chedule B)
from forty-six to thirty, but to assign a larger number of members to
the prosperous towns enfranchised. The bill was at once read a first
time and passed its second reading after two nights' debate on the 16th
by a majority of 324 to 162, or exactly two to one. But, after a short
adjournment for the Christmas holidays, a debate of twenty-two nights
took place in committee, and the opposition made skilful use of the many
vulnerable points in the new scheme. Every variation from the original
bill, even by way of concession, was subjected to minute criticism, and
especially the fact that the schedules were now framed, not on a scale
of population only, but on a mixed basis, partly resting on population,
partly on the number of inhabited houses, and partly on the local
contribution to assessed taxes.

It was easy to pick such a compound scale to pieces, to uphold the
claims of one venal borough against another equally venal, and even to
reproach the government with inconsistency in relying on the census of
1831, instead of on that of 1821--a course which the opposition had
specially urged upon them. But it was not so easy to combat the
irresistible arguments in favour of the bill on its general merits, to
ignore the reasonable concessions on points of detail which it embodied,
or to explain away the patent fact that no measure less stringent would
satisfy the people. There was therefore an air of unreality about this
debate, spirited as it was, nor is it easy to understand what practical
object enlightened men like Peel could have sought in prolonging it. He
well knew, and admitted in private correspondence, that reform was
inevitable; he must have known that a sham reform would be a stimulus to
revolutionary agitation; yet he strove to mutilate the bill so that it
might pass its second reading in the house of lords, and there undergo
such further mutilation as would destroy its efficacy as a settlement of
the question. For the present he yielded. No attempt was made to
obstruct the bill on its third reading, when the division showed 355
votes to 239, and it passed the commons on March 23 without any
division.

[Pageheading: _THE THIRD REFORM BILL._]

Such a result would have been conclusive in any parliament during the
second half of the nineteenth century. A house of commons elected by the
old constituencies, and under the old franchises, had declared in favour
of a well-considered reform bill. The same con