members of Opposition in the House
found this fact brought home to them, and, being further bewildered by
the fortuitous absence of their leaders, soon gave up the struggle, and
the debate collapsed, and the third reading was carried by a large
majority before Sir Robert Peel, Sir Charles Wetherell, and others came
in leisurely fashion into the House, filled with the assumption that
there would be ample opportunity for them to carry on the debate. Even
yet, however, all was not over. According to the procedure of the
House, it was not enough that the motion for the third reading of the
{167} Bill should be carried. It was still necessary to propose the
motion that the Bill do now pass. The moment this motion was proposed
the torrent of opposition, frozen up for a too-short interval, began to
flow again in full volume. The nature of the formal motion gave
opportunity for renewed attacks on the whole purpose of the Bill, and
all the old, familiar, outworn arguments were repeated by orator after
orator from the Tory benches. But this, too, had to come to an end.
The House was no longer in committee, and each member could only speak
once on this final motion. Of course, there could be motions for
adjournment, and on each such motion, put as an amendment, there would
be opportunity for a fresh debate; but the leaders of the Opposition
were beginning to see that there was nothing of much account to be done
any longer in the House of Commons, and that their hopes of resisting
the progress of reform must turn to the House of Lords. So the Reform
Bill passed at last through the House of Commons, and then all over the
country was raised the cry, "What will the Lords do with it?"

Soon the temper of the more advanced Reformers throughout the country
began to change its tone, and the question eagerly put was not so often
what will the Lords do with the Bill? but what shall we do with the
House of Lords? At every great popular meeting held throughout the
constituencies an outcry was raised against the House of Lords as a
part of the constitutional system, and no speaker was more welcome on a
public platform than the orator who called for the abolition of the
hereditary principle in the formation of legislators. One might have
thought that the agitation which broke out all over the country, and
the manner in which almost all Reformers seemed to have taken it for
granted that the hereditary Chamber must be the enemy of all re