It is not, perhaps, surprising that Peel should have found much to say for the existence of the small nomination boroughs, seeing that the same arguments were made use of a whole generation afterwards by no less a person than Mr. Gladstone. These arguments, we need hardly say, were founded on the familiar assumption that a Burke or a Sheridan, a Canning or a Plunket, would have no chance whatever of getting into the House of Commons if some appreciative patron did not generously put a borough at his disposal. In our own days we have seen, again and again, that a man of high political character and commanding eloquence, but having no money or other such influence to back him, would have a far better chance at {148} the hands of a great popular constituency than he would be likely to have in some small borough, where local interests might easily be brought to conspire against him. But at the time when Peel was making his speech against the Reform project the patronage system still prevailed in politics, if no longer in letters, and the unendowed child of genius would have little chance indeed if he were to try to get into Parliament on his own mere merits. On the whole, it must be owned that Sir Robert Peel made as good a case against the Bill as could have been made from the Conservative point of view, and it may be added that an equally ingenious case might have been made out by a man of his capacity against any change whatever in any system. [Sidenote: 1831--The second reading of the Reform Bill] The third speech to which we think it necessary to refer was that delivered by the Irish orator and agitator, Daniel O'Connell. O'Connell promised the Bill all the support in his power, but he took care to explain that he supported it only because he believed it was the best Bill he could obtain from any Government at that moment. He described clearly and impressively the faults which he found with Lord John Russell's measure; and it has to be noticed that the objections which he raised were absolutely confirmed by our subsequent political history. He found fault with the Bill because it did not go nearly as far as such a measure ought to go in the direction of manhood suffrage, or, at all events, of household suffrage. He contended that no Reform Bill could really fulfil the best purposes for which it was designed without the adoption of the ballot system in the voting at popular elections. He advocated shorter Parliaments and much more comprehensive and strenuous legislation for the prevention of bribery and corruption. In short, O'Connell made a speech which might have been spoken with perfect appropriateness by an English Radical of the highest political order at any time during some succeeding generations. O'Connell's opinions seem to have been at that time, save on one political question alone--the question of Repeal of the Union--exactly in accord with those of the Radical party down to the days of Cobden and Bright. {149}