Essays on Political and Social Science (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1853 Excerpt: ... 422 THE EXPECTED REFORM BILL. As the season advances, the new measure of Parliamentary Reform, which Lord John Russell announced for the beginning of the session, begins to excite public attention. Conjectures as to what it will be, suggestions as to what it ought to be, have appeared in several journals, and been made at a few public meetings. While some have ventured to prophesy its chief features, and others have gone so far as to dictate its minute details, we shall content ourselves with a humbler function; and, assuming neither the right to prescribe, nor the power to foresee, shall simply attempt to clear the way for a fair and dispassionate consideration of the measure when it shall be propounded, by fixing the mind of the nation on the most prominent and turning points, --for instance, on the meaning of the British constitution, the object it has in view, the modifications already introduced in furtherance of that object, and the residue which yet remains to be accomplished. The effect of past alterations may guide us in our opinion of the necessity, and in our choice of the direction, of those now demanded or proposed; and the experience of our predecessors and our neighbours may be brought in aid of our own wisdom. From a consideration of these things we shall endeavour to infer what it would be wise to desire and reasonable to expect;--starting from a serious conviction that the subject is by no means as - From the "Edinburgh Review," Jan. 1852. 1. Electoral Districts. By Alexander Mackay, Esq. London: 1848. 2. National Reform Association Tracts. London: 1851. easy, the treatment of it as simple, or the decision regarding it as obvious and indisputable, as many of our fellow-reformers delight to represent it. The Reform Act of 1832, as every...