Another law did away with an old established abuse in the assignment of provinces by the Senate to pro-consuls. Heretofore, each consul had had his province assigned to him after his election, and the most desirable provinces had therefore fallen to those toward whom the Senate was the most friendly. It was now decreed that the provinces for the two consuls for each year should be assigned before the election of the consuls, and that the consuls should determine, either by agreement or by lot, which of the two provinces should fall to each. The first of the economic measures of Gaius Gracchus was one to renew and extend the agrarian law of his brother. In connection with this law the right to decide whether land was public or private was once more given to the Agrarian Commission, and provisions were also made providing that new colonies should be founded in different parts of Italy and also in the provinces. The carrying into execution of this last provision was to be postponed until the following year. The proposal to found colonies beyond the limits of Italy marked an innovation both in Roman law and in the economic habits and customs of the Romans. Another law provided that the Roman government should undertake the work of providing grain for its citizens; that every person possessing the Roman franchise should have the right of purchasing grain from the government at the price of six and a third asses per modius (the set price being far under the market value); and that the losses sustained in this grain trade should be taken out of the public treasury. Of all the proposed reforms of the Gracchi this is the least defensible, and the one which had the greatest influence upon the future. Lord Macaulay, in the course of his speech made on the third reading of the great English Reform Bill of 1832, said: "The defect is not in the Reform Bill, but in the very nature of government. On the physical condition of the great body of people government acts not as a specific, but as an alterative. Its operation is powerful, indeed, and certain, but gradual and indirect. The end of government is not directly to make the people rich, but to protect them in making themselves rich--and a government which attempts more than this is precisely the government which is likely to perform less. Governments do not and cannot support the people. We have no miraculous powers--and we have not the rod of the Hebrew lawgiver--we cannot rain down bread on the multitude from Heaven--we cannot smite the rock and give them to drink. We can give them only freedom to employ their industry to the best advantage, and security in the enjoyment of what their industry has acquired."