IT is abundantly obvious to all men that the popular branch of the Legislature does not work well-that, from some reason or other, the intended benefits cannot be drawn from it, and it cannot be kept under the necessary constitutional restrictions. This is universally admitted, and the House of Commons, as it is, has all sides against it. Those who do not call for a radical change in its construction, intimate, by charging it with the want of intellect and integrity, that a radical change of some kind is necessary; and, as to defenders, it has none.

We are here supplied with a question of the very highest moment. In times of the most favourable character, the incompetency of this House could not be other than a mighty national evil; but in the present day, when speculative changes and experiments, which spare nothing in law, system, and institution, are the general rage, it must in the nature of things be the parent of national destruction. While it must prevent beneficial changes and experiments on the one hand, it must on the other produce all conceivable ones of an opposite kind, and give them the most fatal operation. To prove that this is not mere hypothesis, we need only point to the fact, that this House, after making those which have plunged the community into such fearful suffering, now almost unanimously refuses to make a single one in the way of remedy.

When the gross incompetency of the House of Commons is matter of such general allegation, and the violent corrective of a radical change in its construction is scarcely opposed in any quarter, it may be wise and profitable to enquire dispassionately into causes. No honest man can defend its late and present conduct, or say that a vital alteration is not imperiously called for; but it by no means follows that this should be the change we have named.

Men who require the most solid grounds to induce them to sanction great and perilous changes, will remember that previously to the last few years this empire was governed with as much virtue and wisdom as

perhaps human infirmity will admit of. The House of Commons was then fully competent to the discharge of its duties; if the community fell into distress, it promptly investigated the causes, and applied efficient remedies; it was duly influenced by the public voice, and its general labours were distinguished by sound principle, and salutary effect. Yet this House was then chosen precisely as it is at present, with perhaps this difference-the democracy had somewhat less influence in the choice than it now has. This goes far towards proving that the deplorable change in its character and conduct is not to be ascribed wholly to the manner in which it is chosen.

Abundance of additional proof is furnished by those members of it whose election is not in the least influenced by the aristocracy, but proceeds chiefly from the lower orders. In respect of knowledge and ability, they rank as low as the slaves of the borough-monger. As favourable specimens, we may point to the representatives of London, Westminster, and Southwark. Sir F. Burdett, who is so much lauded by interested partisans, is only a voluble declaimer, who is never, even by these partisans, cited as an authority on any subject. Who would dream of appealing to his opinion on matters of finance, trade and currency, or on any great question of domestic legislation or foreign policy? Who would expect to find him taking a leading part in promoting by practical knowledge and ability the general interests of the state? We need only say farther, that if the House were composed solely of such members as he, Wood, Hobhouse, Wilson, &c. it would be even below what it is in information and talent. Speaking of parliaments in general, the members for the three divisions of the metropolis rank amidst the most inefficient ones.

Such members stand in the lowest rank in respect of independence. The most violent party men-those who are the most insensible to restraint and shame in sacrificing the empire to party and faction-are always to be found among them. They are not

the alleged incompetency of the House of Commons cannot proceed wholly from the mode in which it is chosen, and that the proposed change in this mode would be a very inadequate remedy. To ascertain what other remedies are necessary, let us endeavour to place before us the causes which, while its formation remains the same, have so completely changed this House in character and operation.

Every popular assembly like it is, by the laws of nature, divided into parties; and its character, as a source of benefit or ruin, must be determined by the division. Nature cannot be depended on for carrying influential division beyond two, the one composed of the possessors of power, and the other of men who seek to possess it; and unhappily this is not sufficient. These two parties, which in the House of Commons are known by the names of the Ministry and Opposition, wage eternal war for office-for private gain. They may sacrifice the public good to a greater or smaller extent, according to the character of those who compose them, but still they always make it secondary and subservient to their own private interests.

In these days, when things are held to be true and credible, in proportion as they are self-evidently false and impossible, it is naturally the fashion to assert, that other than pure motives cannot possibly actuate public men, and especially Ministers of State. It is maintained, that the vagabond who is destitute of all principle in private life, must of necessity be a perfect saint as a public man; that no matter how audaciously a Minister may trample on the obligations of creed, honour, truth, and sincerity, he must be in heart as spotless as the Deity. We are gravely assured, that while all other men are liable to be swayed by interest, and seduced by temptation, are only rendered trustworthy by bonds, and the iron hand of the law, the Ministry and Opposition are, in virtue of their vocations, wholly free from human frailty.

The most upright, as well as the other Ministerial and Opposition leaders, follow politics as a profession, for the sake of personal profit. Many of them are unquestionably

men of high honour and patriotism; but still no such leaders would exist, if there were no emoluments, dignities, and other advantages to be gained. Their political calling is an object to them, what his trade is to the merchant, or his profession is to the lawyer. This alone might be sufficient to prove, that they are just as liable as any other men to sacrifice principle and duty to interest.

But they are surrounded by the most powerful incitements to make this sacrifice, from which other men are free. That which both the Ministry and the Opposition seek, can only be possessed by one of them at the expense of the other. The Minister, to escape ruin in his profession, must retain office; to retain this, he must repel the incessant attacks of Opposition; and to repel these attacks, he must preserve the favour of the Court, and keep his adherents at the proper number. The meritorious discharge of duty will not enable him to compass the herculean triumph; on the contrary, it will frequently be his ruin. To conciliate this quarter and bribe that, he must continually leave undone what public interests call for, and make direct inroads on the public weal. He must cajole, deceive, betray, and trade in consciences. Very often the compulsion will rest on him of embracing knavery or official destruction-of sacrificing himself or the country.

He

No Minister's integrity could be proof against all this. Then the selfdelusion which teaches people that, in their own case, they may innocently commit almost any guilt for the sake of interest, is as powerful in him as in the rest of the world. naturally thinks that no man is so capable of filling his office as himself, and, therefore, that to retain it, he may, on the score of public duty, produce any extent of public evil. His conduct is in no small degree influenced by personal jealousy and animosity; he has to wage, not only an open war with the Opposition, but a private one with some part or other of his colleagues.

Other men, in their avocations, have a defined line of conduct to pursue, but the Minister has not. The application of his principles and his leading measures must be governed

by circumstances; in the discharge of the more important parts of his duty, he must be led, not by rule, but by his own discretion. He may, therefore, spontaneously, and with honest intentions, plunge the empire into calamity, either by doing nothing, or by erroneous measures. If he pledge himself to ruinous policy, he is sure to persevere in it to preserve himself from ruin.

We might cite nearly the whole of Ministerial history in confirmation of what we have said, but we will content ourselves with a very recent portion of it. Before Mr Canning was made the Premier, he advocated the immediate carrying of the Catholic Question as a matter of urgent necessity; but when he gained the dignity, he intimated that the success of the question ought to be deferred to a distant period. He here evidently, at the one moment or the other, laboured to inflict a gigantic injury on the empire, solely for the sake of his own gain. When, on being made the Premier, he could not obtain a sufficiency of other support, he allied himself with the low Whigs and Radicals-with men who were flatly opposed to him in general principles, whose public character shewed every conceivable stain, and who formed the scum of all parties. He made a most revolutionary attack on the House of Lords, because it would not adopt his Corn Bill. We are willing to admit the influence of self-delusion; but if we own that he worked himself into the belief that in all this he was sanctioned by private honour and public duty, every upright man must own, in return, that his belief was a false one, and that he sought to sacrifice the public weal, and even the constitution, to his personal aggrandisement.

When the Duke of Wellington lost office on the formation of the Canning Ministry, he went into Opposition on several leading points of policy; but when he regained it, he servilely adopted Mr Canning's views. It is certain, from their own declarations, that if he and Mr Peel had remained out of office, they would, for the sake of obtaining it, have resisted, with all their might, the destructive changes in the Constitution which they have, as Ministers, made in order to preserve it. Thus the Constitution was to be defended or

partially destroyed according to the dictates of their personal animosity, or lust for power.

When Mr Peel went over to the Catholics, he ingenuously confessed that he had deceived his friends, trampled on his principles,-in a word, done that for which any man would be for ever kicked out of private society; and all that he could plead in his defence was, public duty. So completely can office obliterate from the human mind all distinctions between right and wrong! All the world knows that the obligations of truth and fidelity are just as binding on the Minister as on the private individual; yet Mr Peel had convinced himself that, because he was a Minister, he was exempt from them. He and divers of his colleagues declared that their opinions were unchanged, and that they had changed sides solely because they could not carry on the government," or, in other words, retain office, by any other means. They did this when they well knew that other men could be found to carry on the government without attempting to carry the Catholic question. Rather than resign office, they did that which they confessed would be highly dangerous to all the best interests of the empire, when they could have prevented it from being done by their resignation.

The present Ministers have asserted, both by word and deed, that if they cannot retain office by acting on their own convictions, they ought to do it by acting on directly opposite ones. This sacrifice of principle to expediency is no more defensible in them than it is in the felon. The plea of the Minister-I did this because I could not carry on the government without-is precisely in effect the plea of the pickpocket or murdererI robbed or murdered, because I had no other means of obtaining wealth. Such are the most dangerous of all Ministers, because they deprive the public weal wholly of defence.

If we acquit them of evil motive, and ascribe such conduct to self-delusion, we are met by the stubborn fact, that Ministers may be led by good intentions into the most criminal and ruinous conduct; that such intentions can be no more depended on than the worst.

Let us now glance at the manner

An

in which public trusts are disposed of. A new Bishop is appointed, and the public prints announce that he owes his elevation to the interest of a certain noble family. Two ecclesiastical dignitaries bear the namea name almost sufficient of itself to destroy the Church of England-of "Lady *********'s Bishops." individual receives a high judicial situation in Scotland, and the newspapers say it is obtained for him by a certain Duke; another individual is made the Treasurer of the Navy, and they communicate that this is done through a certain Marquis who has lately joined the Ministry. Without saying any thing against these individuals, we may observe, that, in selecting them, merit has evidently been made a minor consideration. We will not assert, that when public trusts are so disposed of, they are sold; but we will confess, that, if there be any real difference between such disposal of them and a sale, we cannot perceive it. In these matters, the present Ministers have only followed the example of their prede

cessors.

It will be understood that what we have said is merely to illustrate the general character of all Ministers; the present ones may be just as upright in motive as any other. It may shew the true character of the execrable doctrine, that Ministers must always be actuated by pure intentions, and ought to be implicitly confided in.

The Opposition leader resembles the Minister in character and circumstances. His own interests continually come into conflict with those of the empire; the most powerful temptations to war against the public weal encircle him; he is exposed to almost every thing which can destroy integrity. He is in more danger than the Minister of adopting destructive principles and measures. While the Minister can ruin the empire by bad government, the Opposition leader can ruin it by guilty coalition with him, or by giving currency to false opinions, and creating disaffection and convulsion.

In the days of Radicalism, Mr Brougham, Sir Francis Burdett, and the other Whig leaders, threw the whole weight of Opposition into the scale with the revolutionary part of

the community, to carry the question of Parliamentary Reform. When Mr Canning, who solemnly pledged himself to oppose it to the last, was made Prime Minister, they coalesced with him, and practically abandoned it. While the Liverpool Ministry existed, these men defended to the utmost all the criminalities of the Catholic Association, and insisted on immediate concession to its demands. But when they joined Mr Canning, they called on it to cease its efforts, and asserted that the granting of its claims ought to be postponed to an indefinite period.

In both these cases, the Opposition leaders, when it was their interest to do so, fanned the flame of rebellion, and assisted in placing the empire on the verge of civil war, for the sake of making great changes of law and constitution; and then, at the command of interest, they virtually opposed themselves to these changes.

Earl Grey, and other Whigs, for a long series of years, when it promoted their party interests to do so, insisted that the House of Commons did not speak the sentiments of the country; and then, when the Catholic Question was discussed, they, at the dictation of those interests, insisted that the meetings and petitions of the country ought to be disregarded, and the House ought to be alone looked at as the faithful representative of public sentiment.

The Whig leaders always state themselves to be the exclusive champions of constitutional rights and privileges-the exclusive friends of the people. Yet, when the Catholic Question was carried, they struck at the root of all free government, by denying the right of the majority to govern; they vied with the Ministers in treating petitions with derision, trampling on public feeling, and forcing upon the country, when it resisted them with every thing save the sword, a vital change of constitution, by practically depriving the constitution of operation.

These leaders constantly unite with Ministers in refusing enquiry touching the causes of public suffering, and disregarding petitions for relief. When the press supports them, they defend it to the extreme of blasphemy and treason; but when it opposes them, they invoke on it the