new constituent bodies there are no ancient rights reserved. In
those bodies, therefore, the expense of an election will be still
smaller. I firmly believe, that it will be possible to poll out
Manchester for less than the market price of Old Sarum.

Sir, I have, from the beginning of these discussions, supported
Reform on two grounds; first, because I believe it to be in
itself a good thing; and secondly, because I think the dangers of
withholding it so great that, even if it were an evil, it would
be the less of two evils. The dangers of the country have in no
wise diminished. I believe that they have greatly increased. It
is, I fear, impossible to deny that what has happened with
respect to almost every great question that ever divided mankind
has happened also with respect to the Reform Bill. Wherever
great interests are at stake there will be much excitement; and
wherever there is much excitement there will be some
extravagance. The same great stirring of the human mind which
produced the Reformation produced also the follies and crimes of
the Anabaptists. The same spirit which resisted the Ship-money,
and abolished the Star Chamber, produced the Levellers and the
Fifth Monarchy men. And so, it cannot be denied that bad men,
availing themselves of the agitation produced by the question of
Reform, have promulgated, and promulgated with some success,
doctrines incompatible with the existence, I do not say of
monarchy, or of aristocracy, but of all law, of all order, of all
property, of all civilisation, of all that makes us to differ
from Mohawks or Hottentots. I bring no accusation against that
portion of the working classes which has been imposed upon by
these doctrines. Those persons are what their situation has made
them, ignorant from want of leisure, irritable from the sense of