those of our predecessors--a real revolution, not merely a
political and social revolution. You had the institutions of the
country uprooted, the orders of society abolished--you had even the
landmarks and local names removed and erased. But France could
begin again. France had the greatest spread of the most exuberant
soil in Europe; she had, and always had, a very limited population,
living in a most simple manner. France, therefore, could begin
again. But England--the England we know, the England we live in,
the England of which we are proud--could not begin again. I don't
mean to say that after great troubles England would become a howling
wilderness. No doubt the good sense of the people would to some
degree prevail, and some fragments of the national character would
survive; but it would not be the old England--the England of power
and tradition, of credit and capital, that now exists. That is not
in the nature of things, and, under these circumstances, I hope the
house will, when the question before us is one impeaching the
character of our constitution, sanction no step that has a
preference for democracy but that they will maintain the ordered
state of free England in which we live, I do not think that in this
country generally there is a desire at this moment for any further
change in this matter. I think the general opinion of the country
on the subject of Parliamentary Reform is that our views are not
sufficiently matured on either side. Certainly, so far as I can
judge I cannot refuse the conclusion that such is the condition of
honorable gentlemen opposite. We all know the paper circulated
among us before Parliament met, on which the speech of the honorable
member from Maidstone commented this evening. I quite sympathize
with him; it was one of the most interesting contributions to our
elegiac literature I have heard for some time. But is it in this
house only that we find these indications of the want of maturity in
our views upon this subject? Our tables are filled at this moment
with propositions of eminent members of the Liberal party--men
eminent for character or talent, and for both--and what are these
propositions? All devices to counteract the character of the
Liberal Reform Bill, to which they are opposed: therefore, it is
quite clear, when we read these propositions and speculations, that
the mind and intellect of the party have arrived at no conclusions
on the subject. I do not s