April 10,1839.

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Effect of Agitation on Business.

I believe that as soon as this Bill was proposed, and as soon as the excitement which it occasioned was apparent, all expenditure of all descriptions ceased,—­men ceased to lay out money in great enterprises—­and those who expended their incomes to the full amount, began to consider whether it was not expedient to make provision for a future day, for a period of trouble and difficulty, which might be anticipated from these changes.  It is to these circumstances that I am induced to attribute the want of commerce and trade in the country.  If your Lordships look to the situation of our neighbours it will appear that the same causes have produced precisely the same effects, and that these causes have proceeded further amongst them, than they have with us, because they have existed for a longer period of time.  Among them popular delirium has been carried nearly to its full extent; among us it has only begun.  I particularly complain of the system of agitation which now prevails in England, for this reason, that it falls upon the poorest and lowest classes of the community.  The expenditure of the rich gives comfort and ease to the middle classes, but it gives subsistence to the poor; and it is for want of this subsistence and comfort for the lower classes, that agitation has been carried to such an extent.

April 10, 1832.

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Military Force will be required to Govern the Country if the Reform Bill is carried.

The noble Viscount, one of his Majesty’s Secretaries of State, who spoke yesterday upon the subject, admitted that he did not expect that the Reform measure would relieve any of the distresses of the country.  It certainly does appear most extraordinary, that a Minister, particularly a Secretary of State, should say of a measure, which he is supporting himself, and which he knows must have such extensive consequences as the measure now proposed, that he does not believe that it will tend to relieve any of the existing distresses of the country.  But I say not only that it will not relieve any of the distresses of the country, but, on the contrary, that it will deeply aggravate them.  But let us go a little further, and see whether this system is good; and whether the system of cheap government, which it is to introduce, is likely to produce good to the country.  And here, again, I would wish to call the attention of your Lordships to what is passing in another country.  If your Lordships will take the trouble of examining what has passed in France in the course of the last two years, you will see that, during that period, that country has expended 50,000,000 l. sterling beyond its usual expenditure.  Its ordinary Budget, notwithstanding every description of saving that could be made from the Civil List, and in other establishments, which have been cut down