distress. That they should be deluded by impudent assertions and
gross sophisms; that, suffering cruel privations, they should
give ready credence to promises of relief; that, never having
investigated the nature and operation of government, they should
expect impossibilities from it, and should reproach it for not
performing impossibilities; all this is perfectly natural. No
errors which they may commit ought ever to make us forget that it
is in all probability owing solely to the accident of our
situation that we have not fallen into errors precisely similar.
There are few of us who do not know from experience that, even
with all our advantages of education, pain and sorrow can make us
very querulous and very unreasonable. We ought not, therefore,
to be surprised that, as the Scotch proverb says, "it should be
ill talking between a full man and a fasting;" that the logic of
the rich man who vindicates the rights of property, should seem
very inconclusive to the poor man who hears his children cry for
bread. I bring, I say, no accusation against the working
classes. I would withhold from them nothing which it might be
for their good to possess. I see with pleasure that, by the
provisions of the Reform Bill, the most industrious and
respectable of our labourers will be admitted to a share in the
government of the State. If I would refuse to the working people
that larger share of power which some of them have demanded, I
would refuse it, because I am convinced that, by giving it, I
should only increase their distress. I admit that the end of
government is their happiness. But, that they may be governed
for their happiness, they must not be governed according to the
doctrines which they have learned from their illiterate,
incapable, low-minded flatterers.