main things, that it is now intended to SECONDLY, this part of the bill was not alter, so as to make the yearly rent in defended by any of the Ministers: and, great towns higher than ten pounds; THIRDLY, the LORD CHANCELLOR, Who and thereby to cause the voters to be spoke at nearly the close of the debate, four-fifths, if not nine-tenths, less in clearly, to the best of my comprehennumber; and by that means give the sion, expressed himself ready to make working people no share at all in the alterations in this part of the bill; and, choosing of those who are to make the of course, those alterations were to have laws affecting their liberties and lives! been such as to remove the ground of The pretence for doing this is, that it is the objections of the opposing Lords; not fair to give a vote to a ten-pound that is to say, such as to raise the standrenter in a great town when you give no ard of the suffrage in all the great more than a vote to a ten-pound renter towns. This is a matter of vast imin a small town, where rents are not half portance: it is a vital matter: it is the so high, and where no working man pays all in all of the bill, because it is here, a rent of ten pounds. Not fair!" and here only, that it holds out any Why, then, to make it fair, give votes thing like hope to the millions: and, to five-pound renters in small towns! therefore, let us have, here, the very That is the way to make it fair, unless words of the Lord Chancellor. you have the impudence and the folly At the beginning of his speech (8th to declare openly that you mean, by October), he said, "I have listened with hook or by crook, to EXCLUDE" profound attention to the debate, of THE WORKING PEOPLE ALTO-" which this, I believe, will be the last GETHER, and even every parent, re-" night, and which has already occupied lation, or friend of the working people!" five days, and having heard a vast Declare this openly at once, and then" variety of objections, having weighed the working people will know how they" the arguments on both sides, and stand, and what they ought to do; but" careless whether I give offence in do not attempt to deceive them with " any quarter, I must say, that I am so false pretences about "fair play!" far moved by some points urged as to The bill that has been rejected, effectu-"be ready to reconsider some matters ally shuts all the working class out of" upon which I had deemed that my the voting in counties and in small mind was sufficiently made up." After towns. In the choosing of seven Mem- an hour or two of very unmeaning stuff, bers out of eight, they would have no he came to this: "In London and the share at all, even according to the re- great towns, in the Tower Hamlets, jected bill, which was sufficiently bad in" in Lambeth, and the like, ten pounds that respect; but if the alteration that I is a low qualification; but in other am speaking of be made, it will shut" places it is not. TWENTY POUNDS them out altogether, and they will enjoy was ORIGINALLY DESTINED for no more of political rights than the "the qualification; but, upon inquiry slaves in Virginia or Jamaica enjoy. "into the circumstances of the small But do I believe, can I believe, that" towns, we were induced to abandon it. such a monstrous scheme is on foot, and" But if noble Lords, speaking upon the that such an alteration is intended? Iquestion in general, choose to object can believe it: I do believe it: and it is" to this qualification that it is uniform, because I do believe it that I condemn," and say that it ought to be different in any one and in every one, all expres- "at divers places-lower in the smaller sion of confidence in the Ministers." towns, and higher in the larger-I But why do I believe it? That is well" will not say that I agree with them; asked; and I will frankly answer. In" I will not say what was originally my the FIRST place, the ten-pound suf-" opinion; I will not tell the reasons frage was the most weighty objection, "that now recommend the bill, as it the thing most bitterly complained of," stands, to my support; but I will say by all the Lords who opposed the bill: "that whoever holds that doctrine will

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"find me ready to secure for him the "most ample, the most scrutinising, the "most candid discussion of the subject "in the committee. I speak as an in"dividual; candour compels me to say "thus much. But I, at the same time, "say that it is emphatically a subject for "the committee.'

ing people, to have consented to give a trial to the rejected bill, was showing unparallelled forbearance, was making an enormous sacrifice of clear right for the sake of peace; no right, not even that of enjoying life and limb, being clearer than the right of every man of sane mind, and unstained by indelible Now, mark; I, in commenting on crime, to have a voice in the choosing these passages, said, that they showed of those who are to make the laws aftwo things; first, that Brougham fecting his liberty and life. Let me, meaned, by his declared carelessness however, upon this occasion, throw about whom he might offend, to indicate down the gauntlet to our foes; let me his readiness to abandon Lord Grey; prove the right; and, when I have done and, next, that Brougham was ready to that, let those who have the audacity to give up the ten-pound suffrage. Mark, call the ten-pound suffrage "a boon I say! Mark, that he has most stoutly which they have a right to withhold, and vehemently disclaimed all intention again call upon the nation for "confito quit Lord Grey; but he has not said dence." This right is the great and a word, nor has Lord Grey said a word, important matter; and therefore, my in the way of disclaiming the intention friends, lend me your patient attention, to give up the ten-pound suffrage! while I go to the very foundation of it, Pray mark that! Observe, besides, and show that it is built upon the rock that twenty pounds was, at first, in-of reason and justice; that it is founded tended. Ay, my friends, and it was, in the law of nature itself; that it beat first, intended not to disfranchise any one rotten borough; but merely to take one Member from each of the very rottenest of them, open the voting to the hundreds around them all, make them all still more rotten than they are, and to give Members to a few great towns with a twenty-pound suffrage! That, I say, was their first bill. If that be not true, let the COURIER deny it, and tell us how the first bill differed, substantially, from what I have here described.

Such are my reasons for believing that the intention of the Ministers is to take the ten-pound suffrage from the great towns, and thus to shut out from all share in the power of choosing Members of Parliament every man of those working millions, about a quarter of a million of whom the leaders at Birmingham are causing to shout for confidence in these very Ministers, and which shout, and the like shouts, for confidence in them, will, if any-thing can, enable these Ministers to carry their intention into effect!

longs to man as completely as does his right to eat or to breathe. Attend patiently, my friends, while I prove this ; and, when I have done that, let us, if we be able, express suitable scorn at those who are bawling for "confidence' in men, who will not tell us that they do not intend to withhold the pitiful· portion of this right which the tenpound suffrage would restore to you.

Time was when all the inhabitants of this island laid claim to all things in it, without the words owner or property being known. God had given to all the people all the land and all the trees, and every-thing else, just as he has given the burrows and the grass to the rabbits, and the bushes and the berries to the birds; and each man had the good things of this world in a greater or less degree in proportion to his skill, his strength, and his valour. This is what is called living under the LAW OF NATURE; that is to say, the law of selfpreservation and self-enjoyment, without any restraint imposed by a regard for the good of our neighbours.

Let us now look at the injustice, the In process of time, no matter from insolence, and the folly of the thing in- what cause, men made amongst themtended. For the people, for the work-selves a compact, or an agreement, to

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divide the land and its products in such | The truth is, however, that the citizen's manner that each should have a share first duty is to maintain his rights, as it to his own exclusive use, and that each is the purchaser's first duty to receive man should be protected in the exclu- the thing for which he has contracted. sive enjoyment of his share by the united Our rights in society are numerous; power of the rest; and, in order to in- the right of enjoying life and property; .. sure the due and certain application of the right of exerting our physical and this united power, the whole of the mental powers in an innocent manner; people agreed to be bound by regula- but the great right of all, and without tions, called Laws. Thus arose civil which there is, in fact, no right, is, the society; thus arose property; thus right of taking a part in the making of arose the words mine and thine. One the laws by which we are governed. man became possessed of more good This right is founded in that law of things than another, because he was Nature spoken of above; it springs out more industrious, more skilful, or more of the very principle of civil society frugal: so that LABOUR, of one sort or for what compact, what agreement, another, was the FOUNDATION of all what common assent, can possibly be property. imagined by which men would give up. all the rights of nature, all the free enjoyment of their bodies and their minds, in order to subject themselves to rules and laws, in the making of which they should have nothing to say, and which should be enforced upon them without their assent? The great right, therefore, of every man, the right of rights, is the right of having a share in the making of the laws, to which the good of the whole makes it his duty to submit.

In what manner civil societies proceeded in providing for the making of laws, and for the enforcing of them; the various ways in which they took measures to protect the weak against the strong; how they have gone to work to secure wealth against the attacks of poverty; these are subjects that it would require volumes to detail: but these truths are written on the heart of inan; namely, that all men are, by nature, equal; that civil society can never have arisen from any motive other than that With regard to the means of enabling of the benefit of the whole; that, when-every man to enjoy this share, they have ever civil society makes the greater been different in different countries, and, part of the people worse off than they in the same countries, at different times. were under the Law of Nature, the Generally it has been, and in great comcivil compact is, in conscience, dis-munities it must be, by the choosing of solved, and all the rights of nature re-a few to speak and act in behalf of the turn; that, in civil society, the rights many: and, as there will hardly ever be and the duties go hand in hand, and that when the former are taken away, the latter cease to exist.

perfect unanimity amongst men assembled for any purpose whatever, where fact and argument are to decide the Now, then, in order to act well our question, the decision is left to the ma-. part, as citizens, or members of the jority, the compact being that the decicommunity, we ought clearly to under-sion of the majority shall be that of the stand what our rights are; for, on our whole. Minors are excluded from this enjoyment of these depend our duties, right, because the law considers them rights going before duties, as value re-as infants, because it makes the parent ceived goes before payment. I know well, that just the contrary of this is taught by those who fatten on our toil; for they tell us, that our first duly is to obey the laws; and it is not many years ago that HORSLEY, Bishop of Rochester, told us, that the people had nothing to do with the laws but to obey them.

answerable for civil damages committed by them, and because of their legal incapacity to make any compact, Women are excluded because husbands are answerable in law for their wives, as to their civil damages, and because the very nature of the sex makes the exercise of this right incompatible with the

harmony and happiness of society. defence of his country, were to answer: Men stained with indelible crimes are" Why should I risk my life? I have excluded, because they have forfeited" no possession but my labour; no their right by violating the laws to enemy will take that from me; you, which their assent has been given. In-" the rich, possess all the land and all its sane persons are excluded, because they “products; you make what laws you are dead in the eye of the law, because" please without my participation or the law demands no duty at their hands," assent: you punish me at your pleabecause they cannot violate the law, sure; you say that my want of probecause the law cannot affect them;"perty excludes me from the right of and, therefore, they ought to have no having a share in the making of the hand in making it. "laws; you say that the property that I have in my labour is nothing worth; "on what ground, then, do you call on me to risk my life? If, in such a case, such questions were put, the an-swer is very difficult to be imagined.

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But, with these exceptions, where is" the ground whereon to maintain that any man ought to be deprived of this right, which he derives directly from the law of Nature, and which springs, as I said before, out of the same source with In cases of civil commotion the matcivil society itself? Am I told, that ter comes still more home to us. On property ought to confer this right? what ground is the rich man to call the Property sprang from labour, and not artisan from his shop or the labourer labour from property; so that if there from the field to join the sheriff's possé were to be a distinction here, it ought or militia, if he refuse to the labourer to give the preference to labour. All and artisan the right of sharing in the men are equal by nature; nobody denies making of the laws? Why are they to that they all ought to be equal in the eye risk their lives here? To uphold the 1 of the law but how are they to be thus laws, and to protect property? What! equal, if the law begin by suffering some laws, in the making of, or assenting to, to enjoy this right and refusing the en- which, they have been allowed to have joyment to others? It is the duty of no share? Property, of which they are every man to defend his country against said to possess none? What! compel an enemy, a duty imposed by the law men to come forth and risk their lives of nature as well as by that of civil so- for the protection of property; and ciety, and without the recognition of then, in the same breath, tell them, this duty, there could exist no indepen- that they are not allowed to share in dent nation and no civil society. Yet, the making of the laws, because, and how are you to maintain that this is the ONLY BECAUSE, they have no prc duty of every man, if you deny to some perly! Not because they have com men the enjoyment of a share in making the laws? Upon what principle are you to contend for equality here, while you deny its existence as to the right of sharing in the making of the laws? The poor man has a body and a soul as well as the rich man; like the latter, he has parents, wife and children; a bullet or a sword is as deadly to him as to the rich man ; there are hearts to ache and tears to flow for him as well as for the squire or the lord or the loanmonger yet, notwithstanding this equality, he is to risk all, and, if he escape, he is still to be denied an equality of rights! If, in such a state of things, the artisan or labourer, when called out to fight in

mitted any crime; not because they are idle or profligate; not because they are vicious in any way; but solely be cause they have no property; and yet at the same time compel them to come forth and risk their lives for the protection of property!

But, the PAUPERS! Ought they to share in the making of the laws? And why not? What is a pauper; what is one of the men to whom this degrading appellation is applied? A very poor man; a man who is, from some cause or other, unable to supply himself with food and raiment without aid from the parish-rates. And is that circumstance alone to deprive him of his right, a right

of which he stands more in need than any other man? Perhaps he has, for many years of his life, contributed directly to those rates, and ten thousand to one he has, by his labour, contributed to them indirectly. The aid which, under such circumstances, he receives, is his right; he receives it not as an alms: he is no mendicant; he begs not; he comes to receive that which the law of the country awards him in lieu of the larger portion assigned him by the law of nature.

this right, strip them of another right? To say no more of the injustice and the cruelty, is there reason, is there common sense, in this? What! if a farmer or tradesman be, by flood or by fire, so totally, ruined as to be compelled, surrounded by his family, to resort to the parish-book, would you break the last heart-string of such a man by making him feel the degrading loss of his political rights?

Here, here is the point, on which we are to take our stand. There are alIs it, then, consistent with justice, ways men enough to plead the cause of with humanity, with reason, to deprive the rich; enough and enough to echo a man of the most precious of his poli- the woes of the fallen great; but, be it tical rights, because, and only because, our part to show compassion for, and he has been, in a pecuniary way, singu- maintain the rights of, those who labour. larly unfortunate? The Scripture says, Poverty is not a crime, and, though it Despise not the poor because he is sometimes arises from faults, it is not, poor; that is to say, despise him not even in that case, to be visited by on account of his poverty. Why then punishment beyond that which it brings deprive him of his right; why put him with itself. Remember, that poverty is out of the pale of the law on account of decreed by the very nature of man. his poverty? There are some men, to The Scripture says, that "the poor shall be sure, who are reduced to poverty by never cease from out of the land;" that their vices, by idleness, by gaming, by is to say, that there shall always be drinking, by squandering; but the far some very poor people. This is ingreater part by bodily ailments, by mis- evitable from the very nature of things. fortunes, to the effects of which all men It is necessary to the existence of manmay, without any fault, and even with- kind, that a very large portion of every out any folly, be exposed: and is there people should live by manual labour; a man on earth so cruelly unjust as to and, as such labour is pain, more or wish to add to the sufferings of such less, and as no living creature likes persons by stripping them of their poli-pain, it must be, that the far greater tical rights? How many thousands of part of labouring people will endure industrious and virtuous men have, within these few years, been brought down from a state of competence to that of pauperism! And is it just to strip such men of their rights, merely because they are thus brought down? When I was at ELY, in the spring of last year, there were, in that neighbourhood, three paupers cracking stones on the roads, who had all three been, not only rate-payers, but overseers of the poor, within seven years of the day when I Nor is the deepest poverty without its was there. Is there any man so barba- useful effects in society. To the pracrous as to say, that these men ought, tice of the virtues of abstinence, somerely on account of their misfortunes, briety, care, frugality, industry, and to be deprived of their political rights? even honesty and amiable manners and Their right to receive relief is as per-acquirement of talent, the two great fect as any right of property; and motives are, to get upwards in riches would you, merely because they claim or fame, and to avoid going downwards

only just as much of this pain as is absolutely necessary to the supply of their daily wants. Experience says that this has always been, and reason and nature tell us that this must always be. Therefore, when ailments, when losses, when untoward circumstances of any sort, stop or diminish the daily supply, want comes; and every just government will provide, from the general stock, the means to satisfy this want.