If the bill should go into committee, I will lend my best assistance to render it as consistent with the true interests of the country as it can be made, keeping in view always this great point—­that on the nature of the representative system depend the character and form of government.

April 10, 1832.

* * * * *

The House of Commons that carried Reform was an Assembly of Delegates.

The noble Baron, (Lord Wharncliffe) in a memorable speech delivered to this house in the month of March, 1831, previously to the last general election, stated to this house, in the strongest terms, that the result of that election must be to secure the return to the House of Commons of delegates of the people; not members of the House of Commons to consider de Adrias Regni, but to decide upon a measure of parliamentary reform proposed to them in a moment of excitement, and the result would be, to place this house in the situation in which it was placed last year, and in which it stands on the present occasion.

My Lords, is all to be lost, because the noble Lords opposite have taken this course?  Is this House to be destroyed?  Or is it to lend its aid to destroy the constitution, because Ministers persevere in this course?  Would it not be more wise to call upon his Majesty to place things as they were, previous to this unfortunate and ill-advised revolution of parliament; to advise his Majesty to remove his ministers from his confidence, in order that things might be placed in the same situation in which they stood before, and that this house and the country might have an opportunity, if possible, of having a fair discussion on the measure of reform.  What! my Lords, is it to be said that the country is to be tied down to be governed by a system which no man can say is practicable? and can any body deny that the House of Commons, which consents to such a proposition, is a delegated House of Commons?  All the arguments regarding the decisions of the House of Commons must come to the same end.  There would, no doubt, be ten decisions of the same kind, if it were left to the same house, because the house is pledged and returned for the purpose.  But the country is not to be abandoned on this account.[16]

[Footnote 16:  This and the other succeeding passages on the subject of Reform, were delivered on the second reading of the final reform bill, after the Earl of Harrowby and other Tory peers had resolved on giving way to the House of Common and the Crown.]

April 10, 1832.

* * * * *

Means by which the Reform Fever was excited and kept up.