn.” The motion was negatived; and the proposal of a general resolution by Mr. Brougham on the influence of the crown, which was introduced with the same ultimate views of reform, shared the same fate.