Having thus given, we believe, a toler ably just though succinct view of the history and present state of the repre sentative system of the British empire, so far as it can be distinctly shown without continual reference to the other branches of the legislature, we refer for an ac count of the organization and operations of the Commons, " in parliament assem bled," to the article PARLIAMENT, IMPE RIAL.
We have seen how the popular repre sentation arose, first as a convenient, then as a necessary appendage to the feudal of the Anglo-Normans. We have seen how, as early at least as the parliamentary settlement of tthe crown upon the house of Lancaster, that popular representation, under the title of the House of Commons, had become an effec tive, integral, independent, and solemnly recognised branch of the legislature. We have traced, from that period downwards, the twofold operation of the crown in undermining this equal and sometimes preponderating independence of the Com mons' House, and of that House itself in contracting the limits and abridging the rights of the constituent bodies, until the original constitution of the representative body itself was absolutely subverted. And last of all we have seen that which, in the present day, it is most interesting to consider,—the reaction of an enlarged and enlightened public opinion on the legal constitution of the House. In an historical view it is far less important to examine the merits of the late measures of representative amelioration in detail, than to mark the maturity of a new political element which they indicate, and the new line of constitutional progression which they have begun. No matter that
the Reform Acts, as they are called, have made but a compromise with the exceed ing corruptions and anomalies of the old system, and have left some of its most important usurpations untouched ; no matter that the Commons' House, which in the days of its pristine vigour was democratic in the fullest sense of the term, is still, though somewhat popu larized by the recent changes, a highly aristocratic body ; we do not the less find in these changes a successful effort of the national intelligence and will, not so much to replace the legislative representation on the basis on which it stood at the close of the fourteenth century, and which, from the causes we have previously stated, was fixed without any scientific or symme trical proportioning even of the number of representatives to that of constituents, but to mould it into some shape more accor dant with the present advanced state of general information in the great body of the people; to render it, in short, a popu lar representation in fact as well as in name. Towards this point, how much soever they have fallen short of it, the late alterations by parliamentary enact ment distinctly tend. The spirit that predominates in them plainly shows from what quarter the impulse came to which they owe their being; and it is a reason able, at least, if not a necessary inference, that nothing short of a retrogression of the public intelligence can prevent the impulse from being repeated until the great object we have stated shall be com pletely attained.