ill. Silence, he said, might perhaps lead some to imagine that they
were not viewing this measure with the same feelings of interest; but he
cautioned their lordships against forming such an opinion. "Though the
people are silent," he added, "they are looking at our proceedings
this night no less intensely than they have looked even ever since the
question was first agitated. I know that it is pretended by many that
the nation has no confidence in the peers, because there is an opinion
out of doors that the interests of the aristocracy are separated from
those of the people. On the part of this house, however, I disclaim all
such separation of interests; and therefore I am willing to believe that
the silence of which I have spoken is the fruit of a latent hope still
existing in their bosoms." Lord Ellenborough opposed the motion for the
second reading, and moved as an amendment that the bill should be read a
second time that day six months. His lordship admitted that the bill
had passed the commons by a large majority, and that the majority was
seconded by a large body of the people: but when he recollected
how often material alterations had been made in the bill; that the
qualification clause had been remodelled eleven times; that a town had
been enfranchised at the very last moment; that among forty-six boroughs
of the original bill there had been forty-seven changes; and that
no such sweeping alteration had ever been made in the established
constitution of a great country, he could not see any reason for
adopting this last emanation of an ever-changing mind. There could be no
doubt that there were many respectable persons whose opinions ought to
be held in proper regard, who were anxious that some change should
take place in our system of parliamentary representation. He contended,
however, that if this bill passed it was clear, from the constituency
which would be created by it, that parliament must be prepared to go
further. It would be impossible, he said, to resist the demands of the
most numerous and most necessitous class in the state: concession must
proceed until universal suffrage was established. Lord Melbourne spoke
briefly in favour of the bill, and the Bishop of Durham opposed it.
At the same time, the latter said, he by no means considered that the
rejection of the present measure implied a rejection of reform
_in toto_; it was the duty of ministers to have proposed a measure
calculated to satisfy both th