We have heard that argument over and over again in days much more recent. It would, of course, have been hard to dispose of it completely if it could be shown that there was no possible way by which the expenses of elections could be reduced to a reasonable amount; if it could be shown that there was any human system so bad as to have no compensating advantages whatever; and finally if it could be shown that with the spread of education and the growth of popular intelligence a man of great and commanding ability without money would not have a much better chance of election at the hands of a large constituency than by the mere favor of some discerning patron. Sir Robert Inglis also used an argument which is even still not unfamiliar in political debate, whether inside or outside Parliament. He contended not merely that the English population had no real grievances to complain of, but that none among the English population would have fancied that they were suffering from grievances if it had not been for the evil advice and turbulent agitation of mob orators. To these wicked persons, the mob orators, Sir Robert ascribed all the disturbances which were setting the country in commotion. If only these mob orators could be kept from spouting everything would go well and no subject of the sovereign would ever get it into his head that he was suffering from the slightest grievance. This is an argument which had just been used with regard to Catholic Emancipation; which was afterwards to {146} be used with regard to free-trade and the introduction of the ballot and household suffrage; and which will probably be used again and again so long as any sort of reform is demanded. Of course it need hardly be said that when Sir Robert Inglis referred to mob orators he used the phrase as a term of contempt applying to all speakers who advocated principles which were not the principles represented by the Tory aristocracy. A Tory landlord spouting any kind of nonsense to the most ignorant crowd would not have been, according to this definition, a mob orator; he would have been a high-bred Englishman, instructing his humbler brethren as to the way they ought to go. Sir Robert also indulged in the most gloomy prophecies about the evils which must come upon England as the direct result of the Reform Bill if that Bill were to be passed into law. The influence of rank and property would suddenly and completely cease to prevail; education would lose its power to teach and to guide; the House of Commons would no longer be the place for men of rank, culture, and statesmanship, but would be occupied only by mob orators. Art after art would go out and all would be night, if we may adopt the famous line of Pope's which Sir Robert somehow failed to introduce. [Sidenote: 1831--Peel's speech on the Reform Bill]