. I will not speak of the living, though among the living
are some of the most distinguished ornaments of the House. I will
confine myself to the dead. Among many respectable and useful members
of Parliament, whom these towns have returned, during the last half
century, I find Mr Burke, Mr Fox, Mr Sheridan, Mr Windham, Mr Tierney,
Sir Samuel Romilly, Mr Canning, Mr Huskisson. These were eight of
the most illustrious parliamentary leaders of the generation which
is passing away from the world. Mr Pitt was, perhaps, the only
person worthy to make a ninth with them. It is, surely, a remarkable
circumstance that, of the nine most distinguished Members of the House
of Commons who have died within the last forty years, eight should have
been returned to Parliament by the five largest represented towns. I am,
therefore, warranted in saying that great constituent bodies are quite
as competent to discern merit, and quite as much disposed to reward
merit, as the proprietors of boroughs. It is true that some of the
distinguished statesmen whom I have mentioned would never have been
known to large constituent bodies if they had not first sate for
nomination boroughs. But why is this? Simply, because the expense of
contesting popular places, under the present system, is ruinously
great. A poor man cannot defray it; an untried man cannot expect his
constituents to defray it for him. And this is the way in which our
Representative system is defended. Corruption vouches corruption. Every
abuse is made the plea for another abuse. We must have nomination at
Gatton because we have profusion at Liverpool. Sir, these arguments
convince me, not that no Reform is required, but that a very deep and
searching Reform is required. If two evils serve in some respects to
counterbalance each other, this is a reason, not for keeping both, but
for getting rid of both together. At present you close against men of
talents that broad, that noble entrance which belongs to them, and which
ought to stand wide open to them; and in exchange you open to them a bye
entrance, low and narrow, always obscure, often filthy, through which,
too often, they can pass only by crawling on their hands and knees, and
from which they too often emerge sullied with stains never to be washed
away. But take the most favourable case. Suppose that the member who
sits for a nomination borough owes his seat to a man of virtue and
honour, to a man whose service is perfect freedom, to