It would have been better to have said, “his political opinions prevent his being a member for the City of London,” without saying they prevent his being “the fittest person,” which is invidious. “But the borough of Huntingdon, with 2654 inhabitants and 393 registered voters, elects him willingly.” Next he instances my Right Honorable friend, the Secretary of State for the Home Department; but, as he happily stands aside and looks upon the troubles of the small boroughs as the gods of Lucretius did upon the troubles of mankind, I will not read all the pretty things the Prime Minister says of him. Then we come next to the Attorney-General: “Sir Roundell Palmer is, _omnium consensu_, well qualified to enlighten the House of Commons on any question of municipal or international law, and to expound the true theory and practice of law reform. He could not stand for Westminster or Middlesex, for Lancashire or Yorkshire, with much chance for success.” The House will observe that that was written last autumn. If it had been written this morning, I think very possibly the Prime Minister might have cancelled these words, and said, “that honorable and learned gentleman would have stood for one of those large constituencies with every prospect of success.” Now, is it credible, is it possible to conceive, that the writer of these words should actually be the Premier of the Government which, not six months after these illustrations were given, has introduced this new Reform Bill to group and disfranchise the very boroughs he thus instanced? Well, there is a little more: “Dr. Temple says, in a letter to the _Daily News_, ‘I know that when Emerson was in England he regretted to me that all the more cultivated classes in America _abstained from politics because they felt themselves hopelessly swamped_.’” These last words were given in italics, the only construction I can put upon which is that the noble Lord thought if many of these small boroughs were disfranchised the persons he desires to see in this House would not come here, else I do not see what is the application of the passage. He goes on to say: “It is very rare to find a man of literary taste and cultivated understanding expose himself to the rough reception of the election of a large city.” There is a compliment to many of the noble Lord’s most ardent supporters. But he continues: “The small boroughs, by returning men of knowledge acquired in the study, and of temper moderated in the intercourse of refined society--” Where the members for large boroughs never go, I suppose-- “restore the balance which Marylebone and Manchester, if left even with the £10 franchise undisputed masters of the field, would radically disturb.” Whether that means to disturb from the roots or to disturb from radicalism, I do not know.