We have, under the existing system, the county representation, and the representation in cities and boroughs.  The county representation consists principally of freeholders, and the members for counties represent not only the lower classes, but the middle and higher orders.  The representatives for the great maritime towns, and for the larger description of towns in the interior of the country, represent likewise the lower and middle classes.  The representatives for the pot wallopping boroughs, for the scot-and-lot boroughs, and for the single borough of Preston, where the franchise is vested in the inhabitants at large, represent the lowest orders of the people; and in this manner this borough representation represents all classes and descriptions of persons, who have any thing to do with the business transacted in the House of Commons.  Instead of this system, which has raised this country to its present elevation, we are called upon to establish by this Bill a system of elections which will be confined to one single class of the community; and as the county representations will be no check upon this class of persons, the voters in the counties being mostly of the same description, and as the united representation of Scotland, and of Ireland, will be a check upon them, such a system will tend at once to a complete democracy.  This, then, is the system which we are called upon to establish in the place of that which at present exists, and under which all classes and interests of the country are represented in Parliament, and it is under such a system as this that it is pretended the general business of the state can be carried on, and the government maintain sufficient power to preserve existing institutions.

April 10,1832.

Popular tendency of the Old System of Representation.

I would call the attention of your Lordships to the changes which have taken place in the government of the country during the last twenty years,—­to go no further back,—­and to the improvements which have taken place in what is called the popular sense.  A noble friend of mine, last night, truly stated that the influence of the Crown was decreasing from the period of the revolution up to the year 1782; and that it has been still further diminishing from that period up to the present time, till at last there are not more than fifty persons in the House of Commons holding public offices.  In that period, and more especially in latter years, the influence of the crown in this respect has been greatly diminished.  First of all, there has been a large reduction of all such kinds of offices; and in the next place, in consequence of the different constitution and regulations of the customs and excise, and other public departments; and thus the influence formerly possessed by the Crown has gradually passed away.

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