ually prevented any necessity for ever re-opening
the question. Their anticipations on this head were not shared by their
opponents, who, on the contrary, foretold that the very greatness of the
changes now effected would only whet the appetite for a farther
extension of them; nor by a growing party, now beginning to own the
title of Radicals, which till very recently had only been regarded as a
reproach, and who, even before the bill passed,[223] expressed their
discontent that it did not go farther, but accepted it as an instalment
of what was required, and as an instrument for securing "a more complete
improvement." And their expectations have been verified by subsequent
events. Indeed, it may easily be seen that the principles on which one
portion of the bill--that which enfranchised new classes of voters--was
framed were such as, in shrewd hands, might easily be adduced as
arguments in favor of the necessity of reconsideration of the question
from time to time. So long as the right of voting was confined to owners
of property, or members of corporate bodies, the line thus laid down was
one which was not liable to be crossed. But the moment that tenancy was
added to ownership, and a line was drawn distinguishing electors from
non-electors, not by the nature of their qualifications, but by the
amount of their rent, detail was substituted for principle; and the
proposer or maintainer of the rule that the qualification should be a
yearly rental of L10 might be called on to explain why, if L10 were a
more reasonable limit than L15, L8 were not fairer than L10. Or again,
if the original argument were, that a line must of necessity be drawn
somewhere, and that L10 was the lowest qualification which seemed to
guarantee such an amount of educated intelligence in the voter as would
enable him to exercise the franchise conferred on him judiciously and
honestly, such reasoning would from time to time invite the contention
that the spread of education had rendered L8 tenants now as enlightened
as L10 tenants had been some years before. And thus the measure of 1832,
instead of forever silencing the demand for Reform by the completeness
of its concessions, did in fact lay the foundation for future agitation,
which has been farther encouraged and fed by farther submission to it,
and which its leaders, who have so far triumphed, show no purpose to
discontinue. To discuss whether such extensions of the franchise as have
already been a