. A few
years later (1782) he induced the House to strike out from its journal
the resolution there recorded against him.[4] Thus Wilkes, by his
indomitable persistency, succeeded in establishing the right of the
people to elect the candidate of their choice to Parliament. During
the same period the people gained another great victory over
Parliament. That body had utterly refused to permit the debates to be
reported in the newspaperes. But the redoubtable Wilkes was
determined to obtain and publish such reports; rather than have
another prolonged battle with him, Parliament conceded the privilege
(1771) (S556). The result was that the public then, for the first
time, began to know what business Parliament actually transactaed, and
how it was done. This fact, of course, rendered the members of both
Houses far more directly responsible to the will of the people than
they had ever been before.[1]

[2] In No. 45 of the _North Briton_ (1763) Wilkes rudely accused the
King of having deliberately uttered a falsehood in his speech to
Parliament.
[3] The libel was contained in a letter written to the newspapers by
Wilkes.
[4] The resolution was finally stricken out, on the ground that it was
"subversive of the rights of the whole body of electors."
[1] The publication of Division Lists (equivalent to Yeas and Nays) by
the House of Commons in 1836 and by the Lords in 1857 completed this
work. Since then the public have known how each member of Parliament
votes on every important question.

31. The Reform Bills of 1832, 1867, 1884; Demand for "Manhood
Suffrage."

But notwithstanding this decided political progress, still the
greatest reform of all--that of the system of electing members of
Parliament--still remained to be accomplished. Cromwell had attempted
it (1654), but the Restoration put an end to the work which the
Protector had so wisely begun. Lord Chatham felt the necessity so
strongly that he had not hesitated to declare (1766) that the system
of representation--or rather misrepresentation--which then existed was
the "rotten part of the constitution." "If it does not drop," said he,
"it must be amputated." Later (1770), he became so alarmed at the
prospect that he declared that "before the end of the century either
the Parliament will reform itself from within, or be reformed from
without with a vengeance" (S578).

But the excitement caused by the French Revolution and the wars with
Napoleon not onl