XXIII. 1832. ferent thing, to overthrow nine hundred thousand electors, CHAP. practically and really wielding the powers of government. Their number renders the attempt hopeless; their ranks embrace those who would have been the most formidable leaders of revolution. The forces of democracy are turned over to the other side. 162. Where the risk now The risk, however, has been changed rather than wholly removed by this alteration. There is little danger now, comparatively speaking, that our monarchical frame of e government, resting on the basis of so numerous and influential a mass of electors, will be overthrown by a violent convulsion; but great, that one portion of these electors, having the majority, may use their power to advance their own interests, without any regard to the effect their measures may have upon those of the minority of the electors, or the immense majority of the unrepresented portion of the community. This, accordingly, is what has taken place since the Reform Bill became the law of the land. The middle classes have made no movement to advance farther in the career of reform since they obtained it; they are satisfied with the power they have got, as well they may, since it has enabled them to rule the State. But they have set themselves sedulously and energetically to improve their victory to their own advantage by fiscal exemptions and legislative measures, and they have done this so effectually as to have created a sullen state of hostility between the employers and the employed, which breaks out at times, like the flames of a volcano, in ruinous strikes, and annually drives above three hundred thousand labourers, chiefly rural, into exile. The danger is no longer to the Government, but to a large portion of the governed; it is to be found, not in the streets, but the senate-house; not in insurrections, but in the ruin of entire classes, by laws passed with the concurrence of King, Lords, and Commons. But great as this danger is, and clearly as its reality has been demonstrated by the history of XXIII. 1832. CHAP. the last twenty years, it is much less than that arising from a successful revolution, which at once destroys all liberty, and establishes the reign of unbridled violence; and, at all events, it is the state of things suitable for an advanced state of society. It is the price which civilised man pays for the incalculable blessings of general freedom and internal peace. 163. Way in which the monied classes had producing. It appears, at first sight, not a little surprising how a change of this sort could by possibility have been brought about in a free country, in opposition to influences forgot the com- merly so strongly seated as those of production were in mand of the the old constitution. But a little consideration must show how it was that this came to pass. In the first place, the monetary system and free-trade measures, in which the persons depending on that interest had so cordially concurred, had halved their own fortunes and doubled those of their opponents; had rendered labour worth a shilling a-day instead of two shillings, and one sovereign worth two sovereigns. This had both entirely altered the relative strength of the two parties, and induced such discontent among those interested in production, as rendered them in their desperation ready for any change. In the next place, the best 1 Mr Porter, informed statistician has shown that, since the peace, Secretary to the savings of the nation have been on an average Board of Trade. £50,000,000 a-year, by far the greater part of which accumulated in the hands of the trading and middle class in town, who lent great part of it out in mortgages to the declining landlords, who could not otherwise maintain their former establishments, and would not reduce them. The strength and importance of the monied class was thus as much increased as that of the producing was diminished. In the third place, the same respectable authority has shown that the sum annually spent by the working classes in Great Britain in beer and spirits is £50,000,000 a-year a state of things which keeps them in a condi XXIII. 1832. 164. sums spent classes in tion of constant practical vassalage to their employers, CHAP. and deprives them of all influence in the State, excepting that arising in periods of excitement from the terror of their aggregate numbers. These facts at once explain Enormous how political power and the rule of the State has slipped by working from the hands of both these classes. It is not upon the Great Bri amount of revenue enjoyed or produce created by a class tain on that its political importance in the long run depends, but upon the proportions of the income enjoyed by it which is clear of debt, and of realised capital, which can at once be rendered available in a contest, either by swaying seats in Parliament or influencing the press. drink. 165. result of a general law of nature? As this ascendancy of the monied class in Great Britain is obviously the result of the magnitude of our Is this the realised wealth, and that again has arisen from the liberty and prosperity we have so long enjoyed, and the unexampled success with which the war was attended, a very curious and in some respect melancholy consideration presents itself. Is this change, and the check to the interests of industry thence arising, the effect of a general and irresistible law of nature, applicable to all times when similar circumstances arise, or is it the result of a casual combination of events in the British Islands during the last halfcentury? Is the transference of power from the land to the boroughs in England analogous to and produced by the same causes as that which removed power from the Roman senate, the stronghold of the patricians, to the Dictator, the representative and idol of the urban multitude? and is the clamour for cheap bread, which in our times has changed the whole policy of the empire at bottom, the same as the cry, "Panem et Circenses!" which ruled the whole policy of the Cæsars, and in the end, by destroying the rural population in its heart, subverted the Roman Empire? If so, are we to rest in the mournful conclusion that the seeds of mortality are indelibly implanted in nations as well as individuals; that these seeds are quickened into life equally by victory and defeat, and CHAP. that to both the lines of the poet are precisely appliXXIII. cable 1832. 166. tical truth the Reform Bill. "The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, The paths of glory lead but to the grave ?” Without pronouncing decidedly on this deeply inteGreat poli- resting question, upon which the world is as yet too evolved by young to form a conclusion that can be relied on, there is one truth which has been completely demonstrated by the constitutional experience in the last times, both of France and England, of permanent importance to mankind, and which will largely benefit the future generations of men. This is, that a uniform representation is but another name for class government, and that the governing class will always be found in that which is immediately above the lowest line of the suffrage. In France, when the line, under the Restoration, was drawn by the payment of £12 a-year of direct taxes, that ruling class was found in sixty thousand of the richest proprietors in the country, but the poorest in the enfranchised class-those paying from £12 to £20 direct taxes, who were two-thirds of the ninety thousand electors. In England, by the Reform Bill, supreme power was vested in persons in boroughs paying from £10 to £20 rent; that is, the buying and selling class, interested chiefly in beating down the cost of production. 167. Thence a rigid system of protection in the former Its exempli- country, which produced such discontent among the urban France and consumers as overturned the governments both of the fication in elder and younger branch of the house of Bourbon; thence an amount of suffering in the producing classes in the latter, that has sent above three hundred thousand of the working class, for a course of years, annually out of the country, stopped the growth of its population, and caused its colonial provinces to take open steps to effect their independence. These events will not be lost upon posterity. The ruin of constitutional freedom in France, XXIII. 1832. the dissolution of the colonial empire of Great Britain, CHAP. will be cheaply purchased if they impress upon mankind the eternal truths, that a real representation in government is the essential need of civilised man, and can never be refused without imminent danger; that uniformity in the suffrage inevitably induces class government; that the ruinous nature of such government is in the direct proportion of the number admitted into the class; and that the only way to avoid these evils is CLASS REPRESENTATION. The Roman system of giving every citizen a vote, but a vote only in his own century, and ruling the state by the votes of the centuries, not the citizens, was the nearest approach to perfection in popular government ever yet made by man, and, beyond all doubt, gave them the empire of the world. 168. of nature on The true cause of the difficulties which have been felt as so embarrassing, both in the British and French em- Great law pires, in the late stage of their political life, when the the subject. formation of a new constitution in both was set about, is the operation of a great law of nature, intended to limit the growth of empires, and promote the dispersion of mankind. This law is the simple fact, that whatever is plentiful becomes cheap, and money the very first of all things. The necessary effect of this is, that labour becomes dear in the rich and old state, and the necessaries of life are raised at a more costly rate than in poor countries, where money is more scarce, and labour is cheap. The reciprocity system, the contraction of the currency, the free trade, were all efforts on the part of the monied classes to elude the operation of this law of nature; to render production cheap, when the circumstances of society had rendered it dear. The effect of this difference of price between the cost of raising provisions in the old and young state is, that if the country has the majority, a strict system of protection is established, to keep out the cheap food; if the towns, free trade and the cheapening system is introduced, to let it in. |