reference to Parliamentary reform, at which the High Sheriff was chairman, and at which Lord Milton, M.P., avowed his conversion to reform. During the months of February and March 1823 numerous other county meetings were held. Hunt and Cobbett spoke at many of them. At many of the meetings at this period speeches in direct opposition to the object of the meeting were allowed by the meeting, and quietly listened to; in fact, a greater degree of toleration towards hostile speeches and opinions appears to have prevailed then than there does now, and there was more discussion at meetings than at present prevails.

That the revival of the Platform on this occasion was greater than on previous occasions is shown by the fact that it was no longer confined to England. Scotland, so long dead and inert, began to show signs of moving.

"It was thought," writes Lord Cockburn, "that the time. had now arrived when a decided move might be made for a reform of our Parliamentary representation."

"On the 8th March 1823 the Pantheon was filled. Mr. Craig, a merchant, presided, and a Petition was adopted. In the course of a few days about 7000 subscribed to it." 2

Petitions for reform received, however, scant consideration from Parliament. In February Lord John Russell's modest request for a plain arithmetical statement of the number of voters who returned members for the several cities and boroughs and the right of voting was refused. The Government resisted the motion which was negatived by 128 to 90. In April he moved "That the present state of the representation requires the most serious consideration of this House;" but the House did not seem to think so by 280 votes to 169.3 And in June Lord A. Hamilton brought forward his motion relative to the state of the Scotch county representation, where reform was badly required, as "in no county in Scotland did the number of voters exceed 240, and in one it was as low as 9." But the House declared by 152 votes against 117 that they would not reform this either.

The Annual Register of 1823, commenting on the meetings

1 The Examiner, p. 71, 1823.

2 Cockburn's Memorials, pp. 403, 404.

8 Hansard, vol. viii. p. 1260.

held during the year, said: "The language held at most of these meetings was violent in the extreme; but it was regarded by sober-minded men as the effusion of party spirit, and as being neither in unison with the sentiments nor suitable to the actual circumstances of the nation. The people saw and felt that many classes in the community were in a thriving state, and that the embarrassments even of the agriculturists were becoming every day less. A general opinion prevailed that, on subjects of internal legislation, the Ministry had shown more just and more enlarged views than their opponents."

But what was in reality helping to quiet the country was the fact that the Government was showing a tendency to fall in to some extent with the Liberal opinions of the time. Their foreign policy met with general approval, and certain changes took place in some important offices which "were calculated to strengthen the Ministry in the public opinion," and were especially acceptable to the commercial part of the community.

The Government, moreover, had this in their favour, that the condition of the people generally was improving. "The country, in the beginning and throughout the whole of the year, exhibited the most unequivocal marks of a steady and progressive prosperity." 2

3

During the autumn Canning once more showed his appreciation of the utility of the Platform and his love for it. He was visiting some of the commercial and manufacturing districts. In October he was in Devonshire, and at Plymouth he was presented with the freedom of the city. In reply he delivered a speech which, in many ways, was remarkable, but which was most of all so in being absolutely the first instance of the public declaration by a Minister of State of the foreign policy of the country by other means than a speech in Parliament, or the still more orthodox and diplomatic practice of an official despatch. The speech was a striking testimony to the value which had been come to be set on the Platform by the greatest statesman of his time. Having returned his thanks for the honour which had been done him, 2 Ibid. p. 1.

1 Annual Register, p. 3, 1823.

8 See The Times, 3d November 1823.

he said: "The end which I confess I have always had in view, and which appears to me the legitimate object of pursuit to a British statesman, I can describe in one word. . . . In the conduct of political affairs, the grand object of my contemplation is the interest of England. Not, gentlemen, that the interest of England is an interest which stands isolated and alone. The situation which she holds forbids an exclusive selfishness; her prosperity must contribute to the prosperity of other nations; and her stability to the safety of the world. But intimately connected as we are with the system of Europe, it does not follow that we are therefore called upon to mix ourselves on every occasion with a restless and meddling activity in the concerns of the nations which surround us. It is upon a just balance of conflicting duties, and of rival but sometimes incompatible advantages, that a Government must judge when to put forth its strength, and when to husband it for occasions yet to come.

"Our ultimate object must be the peace of the world. That object may sometimes be best attained by prompt exertions— sometimes by abstinence from the interposition in contests which we cannot prevent. It is upon these principles that it did not appear to the Government of this country to be necessary that Great Britain should mingle in the recent contest between France and Spain.

"But while we thus control even our feelings by our duty, let it not be said that we cultivate peace either because we fear, or because we are unprepared for war. . . . The resources created by peace are means of war. In cherishing those resources, we but accumulate those means. Our present repose is no more a proof of inability to act than the state of inertness and inactivity in which I have seen those mighty masses that float in the waters above your town, is a proof they are devoid of strength, and incapable of being fitted for action.

"You well know how soon one of those stupendous masses, now reposing on their shadows in perfect stillness-how soon, upon any call of patriotism, or of necessity, it would assume the likeness of an animated thing, instinct with life and motion-how soon it would ruffle, as it were, its swelling plumage-how quickly it would put forth all its beauty and

its bravery, collect its scattered elements of strength, and awaken its dormant thunder.

"Such as is one of those magnificent machines when springing from inaction into a display of its might-such is England herself, while apparently passive and motionless she silently concentrates the power to be put forth on an adequate occasion. But God forbid that that occasion should arise! After a war sustained for nearly a quarter of a century-sometimes single-handed, and with all Europe arranged at times against her or at her side-England needs a period of tranquillity, and may enjoy it without fear of misconstruction. Long may we be enabled to improve the blessings of our present situation, to cultivate the arts of peace, to give to commerce, now reviving, greater extension, and new spheres of employment, and to confirm the prosperity now generally diffused throughout this island."

The year 1824 appears to have been still quieter so far as the action of the Platform was concerned; indeed, the particular phase of the Platform which appears to have been most in vogue at this time was a new one-that of political banquets -a useful form of public meeting and public speaking which the Seditious Meetings Prevention Act of 1819 had not thought of providing against-indeed, could scarcely have provided against. Thus, in 1823, a public dinner was given to that veteran Liberal-Lord Fitzwilliam; and the Whig Club of Cheshire had their annual dinner; and at Glasgow a dinner was given to Brougham and Denman, and there was a lot of useful speechifying. Even Ministers were sucked into the vortex, as Canning and Huskisson dined with the Sheriffs in London, and made speeches of some political import and consequence.

Any excuse almost served for a political banquet, and every banquet was made the occasion for inspiriting political speeches, which were duly reported in the newspapers, and afforded proof that extra-Parliamentary utterances might be quite as interesting as anything said in Parliament.

Scotland followed English example in this respect, and from 1821 onwards a series of these entertainments took place in Scotland. "They were," writes Lord Cockburn,1 "by far the

1 Life of Lord Jeffrey, by Lord Cockburn, vol. i. p. 267.

most effective of all the public movements in Scotland on the popular side at that time. . . . They gathered together the aristocracy in station and in character of the Scotch Whig party; but derived still greater weight from the open accession of citizens, who for many years had been taught to shrink from political interference on this side, as hurtful to their business."

Otherwise, there is little to chronicle about the Platform: the country had sunk into temporary quiescence.

It was in this state of quiescence that the Seditious Meetings Prevention Act expired. The inference might possibly be drawn from this fact that the policy of the Government in suppressing the Platform was sealed with the proof of success. But so far from the Government having triumphed, the reverse was the truth; the real triumph rested with the Platform. The Government had silenced the Platform because they denied the right of the people to meet when they liked, where they liked, and if they liked. The Government repudiated the doctrine that any person had the right to call a meeting, or that people had the right to attend a meeting at a distance from their own homes. The Government instituted a censorship over the Platform by insisting that nothing should be said from it which did not meet with the approval of a magistrate. The Government objected to what a contemporary writer called "The modern method of calling together large deliberative crowds, as a sort of outer Parliaments, having no other object than publicly to take into consideration affairs of State, and to record the result of their deliberation in propositions or resolutions, addressed to none of the constituted authorities, but published purely as authorised expressions of popular opinion."

But as the Government legislation was only temporary, its expiration formally established and sanctioned, once and for ever, each and every one of these particular claims as recognised rights and principles. They had existed in a more or less uncertain shadowy way before; the legislation against them practically defined them, and gave each a separate importance; the expiration of that legislation left them as clear, no-longer-contested rights. Henceforth, any person, 1 Quarterly Review, vol. xxii. p. 535, March 1820.