ch their plan respecting the timber trade sustained in the last
Parliament. I might, perhaps, at a more convenient season, be tempted
to inquire whether that defeat was more disgraceful to them or to their
predecessors. I might, perhaps, be tempted to ask the right honourable
gentleman whether, if he had not been treated, while in office, with
more fairness than he has shown while in opposition, it would have been
in his power to carry his best bill, the Beer Bill? He has accused
the Ministers of bringing forward financial propositions, and then
withdrawing those propositions. Did not he bring forward, during the
Session of 1830, a plan respecting the sugar duties? And was not that
plan withdrawn? But, Sir, this is mere trifling. I will not be seduced
from the matter in hand by the right honourable gentleman's example.
At the present moment I can see only one question in the State, the
question of Reform; only two parties, the friends of the Reform Bill and
its enemies.

It is not my intention, Sir, again to discuss the merits of the Reform
Bill. The principle of that bill received the approbation of the late
House of Commons after a discussion of ten nights; and the bill as it
now stands, after a long and most laborious investigation, passed the
present House of Commons by a majority which was nearly half as large
again as the minority. This was little more than a fortnight ago.
Nothing has since occurred to change our opinion. The justice of the
case is unaltered. The public enthusiasm is undiminished. Old Sarum has
grown no larger. Manchester has grown no smaller. In addressing this
House, therefore, I am entitled to assume that the bill is in itself a
good bill. If so, ought we to abandon it merely because the Lords have
rejected it? We ought to respect the lawful privileges of their
House; but we ought also to assert our own. We are constitutionally as
independent of their Lordships as their Lordships are of us. We have
precisely as good a right to adhere to our opinion as they have to
dissent from it. In speaking of their decision, I will attempt to follow
that example of moderation which was so judiciously set by my noble
friend, the Member for Devonshire. I will only say that I do not think
that they are more competent to form a correct judgment on a political
question than we are. It is certain that, on all the most important
points on which the two Houses have for a long time past differed,
the Lords have at l