Maxims and Opinions of Field-Marshal His Grace the Duke of Wellington, Selected From His Writings and Speeches During a Public Life of More Than Half a CenturyWellington, Arthur Wellesley, Duke of
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Maxims and Opinions of Field-Marshal His Grace the Duke of Wellington, Selected From His Writings and Speeches During a Public Life of More Than Half a Century
Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, Duke of
Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 19th century; Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, Duke of, 1769-1852
I beg your Lordships to recollect that this is the point which the
House will have to consider:--the question is not whether alterations
have been made in this part or that part, or in many parts of the bill
which your Lordships objected to last session, but the question you will
have to consider is this--Whether this bill, if passed and accompanied,
let it be recollected, with the other bills at present in the other
House of Parliament, will afford to the country a prospect of having a
government under which the country can go on--under which it will be
practicable that this or any other can be governed--or which, in the
words of the noble Earl who addressed your Lordships first this evening
employed last session--if practicable, would not be pernicious. That is
the question which your Lordships will have to consider, when you come
to the second reading of the bill. The principle of this measure is not
reform, but the disfranchisement of some places and the enfranchisement
of others, and also the granting of votes to large bodies of persons on
a new qualification. The total alteration of the representation of this
country, coupled with an alteration of the representation of Scotland,
amounting there to a complete revolution, and the overthrow in Ireland
of all the measures which were adopted in that country three years
ago--these, and not reform, are what your Lordships must consider as the
principles of the bill. I entertain the same opinion as the noble earl
near me as to the necessity of reform. My opinion on this point is now
as it was originally. But how comes the question now before your
Lordships? it has been altered considerably, and is no longer what it
was before.
The noble Earl has thrown out some imputations with respect to party
motives--if the noble Earl meant them to apply to me he is much
mistaken, I have no party views to serve. I believe there is scarcely an
individual in this house, or in the country, who has so little to do
with borough interests or county interests, or any sort of Parliamentary
interests as I have. I have the same interest in the country as any
other individual, that is to say, I wish to see the representation
established on such a basis as will give the country a prospect of a
practicable system of government.
If the bill should go into committee, I will lend my best assistance to
render it as consistent with the true interests of the country as it can
be made, keeping in view always this great point--that on the nature of
the representative system depend the character and form of government.
_April 10, 1832._
* * * * *
_The House of Commons that carried Reform was an Assembly of Delegates._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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