The Constitutional History of England from 1760 to 1860 Part 19

[Footnote 308: Speech of Lord Palmerston, February 19.]

[Footnote 309: It is remarkable that it was not a very full House, the numbers of the division being only 234 to 215. Many members absented themselves, being equally unwilling to condemn the bill or to approve the silence of the ministry.]

[Footnote 310: 268 to 39.]

[Footnote 311: "Life of the Prince Consort," v., 131.]

[Footnote 312: "Life of the Prince Consort," i., 99.]

[Footnote 313: Chapter II., p. 54.]

[Footnote 314: It is known, from two letters from Lord Palmerston to the Queen, published in the "Life of the Prince Consort," v., 100--in one, written before the debate in the House of Lords, he expresses a hope that the smallness of the majority in the House of Commons will encourage the Lords to throw it out, and he "is bound in duty to say that, if they do so, they will perform a good public service;" and in another, the day after the division in the Lords, he writes again "that they have done a right and useful thing," adding that the feeling of the public was so strong against the measure, that those in the gallery of the House are said to have joined in the cheers which broke out when the numbers were announced.]

[Footnote 315: 433 to 36.]

[Footnote 316: See the proceedings of 1700 (Macaulay, "History of England," v., 278; and of 1704, Lord Stanhope's "Reign of Queen Anne,"

p. 168). The Whig and the Tory writer equally condemn the "Tackers."]

[Footnote 317: In the debate on life peerages ("Parliamentary History,"

cxl., 356), Lord Grey spoke of "that great transfer of political power from one cla.s.s to another which was accomplished by the Reform Bill" And Lord Campbell, speaking of Lord Grey himself in connection with that measure, says: "His Reform Bill ought to place him in a temple of British worthies by the side of Lord Somers, for it wisely remodelled the const.i.tution, and it is hardly less important than the Bill of Rights."--_Life of Lord Campbell_, ii., 201.]

[Footnote 318: A recent writer, professedly belonging to the Radical party, claims for it the credit of "being the legitimate issue of the Reform Bill of 1832." ("The State of Parties," by J.E. Kebbel, _Nineteenth Century_, March, 1881, p. 497.)]

THE END.