not only on the ground of its intrinsic merits, but, also,
because I was convinced that to reject it would be a course full
of danger. I believe that the danger of that course is in no
respect diminished. I believe, on the contrary, that it is
increased. We are told that there is a reaction. The warmth of
the public feeling, it seems, has abated. In this story both the
sections of the party opposed to Reform are agreed; those who
hate Reform, because it will remove abuses, and those who hate
it, because it will vert anarchy; those who wish to see the
electing body controlled by ejectments, and those who wish to see
it controlled by riots. They must now, I think, be undeceived.
They must have already discovered that the surest way to prevent
a reaction is to talk about it, and that the enthusiasm of the
people is at once rekindled by any indiscreet mention of their
seeming coolness. This, Sir, is not the first reaction which the
sagacity of the Opposition has discovered since the Reform Bill
was brought in. Every gentleman who sat in the late Parliament,
every gentleman who, during the sitting of the late Parliament,
paid attention to political speeches and publications, must
remember how, for some time before the debate on General
Gascoyne's motion, and during the debate on that motion, and down
to the very day of the dissolution, we were told that public
feeling had cooled. The right honourable Baronet, the member for
Tamworth, told us so. All the literary organs of the Opposition,
from the Quarterly Review down to the Morning Post, told us so.
All the Members of the Opposition with whom we conversed in
private told us so. I have in my eye a noble friend of mine, who
assured me, on the very night which preceded the dissolution,
that the people had ceased to be zealous for the Ministerial
plan, and that we were more likely to lose than to gain by the