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    kadwtias Radicals , by their advocacy of the chatiges just efrranterated ., bat many others who had not been so strowgiy impressed With ' the necessity of those changes , look to * some alteration in the constitution or functions of the House of Lords , as essential

    to the well-being of the community . The desire for a reform in that quarter has been loudly , strongly , and extensively expressed . Probably this fact was uppermost in your Lordship ' s mind when you deprecated organic changes ; if so , you have volunteered on'a forlorn hope . Hereditary legislation is too absurd in theory , " arid toa pernicious in practice , long to remain a co-ordinate power

    with real representation . The hope of acting upon a body of men who are told that their privileges are too sacred < to be touched , who know that they have a distinct interest from that of the community at large , and whose power is irresponsible , bylhe mere expression of opinion , although it should be ever so ' matured by knowledge and discussion / is much less plausible than the

    scheme for extracting sunbeams from cucumbers . What have obviously been the causes of any forbearance which they hare skown in their opposition to liberal measures , great or small , during the last five years ? The exercise of royal influence , the dread of popular commotion , and the impossibility of governing the country with a House of Commons , as at present constituted ,

    by a Ministry of their own nomination . It may be said that the last motive is a modified action upon them of public opinion . True , but its operation ceases whenever they succeed in influencing the Commons , and all other check upon them is resolvable into their apprehension of being themselves reformed , which apprehension you propose entirely to destroy . Influence the Commons

    they will , and that to an extent which can never be calculated , until that House is made , completely and irrevocably , the orgffn of publifc opinion . They have done so already . They-may do so again , and worse . And yet the people are blamed for the results of the last election , and told to trust to public opinion , and not to organic reforms . You keep the oracle half muzzled , and then

    declare that it has only to speak aloud for its voice to be omnipotent . How is this opinion to be expressed ? Will you reply through the newspapers ? Ah , my Lord , it \ fere better not to remind us of that medium . The taxation upon knowledge is a sore subject . Would the removal of the stamp duties be an

    organic change ? If not , in Heaven ' s name let us have that at least , and do not tell us that we should seek for no extension of the utility of the press , but ' rather look for the triumph of further . measures of reform' to public opinion , enlightened and matured . '

    « . Upon what reasonable grounds , for what useful purpose what * eyefy < Martha people to be called upon to bear a nuisance which they find intolerable ? ' We rest / say * the authority to which « I btouabmdmaotevri ^ t ^ 4 M * 4 * wty of a

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    t $ f &n QtghTti * B * jbri * x .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1835, page 704, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2651/page/12/