In the debate on the address, in reply to the speech from the throne, Lord Grey took occasion to ask for some exposition of Ministerial policy with regard to reform of the representative system. Then the Duke of Wellington delivered a speech which may be described as unique in its way. It would be impossible to put into words any statement more frankly opposed to all Parliamentary reform. The greatest orator that ever lived, the profoundest judge who ever laid down the law to a jury, could not have prepared a statement more comprehensive and more exact as a condemnation of all reform than that which the victor of Waterloo was able to enunciate with all confidence and satisfaction. He laid it down that it would be utterly beyond the power of the wisest political philosopher to devise a Constitution so near to absolute perfection as that with which Englishmen living in the reign of his present Majesty, William the Fourth, had been endowed by the wisdom of their ancestors. He affirmed that he had never heard any suggestion which contained the slightest promise of an improvement on that Constitution. He repeated, in various forms of repetition, that Englishmen already possessed all the freedom that it was good for men to have, that the rights of all classes were equally maintained, that the happiness of every one was secured, so far as law could secure it, and that the only thing for reasonable Englishmen to do was to open their eyes and recognize the advantages conferred upon them by the Constitution under which they were happy enough to live.