desert our allies, and starve the common cause for some trifling object of our own. We contrived, however, to pass the time in plundering one friendly power at a vast expence of money, and an incalcuTable loss of character; and in quarrelling with another, to get rid of our com merce also. At length an accident, equally unexpected and auspicious, threw into our hands the means of rendering a far greater service to the continent, and striking a more deadly blow at French influence, than the success even of all our coalitions could have accomplished. How we wasted this precious opportunity-how, by a conduct strictly conformable to all that was weakest in our past transactions, we suffered this season of promise to pass away unimproved, has already been so fully demonstrated in a former number, and must indeed be so fresh in the remembrance of every one, that we shall gladly spare ourselves the mortification of again handling the subject.

any remedy; whether the remedies which have been suggested are likely to prove effectual; and whether they could be applied without the hazard of greater evils than those which they were expected to cure.

The great leading evils in our actual condition,-passing over such as arise from local circumstances or individual malversation, may be reduced perhaps to the three following heads; 1st, the burden of our taxes; 2d, the prepondera-` ting influence of the crown, arising from the enormous extent of our establishments, and of the patronage conse quently vested in the Sovereign; and 3dly, the monopoly of political power which the very permanency and nature of the constitution has a tendency to create in the hands of a small part of the nation, and the growing jealousy and disaffection which this is likely to breed in the body of the people.

The real magnitude and danger of these various evils, is very far, as we conceive, from being in the direct ratio of their popular estimation. The most

ON THE DANGER OF A REFORM palpable and vexatious of them all, is

OF PARLIAMENT.

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[From the Edinburgh Review.] It cannot be doubted, we think, that there is at this moment, among the ple of this country, a very strong spirit of discontent with their government, and a very general desire for a more radical reform than would be effected by a mere change of ministry. These, we humbly conceive, are facts which no candid or observing man will venture to call in question; and, like other facts, they must have causes, and causes adequate to their production.

Now, the only cause of discontent, is a sense or a fear of suffering; and all desire for reformation must originate in a conviction, that there are, somewhere, errors or abuses from which suffering is likely to result. We may conclude then with safety, that there are evils in the present political situation of the country, and that these are supposed to be owing to the misconduct of its governors, or to the defective constitution of the government itself. Taking all this, however, and much more than this, for granted, we shall still have many questions of the utmost moment and delicacy to determine. We shall still have to determine, whether the existing evils are capable of

VOL. VI.

far from being, in a political view at least, the most grievous or alarming. The actual burden of the taxes does not necessarily indicate any thing unsound or corrupt in the constitution or administion of the government. It may be ascribed, in a great degree, to the peculiar circumstances in which the country has recently been placed, and to the rash and sanguine temper of its inhabitants. The weight of our taxes is owing to the wars, in which the government has always been seconded by a great majority of the people,-if, indeed, it would not be more correct to say, that it has engaged in them on their instigation. This is an evil, therefore, for which the people have really to blame themselves, and not the government; and which, with a view to their political rights, may be considered as accidental, if it be not in reality symptomatic of their extent. The vast influence of the crown, proceeding from our overgrown debt, and public establishments, is a distemper infinitely more formidable, and more deeply rooted in the very constitution of the government. Though it excites much less clamour than the burden of the taxes, it too is pretty universally intelligible; and the dangers with which it is fraught are pretty familiar, even to the more superficial of our home politicians,

M M

It has a tendency, not only to subvert the independence of the legislature, but to destroy the spirit of liberty in the body of the people, and to convert those into the willing tools of oppression, whose interest, as well as duty, it would otherwise have been to resist it. This evil also may be said to result spontaneously from the circumstances in which the country has been placed, and is the more to be dreaded, because it is not owing to any unwarranted usuipation which might be directly repressed, but has grown up from the exercise of those legitimate functions, with which, though conferred in very different circumstances, it must always be a matter of great delicacy to interfere. The last evil we have mentioned is the least understood, and, perhaps, for this very reason, the most formidable of all. It has arisen, like the former, not from any innovation upon established principles, but from a gradual change in the circumstances to which these principles are applied; and may be ascribed, rather to an obstinate adherence to old maxims and practices, than to their rash or wilful abandonment. We shall have occasion, in the sequel, to say a good deal more on the origin and consequences of this great derangement in our scheme of social polity.

For these, and for all the other disorders, which threaten our body politic, the popular prescription is parliamentary reform. An amendment in the representation of the Commons, we are as sured, is to ease us of our taxes,-to reduce the influence of the crown,and to heal all breaches and heartburnings between the governors and the governed. We are rather partial to this medicine upon the whole; but it requires no ordinary skill and caution in the preparation and dosing; and, at all events, we are perfectly certain, is not capable of effecting half the wonders that are expected from it. No man of sense has any faith in universal specifics; and it is the part of an enemy, or a very pernicious friend, to degrade this useful medicine, by investing it with the attributes of a quack's panacea, and thus effectually to exclude it from all regular practice, as well as to discredit it in the eyes of the soberminded and judicious. While we are of opinion, therefore, that very serious and substantial good may be effected by a reform of parliament, we think it our duty to say, that no such good, as seems to be in the contempla

tion of its present advocates, can possibly result from it; and that while the expe riment itself is by no means free of dan+ ger, it would be altogether extravagant to hope, that it could deliver us from any considerable part of the evils we have enumerated.

With regard to the taxes, in the first place, it appears to us in the highest degree chimerical, to imagine than any change in the plan of representation should sensibly lessen their amount. The greater part are actually levied to pay the interest of the debts which have been contracted; and a vast proportion of the remainder is required for the maintenance of the war in which we are engaged. That war,and almost all the other wars by which our debt has been created, has hitherto been most unquestionably popular; and, it is reasonable therefore to presume, would have been carried on to at least as great an extent by a legislature more immediately under the influence of popular feelings. As to the superior economy which it has been supposed that such a legislature would be inclined and enabled to observe, we will confess that we are unable to see any just ground for such an expectation. We are perfectly aware, that the multiplication of offices and salaries tends to increase the influence of government; and have no doubt that, in former times, they were occasionally multiplied for this purpose. Of late years, however, the quantity of influence already accumulated has been so great and the burden of taxation so grievous, that every administration must have felt, that no slight accession of strength which could be gained by such corrupt profu sion, could ever compensate the loss of popularity and of general credit which necessarily resulted from an increase of this burden. By far the most effectual bribe that a minister can now give, is a bribe to the nation itself, in the form of a remission, or an apparent remission, of the taxes: and though there may have been an undue tenaciousness in the case of certain old sinecures, and certain places, the emoluments of which have increased beyond all calculation, we are inclined to think, upon the whole, that the obvious policy of economical measures, in the present state of things, is to the full as good a security for their adoption as the warmer zeal and higher sense of duty that are expected from a reformed legislature!

and the dependence which that patronage encourages; and, before determining in what way this grievance is to be redressed, we must first endeavour to ascertain in what manner, and through what channels it operates.

The Reviewer then argues that the evil arising out of the multitude of offices, extent of patronage, &c. as it affects the majority of the house of commons, "would not be cured, or even in any "degree touched or alleviated by any "change in the representation, because "the people themselves are infected "with the love of place and emolument, " and the house however elected, would "still be liable to the samne temptations as at present." The reviewer adds: Before leaving this subject, it is necessary to observe, that there is an actual corrective to this cardinal vice of our constitution, which palliates its pernicious consequences, in so far, as to make it consistent with a great degree of liberty. If this enormous patronage were vested in any permanent and distinct branch of the government, which always retained the same interests and inclinations, it is impossible, we conceive, that it should not, long ago, have destroyed the whole liberties of the nation, and established itself into an absolute and uncontrouable authority. The fact is, however, that it is vested in the majority of a divided assembly; and that while the patronage itself remains undiminished and unaltered, there is another division of that assembly, into whose hands it is constantly liable to be transferred. Now, among the considerations which are able to transmute a minority into a majority of that house, the most important and operative, no doubt, is an apprehension of resistance or disorder among the people; and accordingly, when the leaders of an existing majority are tempted to employ their influence to do any thing very unjust or oppressive, a considerable part of their followers will naturally go over to the other side, and the opposition will be converted into an administration, and obtain possession of the whole vast influence of their predecesssors, with an impressive warning as to the hazard of relying too far upon it. It is thus that the existence of a strong opposition, which is sure to be recruited by every unpopular act of the government, serves to keep the administration under a salutary restraint; and that the Past weight of national patronage, though

it does render the machine of government topheavy and unmanageable, is prevented, by the constant fluctuation of its pressure, from oversetting it altogether, or crushing the liberties of the people under its perpetual obliquity.

"In addition to this constitutional fragility of ministerial power, the natural mortality of the Sovereign may be regarded as a farther security against the preponderating weight of state patronage, Though the efficient power be evidently lodged in the house of commons, the personal inclination or dispositions of、 the reigning Monarch are by no means without their influence. From natural and obvious causes, it almost always happens, that the heir-apparent belongs to a different party in politics from that which is habitually trusted by the Sovereign on the throne; and the constant hazard of a demise serves still further to restrain the existing administration in the exercise of the vast influence, which they hold by a tenure so precarious. If it were not for the constant operation of these two internal correctives, we conceive that the constitution could not long sustain the pressure of this grievous and growing infirmity. If an administration were to be formed so popular and commanding, as, after a long course of successful contentions, to annihiliate, or very greatly to reduce, the strength of opposition, and if, along with this un natural fixity in the state of parliamentary power, the reigning Monarch and the heir-apparent were to concur cor dially in their choice of men and measures, it is scarcely possible to imagine how the liberties and independence of the people should be enabled to with stand the constant mining and insidious action of the vast influence which would then flow, in one steady and undeviating current, against the foundations of their freedom, In such a situation, a rebellion might be excited among the lower people, by open oppression; and a violent revolution might throw off the heavy load of corruption and tyranny but the constitution itself would be lost and overthrown, and the overgrown power of the government would have extinguished the last sparks of legitimatę freedom.

The Reviewer then launches out into a variety of desultory remarks on "the monopoly of political power which the course of events had thrown into the

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hands of an inadequate part of the