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bers to Parliament, he should freely give his support, and that this right should be transferred to others. As to the borough in question, no opposition, he presumed, would be made to the plan proposed by the Noble Lord; and in that point he perfectly concurred with the noble mover. The only question was, what was to be done with the franchise of that borough? He hoped the Noble Lord would not throw down the apple of discord on a question where both sides of the House were disposed to co-operate with him. Let particular cases be disposed of as the cases might require, and he offered his assistance to the Noble Lord for a practical remedy; but he could not consent to the laying down of general rules which would furnish arms against the reform which it was the object of the motion to obtain,

Lord John Russell having expressed his satisfaction with the turn the debate had taken, and particularly with the concessions of the Noble Lord, who had gone much farther than he had expected, withdrew his motion, and gave notice that on the 16th he would bring forward a motion for the disfranchisement of the borough of Grampound.

The House then went into a Committee on the seizure of arms bill. Mr Bennet proposed that information on oath of concealed arms should be taken by two Magistrates instead of one; but the proposal was negatived by a majority of 108. The other clauses of the bill were then discussed seriatim, when the House resumed, and ordered the report to be received the next day.

On the 16th, Sir W. De Crespigny submitted to the House of Commons a motion for a Select Committee to inquire into the nature and practicability of the plan proposed by Mr

Owen, of New Lanark, for ameliorating the condition of the lower orders. The honourable Baronet seemed to have become an entire proselyte to Mr Owen's views, and to have considered, that by adopting some modification of his plan, upon an extended scale, the distress which pressed so heavily upon the working classes might be removed, and the country greatly benefited. Lord Archibald Hamilton, who seconded the motion, had also formed the most favourable opinion of the salutary effects likely to result from the extension of this plan; and the boldness and confidence with which a number of benevolent individuals had united in maintaining, with Mr Owen, that the plan would prove infallibly certain in its results, imposed upon a great portion of the community, and induced them to favour, without examination, one of the wildest and most unexampled pieces of empiricism that has sprung up in this kingdom since the era of the South Sea Scheme. It was natural, that a benevolent man, like Mr Owen, with only "one idea" in his head, should be an enthusiast in its favour, and should be blind to any consequences, but such as were favourable to the single notion which had taken undisputed possession of his mind: But it either proves the extremity of the distress which then prevailed, or the utter ignorance of political economy, and the gullibility of some persons invested with the character of legislators, when we find it gravely proposed to extend the regulations, that may have been found useful in the management of a cotton-mill, to the whole of the working classes in this great empire. But what, we may ask, are the instruments by which Mr Owen proposes to regenerate society; to eradicate, at once, poverty and crime; to in

crease, to an extent nearly illimitable, the powers both of production, and onsumption; and to give a prodigious and unexampled impulse to the principle of population? Why, truly, they are abundantly simple, though it seems their powers lay dormant till they were developed by Mr Robert Owen of New Lanark: They are nothing but the "spade," that ancient and useful implement, by which Mr Owen proposes that the whole country, when parcelled out according to his agrarian notions, shall be cultivated; and the establishment of villages in the form of a parallelogram, in which a community of goods should be established. By a proper direction of spade labour, he assures us, that "Great Britain and its dependencies may be made to support an incalculable increase of popula⚫ tion advantageously for all its inhabitants" and he adds, that "the deficiency of employment for the working classes cannot proceed from want of wealth, or of the means of greatly adding to that which now exists, but from some defect in the mode of distributing this extraordinary addition of new wealth (which he proposes to create, "could markets be found !") throughout society, or from the want of a market co-extensive with the means of production *." Now, with respect to the first of these blessings, an "incalculable increase of the population," we hold with Mr Brougham, that the increase of the population beyond the means of subsistence, which had already taken place, was one of the great causes of the distress under which the country was labouring. The plan of Mr Owen, therefore, in so far as it is proposed to increase still farther the number of human be

ings, instead of relieving, would only aggravate and exasperate the evil.

The unexampled increase of our population during the last twentyfive years may be chiefly ascribed to two causes: the Bank Restriction and the War. The former, by relieving the Bank from paying their notes in coin, enabled them to quadruple their issues in paper; the first effects of which were a great stimulus to commercial enterprise, by the augmentation of the circulating medium, and the consequent improvement of the condition of the labouring classes. The war, combining with this state of things, and creating an artificial and unnatural demand for our commodities, tended to make the pernicious effects of he paper system not only not visible for a time, but to diffuse a spirit of enterprise and activity throughout the whole population of the country. More labourers were required, and more were produced. The country seemed advancing rapidly in strength, power, and prosperity. Nobody dreamed that the system might change; for while people enjoy abundance they are naturally improvident and thoughtless. But peace came, and brought with it not the blessings with which peace should be accompanied, but the horrors of famine. Employment could not be procured, because the demand for our manufactures had in a great measure ceased; population pressed on the means of subsistence; and hence all the evils of starvation, discontent, and radical assemblies.

Had not Mr Owen been ignorant of almost every principle, by which the affairs of men are regulated, he could not have overlooked principles so obvious, and effects so lamentably

See Report to the County of Lanark, of a Plan for relieving Public Distress. By Robert Owen.

certain. To show this ignorance, in a more striking point of view, we need only mention, that, in his "report to the county of Lanark," after denouncing gold as a standard of value, and proposing to substitute in its room human labour," the most variable, uncertain, and preposterous of all abstractions considered as a standard of value, he goes on to say, that the Legislature, in 1797, suspended cash payments, not on account of the run upon the Bank for coin, and the danger of its being drained of its last guinea for the purpose of hoarding or for exporta tion, but from the "unfitness" of gold to perform that necessary function! And he announces this as a discovery! although, in prowling over the pages of Adam Smith, he must have found that that common-place writer had represented human labour, or, in other words, the cost of production, as that which in the longrun determines the value of any commodity; but had never gone so far as to represent it as the only fit measure of value, or as calculated to su persede the functions and use of the precious metals. The climax of his absurdity is, that he proposes to find the average value of labour by the day, and to constitute that the unit or basis of his scale.

He also lays it down gravely, that, if he could find a market "co-extensive with the means of production," he would achieve the most unheard of prodigies. No doubt, Archimedes declared he could move the globe with his machines, were it possible to find a fulcrum, or point of support on which to place them. The fulcrum, however, has not yet been found and the earth wheels on its diurnal and annual course without the smallest interruption.

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But the ignorance of human nature, displayed by this "simpleminded projector," as Mr Brougham

happily described him, is still more marvellous than his ignorance of, or contempt for, the principles of political economy. He proposes to banish all emulation, and exorcise the sceleratus amor habendi; yet still imagines that the subjects of his cosmopolitism will continue indefatigable in their industry! He destroys the greatest of all the stimulants that act upon men, and then he assumes that they will act just as they should do! In his proposed parallelograms, all property is to be in common; there is to be an incessant surveillance exercised by every man upon every man; the whole is to move, act, and keep time like a spinning jennie; no allowance is to be made for difference of constitution, capacity, character, or habits; all are to be moved by the same impulse, to act precisely in the same manner, to submit to the same discipline, to yield to the same motives, and cooperate for the same end: And this is called regenerating society! That such a fantastic scheme, more visionary than any which the most renowned conteurs of Arabia have imagined in their most dreamy moods, should have gained the approbation of the gentlemen of a wealthy and enlightened county, and been seriously pressed on the attention of Parliament, is one of the wonders of our time, which posterity will be slow to believe.

In the course of the debate on Sir W. De Crespigny's motion, the Chancellor of the Exchequer made some highly judicious and pertinent observations on the panacea which had been pressed on the attention of the House; and among other things remarked the declaration of Mr Owen, that "gross errors were combined with the principles of every religion," and that he himself was not of any religion that had ever been thought of; a declaration which

could not fail to startle even those who might otherwise have been inclined to think favourably of his plan. We need hardly add, that the motion was lost; the numbers being 16 for it, and 141 against it.

On the same day, Lord John Russell moved for leave, which was granted, to bring in a bill to disfranchise the borough of Grampound, and to enable Leeds to return two members to Parliament in lieu there. of.

On the 18th, the royal assent was given, by commission, to the seizure of arms' bill on the 21st the seditious meetings' bill was read a third time in the Lords, and passed; on the 24th, the bill for restraining the publication of blasphemous and seditious libels was read a third time in the Commons, and passed: and, on the 29th, the newspaper stamp duty bill was read a third time in the Lords and passed. On the third reading of this bill in the House of Commons, an important clause was proposed by the Attorney-General and adopted, viz. "That nothing in this bill shall extend, or be construed to extend, to the publication of any work in parts or numbers, provided that more than two years have elapsed since the publication of the work, and provided also that such work had originally been published in numbers." On the 30th, the royal assent was given, by commission, to the two last of these bills; and the House, on its rising, adjourned till the 15th of February 1820.

These measures, in every stage of their progress through both Houses of Parliament, gave rise to keen and

protracted debates; but, latterly, these possessed no manner of interest, as the same general topics were on all occasions urged both for or against them. The length, therefore, to which they extended made abridgment "impossible, if it had been endeavoured, and foolish, if it had been possible." We have, however, endeavoured to lay before our readers as full and distinct a view of the nature of the measures proposed for curbing the projects of the disaffected as our limits would permit; deeming it, at the same time, conducive to no good purpose to analyse, in the discussions of each successive day, speeches which contain no novelty or fact, and which merely repeat what had perhaps been more fully and forcibly stated before. To the clamours raised against these vigorous measures, by those whose practices they were so powerfully calculated to restrain, that they were calculated to impair, or, perhaps, subvert public liberty, we reply in the words of Tacitus : Falso libertatis vocabulum obtendi ab iis, qui privatim degeneres, in publicum exitiosi, nihil spei, nisi per discordias habeant: And to those who can distinguish between liberty and licentiousness, between the dominion of the mob and the salutary and equal government of the laws; who reverence the constitution, but would curb and even punish seditious and revolutionary movements, we would address the words of Cicero † : Hanc retinete, quæsumus, Quirites, quam vobis tanquam hæreditatem majores vestri reliquerunt.

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CHAPTER IX.

SCOTLAND.

Progress of Burgh Reform.-Lord A. Hamilton's motion relative to the Burgh of Aberdeen.-Lord Advocate's bill for regulating the mode of accounting of Royal Burghs.-Lord A. Hamilton's motion for the appointment of a Committee on the Petitions of the Royal Burghs carried.-New Jury Court Bill.-Motion for suspending, till next session, some of its enactments. Report of the Committee on the Royal Burghs.-Re-appointment of the Committee.

THE progress of Burgh Reform in Scotland, during the last two years, and the numerous and respectable petitions which were in the course of this session laid on the table of the House of Commons, seem to have convinced Parliament that some alteration had become necessary in the constitution of the Scottish Burghs, in order to secure the citizens against the evils incident to the management of an irresponsible and selfelected magistracy. Of the extent of this progress, a correct idea may be formed from the fact, that of the sixty-six Scottish Royal Burghs, thirty-nine, the total population of which amounted to 421,125 souls, had already voted resolutions in fa vour of reform; while of the twentyseven who had not moved, the total population did not exceed 60,361: so that the proportion of the popu lation of the former was to that of the latter nearly as seven to one. If to this we add the strong facts alleged in petitions, of which proof

was uniformly offered, we shall have no reason to be surprised that Parliament listened with attention to the representations of so large and respectable a body of petitioners.

The first proceeding of importance in this cause was, the motion of Lord Archibald Hamilton in the House of Commons on the 1st of April, that an humble address be presented to the Prince Regent, praying that his Royal Highness would direct to be laid before the House a copy of the warrant issued by the Crown for the election of Magistrates for the burgh of Aberdeen in 1818, and also a copy of the petition on which that warrant was granted. His Lordship then went into a history of the case, upon which he grounded his motion. In Aberdeen, at the end of the year 1817, an election took place, irregular, and, what was more, in a high degree illegal. A complaint was made by two of the constituent Magistrates. The case was gross, flagrant, and unjust; yet it was owing to the

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