ONE:[See larger version]
TWO:During the passage of the Bill through committee three important proposals were madethe first by Lord Chandos, that tenants paying fifty pounds per annum for their holdings should have a vote in the counties. This was known as "the Chandos clause" of the Reform Bill, which was carried on the 18th of August by a majority of 84, the numbers being 232 and 148. Mr. Hume proposed that the colonies should be represented in the House of Commons; but the motion was negatived without a division. Mr. Hunt, the celebrated Radical Reformer, moved that all house-holders paying rates and taxes should have votes; but, strange to say, household suffrage had in the committee but a single supporter, Mr. Hunt himself, who upon a division constituted the minority. Mr. Hume asked only nineteen members to represent 100,000,000 of inhabitants, including our Indian empire, to which he would give four representatives. It was certainly a small demand, but as a representation of our colonies and dependencies it was ludicrously inadequate.
ONE:The result of the general election in the Upper Province was favourable to the Government; for of the 62 members returned, 44 were opposed to the organic changes demanded by the majority of the old Assembly. The result was that the Government and the legislature of this province were able to work together harmoniously and satisfactorily. This result, however, was said to be obtained by extraordinary, and not always legitimate influence, on the part of the Government,[400] and there was a large body of malcontents who joined the Lower Province in its rebellion, which occurred in 1837. The Governor of Upper Canada, who brought about this favourable change, was Sir Francis Head, who held the post of major in the army in 1835, when he was employed as Assistant Poor Law Commissioner in the county of Kent. Lord Glenelg, recognising in him a man of capacity and energy, fitted for a great emergency, suddenly appointed him Governor of Upper Canada. He rendered most important service afterwards in conducting the military operations by which the rebellion was put down. Lord Gosford was not so successful in the Lower Province. He was accused of having misled the people by holding out false hopes, and both he and the Colonial Secretary, under whose instructions he acted, were charged with something like treachery, by hinting at great concessions and keeping the word of promise to the ear, for the mere purpose of quieting the agitation and evading the reforms demanded. Lord Gosford, unable to stem the torrent of disaffection, dissolved the Assembly, and was recalled in order to make way for Sir J. Colborne. Both these Governors rendered the most important service in putting down the rebellion which soon afterwards broke out, and effecting the pacification and union of the provinces, which, as we shall hereafter see, were placed upon the solid basis of self-government and equal rights.
TWO:After a lengthened and toilsome Session Parliament was at length prorogued by the king in person on the 10th of September. Several important measures which had passed the Commons were rejected by the Lords. Their resistance had caused great difficulty in carrying through the imperatively demanded measures of Municipal Reform; and they had deprived the Irish Church Temporalities Act of one of its principal features. But their obstructive action was not confined to great political measures of that kind. They rejected the Dublin Police Bill, and other measures of practical reform. The consequence was that the Liberal party began to ask seriously whether the absolute veto which the Lords possessed, and which they sometimes used perversely and even factiously, was compatible with the healthful action of the legislature and the well-being of the country. It was roundly asserted that the experience of the last two years had demonstrated the necessity of reform in the House of Lords. The question was extensively agitated, it was constantly discussed in the press, public meetings were held throughout the country upon it, and numerous petitions were presented to Parliament with the same object. On the 2nd of September Mr. Roebuck, while presenting one of these petitions, announced his intention of introducing early in the next Session a Bill to deprive the House of Lords of its veto upon all measures of legislation, and to substitute for it a suspense of power, so that if a Bill thrown out by the Lords should pass the Commons a second time, and receive the Royal Assent, it might become law without the concurrence of the Peers. Mr. Ripon also gave notice of a motion to remove the bishops from the House of Peers; while Mr. Hume indignantly denounced the humiliating ceremonials observed in the intercourse between the Commons and the Lords. Although the whole proceeding at a conference between the two Houses consists of the exchange of two pieces of paper, oral discussions not being permitted, the members of the House of Commons are obliged to wait upon the Lords, standing with their hats off, the members of the Upper House, as if they were masters, remaining seated with their hats on. The state of feeling among the working classes on this subject was expressed in the strongest language in an address to Mr. O'Connell from the "non-franchised inhabitants of Glasgow." They warmly deprecated the unmanly and submissive manner in which the Ministers and the Commons had bowed bare-headed to the refractory Lords. They demanded that responsibility should be established in every department of the State; and they said, "As the House of Lords has hitherto displayed a most astounding anomaly in this enlightened age by retaining the right to legislate by birth or Court favour, and being thereby rendered irresponsible, it follows it must be cut down as a rotten encumbrance, or be so cured as to be made of some service to the State, as well as amenable to the people."
ONE:Everything in Parliament and in Ministerial movements now denoted the near approach of the renewal of war. On the 8th of March a message was received by both Houses of Parliament from his Majesty, stating that great military preparations were going on in Holland and France, and that his Majesty deemed it highly necessary to take measures for the security of his dominions. It added that negotiations were going on with France, the issue of which was uncertain, but it neither stated what these negotiations were, nor the measures called for. The message was taken for what it wasa note of war, and both in the Lords and Commons strong expressions of defiance were used to France. This seemed to have encouraged Ministers to a plainer expression of their intentions, for only two days later another message came down, calling for an increase of the navy. The next day, the 11th, the Commons formed themselves into a committee, and voted an addition of ten thousand seamen to the fifty thousand already voted. The militia were embodied. Sheridan was very zealous for war; Ministers, however, professed to desire the continuance of peace if possible.
TWO:On his return to the Vistula, Buonaparte displayed an unusual caution. He seemed to feel that his advance into Poland had been premature, whilst Prussia was in possession of Dantzic, whence, as soon as the thaw set in, he was open to dangerous operations in his rear, from the arrival of a British army. He therefore determined to have possession of that post before undertaking further designs. The place was invested by General Lefebvre, and capitulated at the end of May. Buonaparte all this time was marching up fresh troops to fill up the ravages made in his army. The Russians, after a drawn battle near Heilsberg on the 10th of June, then crossed the Aller, and placed that as a barrier between them and the French, in order that they might avoid the arrival of a reinforcement of thirty thousand men who were on the march.
