sway in certain counties, and boroughs, and one Scotch county more time is required to fully test the policy of the new changes made in the Irish system of elections. Such is the mode in which the House of Commons is composed, and from the character of the electors in the boroughs, it is obvious that it is no difficult matter for a combination of men in the position of the English Peers, to obtain the control of that body. It is equally clear, that from its power as a co-ordinate branch of the government, powerfully influencing public opinion and holding the purse strings of the nation, it will amply repay any expenditure which secures a majority of the house. All the interests connected with, or requiring the aid or countenance of the government, seek to be represented in the lower house. Among these interests, the Peerage stands preeminent, and that body, either by the nominees of Peers owning boroughs, or by their relatives and connexions, representing counties, is represented by more than one half of the House. The next prominent interest to that of the Peerage, with which, however, it is intimately connected, is the East India interest. This representation is not of the natives of India, nor of the English residents in Calcutta or its dependencies; but merely of the India Company and the principal proprietors. In the House chosen upon the death of George the 4th, there were no less than 61 members, who were directly interested in the Company: i. e. Ten Directors returned from 8 and 51 proprietors,-28 of whom were returned from proprietary boroughs. These members possessed 100 votes at the India house, estimated to be worth £2,200 each, and the directors were enabled by the annual appointments in their gift, to bring a patronage of the enormous amount of £250,000 per annum to bear upon the votes of the house, independent of the local patronage of the India house and that arising from the contracts made under their direction. Besides these, there were 15 members, who were retired servants of the Company,-6 of whom enjoyed pensions of more than £1,000 each. The East India Company, must not, however, be regarded as entirely independent of, and as acting only upon the government. It is connected with the government, and like that is used for the benefit of the Peerage. Seventeen of the Peers possess thirtyone votes at the India house, and three of these noble proprietors control 8 votes in the House of Commons. The East India interests although for some purposes, distinct, consequently forms part of the great political machinery of the government, and its patronage is often effectually used to influence the House, for purposes entirely distinct from company interests. In its own employments and revenues, it presents objects equally tempting to any combination seeking power or patronage, and by a sort of moral affinity, the Tory and the India interests have joined their forces in defending existing abuses. Their objects are similar, and in general the government and the company have gone on together harmoniously, mutually sustaining and corrupting each other. ments in the gift of the government, furnish another fund of official patronage. This interest controlled about 34 votes in the same House of Commons; but these members represented the colonies only, so far as their interests were connected with those of the West India proprietors. The attempt made by Mr. Fox to separate the Company patronage from the governinent, Other interests, such as the Bank threw the Tory lords into a parox- of England and the Church, are ysm of terror. They saw one of also represented in the House of the chief sources of power and Commons, and when closely ininfluence departing from their vestigated, it will be found, that party, and as a necessary conse- although these interests sometimes quence, the future predominance clash, they are finally brought to of the Whig interest. To pre- act together, and when united, vent the passage of the act they furnish a fund of government brought in by him, the personal patronage, in comparison with opinions of the King were invoked, as a last resource in the House of Lords, to control their deliberations, and by a disgraceful intrigue, the honest but narrow prejudices of George 3d were so far excited, as to cause an entire alienation of his confidence from the great Whig Min ister. which, the sources of corruption at the disposal of republican or imperial Rome, shrink into insignificance. What effect this patronage has upon the House of Commons, may be gathered from the fact, that the members of the first house, elected under the present King, enjoyed either in their own Their influence with the last persons, or through their near Tory administration, was seen in connexions, places and pensions the nomination of the Select to the amount of £470,000, or Committee appointed by the upwards of $2,000,000 per anHouse of Commons in the reign num, and that for a long series of of the late King, to enquire into years, the daily increasing patthe state of the Company's affairs ronage of the government and of with a view to the removal of the the East India Company, and the charter. In that Committee, jobs and lucrative contracts and there were 3 directors, 7 propri- employments, which the expendietors, and 2 servants of the Company, two West India proprietors, and 8 members of the administration, all directly interested in extending the monopoly. The West India interest, although less powerful, is still influential, and the colonial appoint ture and public business of the British Empire placed at the disposal of the Tory party, were openly used to control the deliberations and the votes of the popular branch of the Imperial Parliament. By these means, the government of Great Britain has been rendered merely aristocrat- all portions of her dominions, and ic; and the resources of her col- to the operation of this system, onies, and the industry of her own people have been so heavily taxed, to sustain the splendor of a luxuriant and indolent nobility. may be attributed much of what is the boast, and nearly all which ought to be the shame of England. By it the Catholics of Ireland have been compelled to maintain at an annual expense of £1,785,000, a Protestant Church for the benefit of the few who have appropriated its pluralities and its sinecures; and the natives of India have been ground into the dust to swell the dividends of a claim to the produce of their labor is founded upon successful sulting from the manner in which political power is vested and administered in England, are so The effects of this constitution of the government upon the public expenditure, and upon the foreign and domestic policy of the kingdom may be seen in its enormous national debt; and its inseparable concomitant high taxation, in the increase of places, pensions and sinecures; in the large salaries paid to all employ- commercial company, whose sole ed by the government at home or abroad; in the long and expensive wars waged to preserve the war. The grievous abuses rebalance of power in Europe and to extend the colonial empire of England, in India and America; in the magnificent public estab- numerous that it is scarcely poslishments provided for her worn sible that even the belief of the out soldiers and sailors, and in a participation of the people in the system of poor laws, which pre- government, through the House fers to maintain a sixth part of of Commons, or the wealth and the population as paupers, rather influence of the aristocracy, or than to facilitate a distribution of the military force, at the comproperty, which would indeed di- mand of the ministry, or even all minish the power of the aristoc- combined, could have prevented racy, but only to afford addi- a violent attempt to remedy them, tional employment to the idle had parties been so divided, that poor. They may be seen in the gorgeous splendor of her nobility, and in the destitution of her peasantry; in her extensive commerce with her colonial possessions, whose productions are destined cisive issue, and the fatal contest to swell the wealth and pamper could not have been averted. Forthe pride of the mother country, tunately, however, for the aristoand in the impoverishing those cracy, there were many in that colonies, and the prostration of class, who were opposed upon their best and permanent interests principle, to a continuance of these through misgovernment. In short abuses, and who wisely sought to they may be discovered in every preserve a portion of their prividepartment of the government, in leges by abolishing some of the the aristocracy were as united in sustaining these abuses, as the mass of the nation were in opposition to them. Such a division would soon have presented a de most obnoxious. Seeking a reform of the government with as much anxiety, as the more radical reformers, their rank and station in society enabled them to take the lead in the reforming party, and to direct its efforts to effecting a constitutional, instead of a violent reform of the political institutions of the country. In the same class of moderate reformers, may be ranked the wealthymanufacturers, merchants, and bankers, who seek a direct, instead of an indirect representation in the government. To all these persons, who may be regarded as the leaders of the reforming party, a revolution attended with violence would be equally unwelcome as to the Tory party. Their movements are directed to effect a peaceable reformation, and wherever the elements of discontent have exploded in violence, as in the combinations for higher wages in the mining and manufacturing districts, in the incendiary conspiracies, in the agricultural counties, or in the anti-union movements in Ireland, the ringleaders have been surrendered to the vengeance of the laws without any interference on the part of the Whigs. But in all agitations to intimidate the aristocracy, so long as the violence is not likely to overpower the public authorities, and to ensure the triumph of the mob, both divisions of the reformersthe Radicals and the Whigsmove on harmoniously; and great changes must be effected in the political system of England, before such discrepency can arise in their views, as to place them in opposition to each other. With all their combined efforts' however, they were doomed to experience constant defeat during the long reign of George the 3d, and during the greater part of that of his successor. Every attempt seemed to place the objects of their wishes at a more unattainable distance. Catholic emancipation, reform in the House of Commons, retrenchment in the public expeuditure, diminution of the taxes, of tithes and of poor rates, were still the objects of deferred hope; and the deep but not unobserved current of popular discontent, was fast setting against the government itself. The first concession to public opinion was Catholic emancipation, and this was accompanied with the ungracious remark, that it was made, not because it was right, but because it was necessary and expedient. The right to worship God according to the dictates of conscience-a right, personal, private, and unalienable, was conceded to public opinion, after a severe contest, and after it had caused the overthrow of more than one administration, in order, as the ministry avowed in Parliament, to avert a civil war! This concession was fatal to the supremacy of the Tory party. It admitted the existence of a power in the state, stronger than the physical force of the government, and it made the further and more fatal admission, that power was opposed to the existing system. Public opinion now acquired an acknowledged existence, and the Duke of Wellington found powers. The position of the new cabinet was not, however, unattended with difficulties. While on the one hand, the condition of the public finances forbid England's entering into a crusade for the liberties of Europe; there were on the other, that neither the laurels won at trenchment in the public expendWaterloo, nor his own energetic iture; and non-interference with character could sustain his ad- the internal affairs of foreign ministration, when he first ventured to disregard the demands of the new power, he had invoked into the councils of the nation. The people of England were as unanimous for reform, as the people of Ireland had been for Catholic emancipation, and his declaration against the expediency of any alteration in the Constitution considerations of an urgent charof the House of Commons, by acter, against a too close adherdepriving him of the support of ence to the insular policy adoptthe moderate Whigs, left him in ed by the Tory administration. a minority in Parliament, and The movements in Poland affordcompelled him to intimate to the ed a most favorable opportunity King, that he could no longer to check the encroachments of administer the government. Russia, and to establish a king dom that should serve as a bulwark to modern Europe against an irruption of the barbarians of the North. The popular feeling not merely of England, but of the civilized world, was warmly enlisted in behalf of the Poles; France could scarcely be restrained from taking up arms in their favor; the treaty of Vienna It must not, however, be imagined, that a different course would have ensured his continuance in power. A denial of the claims of the Catholics, would only have precipitated the crisis, and have brought on a revolution, violent and bloody in its commencement, and aggravated in its course by bigotry and fanaticism. The truth was, that the political to which they were all parties, system of England had reached that point, where reform either constitutional or revolutionary had become absolutely necessary; and the only question was, whether the reform should be effected under the auspices of a Whig or a Tory administration. The declaration of the Duke of Wellington having incapacitated him for that office, a ministry composed of the leading Whigs with Lord Grey at its head, was accordingly formed, and came into power, pledged to a reform in the House of Commons, re had guarantied the separate existence of Poland and afforded sufficient grounds for their interference, and strong considerations of policy growing out of the state of public feeling, the necessity of providing employment for the superabundant population of the country, and of effectually checking the growing ambition of Russia, all dictated the propriety of interfering promptly and decidedly in behalf of this gallant people. No addition, however, was likely to be gained to the colonial possessions of England, in such a |
