e of the Attempts to
form a New Administration..... Ministers Recalled.....
Reform Bill passed..... Irish and Scotch Reform Bills
passed..... Bill to Prevent Bribery at Elections, &c......
Committees on Irish Tithes..... Financial Statements.....
Committee on the Charter of the East India Company, &c......
The Affairs of the West Indies..... Prorogation of
Parliament..... General Election..... Resignation of the
Speaker..... State of Ireland..... State of the Continent_

REFORM BILL PASSED BY THE COMMONS.

{A.D. 1832}

When parliament re-assembled on the 17th of January ministers expressed
their intention of going into committee on the reform bill on the 20th.
Messrs. Croker and Goulburn rejected this proposition, as bringing the
house into a consideration of the details of the bill before it had been
put in possession of the proper information. Lord John Russell and Lord
Althorp, however, would not consent to any delay of the committee. On
the 20th, when the motion was made for the house to go into committee,
Mr. Croker repeated his objection to their proceeding in the state of
imperfect information in which they were now left. Lord Althorp, and
the material adherents, asserted that the information called for was
unnecessary in deciding on the first clause, which respected the number
of boroughs to be disfranchised, though they admitted that when they
came to the schedule, information would be necessary in order to see
whether the boroughs designated ought to be retained or not. Mr. Croker
moved as an amendment that the committee should be delayed till the
24th; but it was negatived by a large majority; and the house then went
into committee. On the first clause being read, Lord John Russell said,
that as the line must, in any case, be arbitrary, it had been thought
best to take the number which had received the sanction of the house
in the former bill. Ministers would have liked quite as well fifty or
fifty-five, sixty or sixty-five; but in fixing upon a number different
from that of the preceding bill, they would have been acting on their
own responsibility. After combating this clause with all the arguments
that could be enforced, Mr. Croker, in accordance with the views of the
opposition, moved, as an amendment, that the number fifty-six should
be omitted. Lords John Russell and Althorp, however, repeated that the
number had been adopted because it had been sanctio