Extracts from Speeches and Letters on Reform

This chapter presents the extracts from speeches and letters on reform. By 1866, Lowe spoke out against Gladstone’s Reform Bill, and led the group of Liberals, called the Adtillamites, who defeated it and brought down Gladstone’s government. The doctrine of the divine right of kings is an instance of the first kind of treatment of a political subject; the arguments so much relied on at Reform meetings in favour of extended suffrage, and the writings of James and John Mill, are examples of the second; and discussions of the House of Commons on almost every other subject except Reform, and the arguments against Reform, of the third. Passion or party spirit may drive men to plunge into the details of a Reform Bill without clearly putting to themselves and answering these questions, but no really conscientious investigator can pass them by unconsidered.