ended to
bring some degree of discredit on the whole council, while to the
successful inauguration of a new system the establishment of a general
feeling of respect for it and confidence in it was of primary
importance. The danger, too, of so ill-judged a selection would have
been greatest in the larger boroughs, those being, at the same time, the
very places in which the occasional difficulty of maintaining order and
tranquillity made it even more necessary than in smaller towns that the
council should enjoy the esteem and confidence of their fellow-citizens.

The principle that every man who contributed to the rates had a right to
claim a voice in the election of those who were to expend them, which
the minister laid down as the justification of the clause conferring the
municipal franchise on all the rate-payers, was strongly contested by
Sir Robert Peel, though neither he nor those of his party in the Upper
House proposed any alteration of the bill in this respect; but he
pointed out that, though Lord John affirmed it to be the known and
recognized principle of the constitution, he had not acted on it in the
Reform Bill; and it is certainly open to question whether the adoption
of some limitation would not have been an improvement on the present
measure. The doctrine established in this instance by Lord John gave a
preponderance at every municipal election to mere numbers, since the
poorest class is everywhere the most numerous, and its admission led
almost inevitably to a reduction of the parliamentary franchise at some
future day, though certainly at this time, and for many years afterward,
Lord John was far from contemplating any alteration of the Reform Bill,
but, on the contrary, took every opportunity of proclaiming his
adherence to it as a final solution of the question.

But though in this particular it is possible that the bill might have
been improved, it must be allowed to have been a measure very creditable
to its framers. Few reforms have been conceived in a more judicious and
more moderate spirit; few have been so carefully limited to the removal
of real and proved abuses, and the prevention of their recurrence, while
avoiding any concessions to the insidious demands of revolutionists, or
the ill-regulated fancies of metaphysical theorists. It was a reform
strictly in accordance with some of the most important principles of the
constitution, as they have been gradually developed by the practical
exper