and in order to effect its entrance it became necessary to divide it into sections. Hastily plucked asunder in many parts, each piece formed a load for a troop of the petitioners, who carried it into the body of the House. It there lay on the floor beside the Table, which it overtopped, piled up in massy folds, and was "presented," if that term can be strictly applied to so unwieldy a document, by Mr. T. Duncombe, one of the Members for Finsbury.

In calling attention to its contents, he thanked the House for the kind and respectful manner in which it had been received. The petition, he observed, had nearly 3,500,000 of signatures; and, making allowance for the signatures of females and youths, he was prepared to prove that there were above 1,500,000 of families of the industrious classes subscribers to that petition. He had gathered in conversation with Members what were likely to be the objections to its prayer; and one was, the doubt as to there being any precedent. But in 1785, the promoters of the Lancashire petition against the duties on cotton stuffs were heard at the Bar; in 1789, persons who took a strong interest in the Slave-trade were heard at the Bar, and afterwards referred to a Select Committee; in 1812, on the motion of Lord Brougham, and with the concurrence of Lord Stanley, Mr. Rose, Mr. Baring, (Lord Ashburton,) and Lord Castlereagh, witnesses were heard against the Orders in Council. Unquestionably, the petition which he now presented, proceeding from every part of the empire, was equally deserving of attention. "They will not only prove to you that a state of great

distress exists in this country, but they will also prove, if not to the satisfaction of every man in this House, at least to the conviction of every unprejudiced mind, that those grievances arise from the neglect and misrepresentation of their interests within these walls. They will also state to you what they believe to be the remedy for the evils of which they complain. It will not be for you to decide to-night upon the merits of the remedy they may suggest; that will be for your consideration after having heard their statements. After you shall have heard their arguments, then it will be my duty to propose what I conceive would remedy and correct the abuses and mismanagement under which this country is now labouring."

He traced the history of Constitutional Reform in the country for the last fifty or sixty years. Many called the Chartists wild and visionary; but several eminent men of both Houses had advocated the same principles. When Major Cartwright advocated Reform in 1777, it was called "Radical Reform;" and at that time the people almost repudiated the name of "Radical" as a stigma. In 1798, the Whigs took up the cause of Reform, and they were then called "Reformers:" but those who were originally called Radicals, and afterwards Reformers, were now called "Chartists;" the Chartists were the Radicals of former days.

He doubted if the House was aware of the state of the public mind and of the country. The petition had received its number of signatures in the course of the last three or four months; the persons interested in it were en

rolled in about 600 national associations in England and Scotland; about 100,000 subscribed a 1d. weekly to keep up the agitation; and between 50,000 and 60,000 of those had pledged themselves to continue to subscribe as long as they received 1s. of wages, and until they were heard within the House of their Representatives. The distress which they were suffering swelled the cry; and while that distress was recognised in the delusive promises of a Queen's speech, without the offer of a remedy, it could not be expected but that they should make their way into that assembly, and endeavour to do something for themselves. He had received, he would venture to say, 500 communications on the subject; and of those he read a few, describing the destitute state of numbers in Sheffield, Wolverhampton, Burnley, the Vale of Leven, Edinburgh, and other places, and the zeal and cooperation of numbers in the agitation of legislative measures from which they expected relief. In Burnley the people were so famished, that some had disinterred a dead cow, and used it for food. Would it be possible for such a state of things to continue? Surely Sir Robert Peel did not expect his Incometax and Tariff to cure it? Nor could he mean to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act, and put down the Chartists by force. He appealed to the conduct of the Chartists themselves, to the procession which bore the petition, and to the terms of the last address issued by the National Convention, (which he read,) to show that the Chartists did not contemplate violence. The House might think their arguments visionary and absurd, but they could not refuse to

hear them; while by doing so they would gain some portion of what they much needed the confidence, affection, and gratitude of the great body of the nation. Mr. Duncombe moved" that the petitioners who signed the National Petition be heard at the Bar of this House; by themselves, their counsel, or agents, in support of the allegations of their petition."

Mr. Leader seconded the motion, declaring it mere blindness to doubt the sincerity of the petitioners, or the increasing numbers in which they came before the House, although Lord Campbell had said, after the prosecutions of the Chartists, "that Chartism was put down." To Mr. Duncombe's list of precedents Mr. Leader added Mr. Roebuck's having been permitted to plead at the Bar for the Lower Canadians.

Sir James Graham said, that nothing was further from his intention than to turn the paragraph's of the petition into ridicule. Unfortunately, the foundation of the petition was generally admitted: the distress was great; the number of petitioners complaining of that distress was large; and their statements were, in many particulars, founded in fact. It was not, therefore, a question of fact to be investigated, but a question of policy to be adopted; it was not a question of fact to be inquired into, but a question of political remedy to be decided on by the House and as ; he could not conceive a course more likely to be disastrous than to excite hopes which were certain to be disappointed, and to hold out expectations which those who consented to the inquiry were aware would be fallacious, he must oppose the present motion.

Mr. Macaulay besought the

House, if he should be betrayed into any expressions not entirely consistent with a calm view of the question, to attribute it to the warmth with which he viewed the subject generally, and to no want of kindness towards the petitioners. He could not consent to hear them at the Bar, as if the House had not fully made up their minds to resist what was asked; for he could not but see that the petitioners demanded the Charter. To some parts of the Charter indeed he was not opposed:-as, the vote by ballot, the absence of a property qualification for Members:-and, though he could not support annual Parliaments, he would have them shortened. But to the essence of the Charter- universal suffrage, suffrage without any qualification at all, he was deter minately opposed; and nothing short of that would have the smallest effect in diminishing the agitation which prevailed. Universal suffrage would be fatal to all the purposes for which Government exists, for which aristocracies exist; and it was incompatible with the very essence of civilization. Civilization rests on security of property: without that, the finest soil in the world, or the moral or intellectual institutions of any country, would have no power to prevent its sinking into a state of barbarism; but on the other hand, while property is secure, it is impossible to prevent any country from advancing in prosperity; and he never could intrust the supreme government of the country to any class which would, to a moral certainty, be induced to commit great and systematic inroads on the security of property. He assumed that that would be the result of the motion: and he drew his in

ference from the very words of the petition, which say "Your petitioners complain that they are enormously taxed to pay the interest of what is called the National Debt-a debt amounting at present to 800,000,000/-being only a portion of the enormous amount expended in cruel and expensive wars for the suppression of all liberty, by men not authorized by the people, and who, consequently, had no right to tax posterity for the outrages committed by them upon mankind." If he was really to understand that as an indication of the opinion of the petitioners, it was an expression of an opinion that a national bankruptcy would be just and politic. He made no distinction in the right of the fundholder to his dividend and of the landowner to his rent, and the petitioners made none; but they lumped them together with all monopolies: they "respectfully mention the existing monopolies of the suffrage, of paper money, of machinery, of land, of the public press, of religion, of the means of travelling and transit, and a host of other evils too numerous to mention, all arising from class legislation." Could any thing be meant but a general confiscationof land, of the funds, of railways, and machinery?

He did not wonder at such views in uneducated men, impelled by distress to seek relief; but if education would mend those defects, would it not be well to wait till education had exerted its influence? But grant the power of so sweeping a confiscation of property, and what must be the effect? "No experience enables us to guess at it. All I can say is, that it seems to me to be something more horrid than can be imagined. A

great community of human beings a vast people would be called into existence in a new position; there would be a depression, if not an utter stoppage, of trade, and of all those vast engagements of the country by which our people are supported; and how is it possible to doubt that famine and pestilence would come before long to wind up the effects of such a system? The best thing which I can expect, and which I think every one must see as the result is, that in some of the desperate struggles which must take place in such a state of things, some strong military despot would arise, and give some sort of protection, some security to the property which may remain. But if you flatter yourselves that, after such an occurrence, you would ever see again those institutions under which you have lived, you deceive yourselves: you would never see them again, and you would never deserve to

see them."

Mr. Roebuck said, he had seen the substance of Mr. Macaulay's speech before, in an article in the Edinburgh Review. Mr. Macaulay denied the grounds on which the petitioners made their claim; but on what grounds was the House of Commons itself constituted? He was prepared to maintain that the same principle, if carried out, would bring together the whole body of the people to confer on public affairs in that place. There was a natural desire in every man to profit by another's labour: the object of Government was to prevent that desire from breaking out into action. In a state of nature, if a man was strong, he obtained that which he desired. As men advanced, they met together and formed societies. In this country

the people had hit upon the principle of deputation to a few to do that, which in former times was done in the market-place by the whole body of the people. The House of Commons then sat there to prevent the desire that each man has of profiting by another's labour from coming into action: they were put over the people to watch for them; but then, that being the case, who was to watch them-to watch the watchers? That could only be done with effect by making the House of Commons responsible to the people; and the charge against the House of Commons on the part of the people was, that it had delegated to a small section the power of enforcing this responsibility, and that that small section had joined with the House of Commons to oppress the remainder of the people; and that they did oppress the remainder of the people. The right honourable Gentleman, holding the petition in his hands, had said, that the petitioners made a demand for the establishment of a minimum of wages; if this were so, then he asked honourable Gentlemen on the other side of the House whether they did not make a demand of exactly the same principle in the Corn-laws? It might be bad political economy to demand a fixed minimum of wages, but it was a political economy taught by the landlords, who sought a minimum of prices

What class was so interested in the security of property as the labouring class? though Mr. Macaulay feared that to concede political privileges to them would make the country one scene of anarchy, bloodshed, and rapine. He (Mr. Roebuck), however, would say, "do not judge of the people of England

by the language of the fierce, the malignant, and cowardly demagogue, who had written the document on the Table." He could name the individual, if he were not beneath contempt. But he called upon the House not to form their opinions from the language of that individual, but to judge of the conduct of that large class, whose conduct had been borne witness to by a Gentleman opposite, who had borne so patiently their long sufferings, and the daily oppression to which they had been subjected; from this conduct of theirs he would beg the House to judge of their countrymen, and not from the hasty wording of the idle and foolish document before them. And if he were right, why anticipate the anarchy described by the last speaker? If the people entertained the opinions imputed to them, could any physical force in the country at this moment keep them down? If 3,000,000 should rise up as a man to insist upon what they considered their just demands, what army that you could raise could avail to keep them quiet? But what was it that produced this feeling on the part of the people? It was a conviction on their part of the benefits which would arise to themselves from peace and obedience to the laws. Or let him put the evils of an aristocratic Government against the evils assumed by Mr. Macaulay; when the country was distressed, when the Government and the people asked for a reduction in the price of food, the exclusive and aristocratic body that formed the majority in that assembly did everything they could to keep up the price of provisions: was there no spirit of rapine in that?

Lord Francis Egerton, believing the petitioners to be sincere, found that 3,000,000 persons had signed what Mr. Roebuck had called a trashy and contemptible petition; and he concurred in Mr. Macaulay's reasons against taking that trashy and contemptible document into consideration. Mr. Hawes said, he could not concede power to masses of people, blindly led by the very men for whom Mr. Roebuck had expressed such merited contempt. Mr. Hume re-asserted some of the allegations in the petition as undeniable; and said, that the best mode of avoiding revolution was to listen to the well-founded complaints of the people.

Mr. Wakley observed, that it had been expected that the newlyenfranchised boroughs would return some very troublesome men; but, assuredly, they never would be annoyed with men of extreme opinions, if they took their leaf of Reform out of Mr. Hawes's book. He had expected, on a question so interesting to the working-class, that it would have been hailed with rounds of Kentish fire and other manifestations of sympathy from Members on the Ministerial side, who had so often denounced the Whigs for harshness towards the poorer classes. The motion ought to be granted, if it were only that the House might have an opportunity of discovering, that the people were not such sanguinary monsters as Mr. Macaulay had painted them.

Lord John Russell, after adverting to some inconsistencies between the arguments urged by Mr. Roebuck, and the description given by him of the petition and its authors, said, it was quite true, that instead of regulating their