rbe Inctropatio.

The annual dinner to celebrate the acquittal of Hardy, Tooke, and Thel wall, was held on Monday, at liadley's Hotel, Bridge Street, Blackfriars. The company was more numerous than usual. Mr. Charles Buller, M. P., took the chair; and his speceli on proposing " Her Majesty's Ministers " was listened to with much imerest. He proposed their health in the hope that they would cordially unite with the Reformers ; especially since their existence as a .Ministry depended entirely on the vigour and wisdom of the policy that must shortly be developed to the country- " By this alone shall we maintain that union among Reformers which we all desire, but which we shall not secure by merely desiring. For that union, which implies a general and zealous cooperation for 311 common objects, a cheerful abandontuent of every individual opinion which may interfere with those common objects, is not to be secured by exhortations to lit jam, and de- monstrations of its expediency ; but must be commended by such a pelley the part of Ministers as shall compel Reformers of every shad( m Ill1itC in a common e.lfort to obtain some substantial and at the same time arNinable re- form. I have never known Reformers so unreasonable as to refiew to unite their energies for any attainable good, however small it might appear to many of them. When the Reform Bill wits proposed, it fell far alma of the desires of many of us ; but, nevertheless, all, without any exception, united to sup- port it ; and the advocates of the Ballot and lf riennial Parliaments, the sup. putters of Universal and of Household Suffrage, all waived the discussion 91 their own favourite schemes, in tinier to further the attainment if a reform Which they saw was within our reach, and which, however it might fall short of their own ideas of perfection, they fell did contain some positive and sub- stantial good. It was the same in the ease of a measure of somewhat less magnitude, but as undoubtedly of utility to the popular cause, I mean the bill for Municipal Reform. And if, since the period at which that measure was carried, disunion appears to have crept into our ranks, I can ascribe that to nothing but to that inactivity which is said to breed mueny and desertion among the best troops ; and I am sure that Ministers *ay, whenever they choose, establish a perfect union, by proposing some practicable reforms, for the attainment of uhich all ores cordially unite. It is the want of such an object that ha e engendered disunion and schism among us ; it is this which more even than Tory corruption and iutimidatiou has led us to the unsatisfac- tory result of the late general election. I know that thew are those among the weak and insincere admirers of the Ministry, who, judging from the general ill-succese of the Liberal party on that occasion, and more particularly from the defeat which three or four very distinguished Radicals experienced in particular localities have come to the conclusion that the country is opposed to thorough reforms, and that it ie the interest of Ministers to adopt what they are pleased to call a Conservative policy. I read the lesson of the late general elections very differently. I see that, in spite of our being de- prived of a few most eminent anal valuable men, the number of thorough Re- formers has suffered no diminution; that, even putting Ireland and Scotland out of the question, ritel adopting any criterion of Radicalism that you choose, the number of Railieals in the present Parliament is at least as great as it was in the last ; that consequently the whole loss of the Liberal party has fallen upon that portieu which claims credit for excessive moderation, and more especially on those gentlemen who flattered themselves that they had disarmed ?ory hostility, by carrying their moderation to such a 'pitch that the vulgar have inevitably classed them among Waverers and Doubtful& When I look at these facts—when I recollect that the ranks of the Radicals (as if that name should etartle, at any rate, the very strong Liberals) have been swelled by the conversion of many of the moderate supportets of Ministers to doctiines that have always been considered 'Radical, 1 believe that the result of the late elec- tions has been to make the supporters of Ministers more than ever deter- mined to obtain substantial reforms, and consequently to make it more than ever incumbent on Ministers to gain the confidence of those supporters by the adoption of a vigorous policy."

Be did not wish, to use a cant phrase, to push Ministers on too fast; but be was persuaded that a vigorous policy would not only secure them the ardent support of the party to which he belorged, but would gain over to them that portion of the people who had formed something like a temporary alliance with the Torres, in consequence of being strongly acted on by prejudices against one or two measures on which Ministers had taken their stand-

" Do not suppose that I mean to depreciate the real Reforming policy, with regard to certain Church questions, on which the Ministry has taken its stand : I rejoice that it has boldly encountered the Tories on these points: but I think it imprudent in having encountered them on theme points alone. These are the points on which all supporters of every existing abuse unite and take their most determined stand, and on which the prejudices and ignorance which still prevail enable them to derive the greatest amount of assistance from those who on most questions agree with us. I do not believe that my own predilections are mis- leading me when I say that I am convinced that the reforms which those Radi- cals have been pressing Ministers to adopt have not half so many opponents in the country as those which Ministers have made the especial objects of their care. Taking the country altogether, the present opponents as well as the pre- sent supporters of Ministers, the Radical questions are points of union *t of difference. The adoption of these by Ministers would convert. hundred oppo- nents into friends for one of their present friends whom it would dtive into the ranks of the Tories; and I think that the especial a :santage of the present occasion, if rightly used, is that the experience of the recent general electiou has brought into prominent relief the very questions on which the Reformers are really the strongest, and has rendered the reform of the Reform Bill and the protection of the suffrage the primary objects of public attention. Our expe- rience of the working of the Reform Act, at three general elections, has now, I • imagine, produced the sad conviction that the framers of that act have failed in carrying Into effect the excellent purposes for which they professed to design it —that representation has not been substituted for nomination—that the people are not fully, fairly, or freely represented—that we have only as yet exchanged the ancient borough system for one which, in ordinary times, secures hardly a better expression of public opinion, and causes a degree of immorality and misery, of corruption, of cruelty, and of fraud, which, if not more efficient in perverting the character of the representation, comprises within its circle of degradation and side' ing a far larger electoral body. This is a system of which the whole country demands the reform,--a reform by which those who intro- duced the Reform Act, above all men, are bound in honour and consistency to complete their work. We ask nothing but the keeping of the promise of the Reform Bill: we ask to have the franchise simplified, equalized, unfettered, and coneequently extended : above all, we ask to have it protected. This S's asking no wild change; this is urging no dangerous course. I know not what preju- dices or what seeret understandings have hitherto prevented Ministers from eo- iipereting with us oh this point. But if 1 thought that this concession were still to be refused by them to the long.expressed, daily-increasing, and now almost unanimous desire of every shade aid every class of Reforrners,—if I thought that, cliuging to the killing letter, they mean to renounce the quicken- ing spirit f their own great att, and that, tisserting for their work a perfection with v.liicli no work of human legislation ever 3 et issued from the hands of its author, they si ill refuse to complete the Reform Act, and still claim the privilege of using, in opposition to the general object of Reformers, that very Ministerial post sr which the Reformers have placed in their hands,-1 should not hesitate so 3V, that the maintenance of their Administration might still be desirable, but would ho utterly impossible; and that on the heads of .111inistcrs, and of

olone must rest the blame of overturning a .Libtrol Ministry, of

Lining back the Toy ies to power, and of sacrificing the fieneral anion of ft" formers to the obstinacy if a few individuals, who take advantage of the essessities of their party to impose their own mischievous crotchets on the great body of those with whom they act."

There were practical and administrative reforms, which Miuisters alight carry in spite of the Tory Opposition- " I believe that extensive and well-prepared measures of practical reform, instead of being effectually thwarted by the Tories in either House, would daunt their opposition ; and that the score sensible the inroads made by them npon aristocratic mono poly, the larger would be the number who would feel themselves interested in carrying them into effect. What Tory Opposition could thwart Ministers in the revision of the Pension-list, or compel them to keep up the extravagance of the Civil List? What Opposition could defeat a Ministry in an attempt at real retrenchment, or in such a reform of our Mill- Mary and Naval establish meats as would elevate the private soldier and sailor, and make promotion the reward of merit and service, not the privilege of birth ? or in stich a 1.e.,v Reform as would simplify and humanize our law, and bring Munil jrntice cheap to every man's door? or in such a Church Reform as would make the t lunch that poor tastes. church of which it is now but a mockery, and alp!) an:ple funds of the establishmeut to the wants of the working clew, not tu tile waste a aristocratic drones ? :Nay, 1 will tags even some of

the administ: alive reforms which Ministers have .actually proposed, but have unfortunately, either proposed in an 111-coosidered and imperfect shape, o; shown great slackness in pushing through Parliament; and I will ask what factious opposition could obstruct a sound Irish Poor-law, or a simple measure of abolition of Imprisonment for Debt, or a wise reform of the Court of Chancery, or, above all, an efficient bill for the Registration of Voters ? or could prevent a Ministry that had served its country, by preparing and carrying such practical reforms, from being rewarded with the general confidence and good-will ? So far am I from thinking that the present position of Ministers

imposes on them a necessity for doing nothing, that I feel confident that never was a greater harvest of constitutional and administrative reforms placed within reach of an able, an industrious, and a sincerely Reforming Ministry. There are reforms which may be carried, if the Ministry will prepare them, in Parlia. scent."

But there were " difficulties in the way : " of course there 'sore....

"The path of duty and honour is ever strewed with difficulties; but diffi- culties which must be overcome, instead of being evaded by quitting that path. That there is now no secret difficulty in the way of a popular policy ft um the antipathies and fears of the Crown, we are assured ; and if there be any arisine from the prejudices, the timidity, or the intrigues of individuals, Lord Mei. bourne must free himself from them, not by means of counter-intrigues and secret negotiations—not by lulling the hostility or sopping the ambition of petty cliques and insignificant individuals—not by folding his hands in ignominious inaction, to wait the advent of that happy but remote period when the moit backward of his colleagues or supporters shall have gathered wisdom or plucke I up courage for good deeds; but by appealing in behalf of practical, intelligible, and extensive reform, to that people which never yet, in my recollection, re. fused to bestir itself in behalf of worthy objects, or of the men who proposed them."

Mr. Harvey gave " The memory of the Twelve Men charged with high treason in 1794, and honourably acquitted "- Eight of these gentlemen he had had the honour of knowing personally, end three of them were his most intimate friends. He had the pride and pleasure of reckoning amongst his intimate friends the kind and virtuous Hardy, the pious and learned Jeremiah Joyce, and that ardent and honest Reformer John fhelwall. They were bound, not only by a deep sense of gratitude to thve illustrious men, but by a sense of that duty which they owed to themselves, to their children, and to their country, to cherish their memories, and to transmit them with the moat reverential respect to the latest posterity. These men, up to the time of their trial and to their ultimate retreat from this world, never did aught but what shed a lustre on the cause which they hallowed by their exer- tions. He would test the sincerity of the men of the present times, and of the present Government, by the measures which these illustrious patriots supported. If he might be allowed to suggest it, he would say that the people ought to make up their minds at the present juncture of affairs as to two, or at most three, great measures, laying aside every thing else, and devoting their attention exclusively to the attainment of those measures. They should deniand a coin. prebensive reform of the Reform Act, which would embrace the three meat cardinal points of Household Suffrage, Triennial Parliaments, and protec- tion from intimidation and corruption by the Ballot. He wished it to be an. nounced, that he did not mean to allow a week of the approaching session to pass without giving notice of Ms intention, if the Government did not antici- pate him, of bringing in a bill which should embrace these three points.

Mr. Galloway proposed the " London Corresponding Society;" which bad consisted of eighty thousand members, and essentially aided the cause of Reform.

Major Renell gave " The memory of the Scotch Martyrs, Margarot, Gerald, Skirving, Muir, and Palmer." Mr. Joseph Parkes gave " Vote by Ballot, Extension of the Suf. tinge, and the Repeal of the Septennial Act." This toast bad been intrusted to Mr. Villiers, the Member for Wolverhampton ; but that gentleman being absent, the Chairman called on Mr. Parkes ; who said, that though unprepared with a speech, be was not reluctant to ad. vance and avow his political opinions whether in public or in private— He would make no apology for the proposal of this toast ; but a justification was necessary from the recent circumstance of a speech of Lord Ebrington, at a Devon public meeting. The noble viscount, reported in the journals of that day, had not only expressed doubts of the efficacy of the mode of secret voting, but had further stated opinions on the finality of the measures of Parliamentary Reform of 1832, which appeared to him irreconcileable with the principles of the Liberal party, and at variance with the principles of the present Ailaiinir. tration. Ile had the greatest respect for the noble lord, and, he might he allowed to say, a personal regard for him. The noble viscount had paeeel a long public life of integrity and disinterested service as a popular representative. No one could attribute insincerity or sinister interest to that noble lord, who steadily, in the worst of times, adhered to the popular cause. nit bad Ebrington bad pronounced the Reform Rill a final amendment of the repre. seutative system, and that the honour of its promoters was pledged to its perms. *lacy as an unalterable amendment of the constitution of the House of Con?. mons. The meeting would allow bins to examine the foundations of the position of the noble lord. He wholly denied the fioality of the ineaatire. two great political parties of the state had exchanged positions, if the soblo lord were correct. .Sir Robert Peel in his address to his Tainworth ceitatitucntg declared himself for the integrity of the Reform Bill, and demaeded ihst no further alterations in the popular branch of the Legislature should be made. The cry of the Tories now was, " Th%Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill." This was the echo of the Reformers in 1831. And why bail the Tories adopted it ? Because in fact the Reform Bills, ss finally passed, were not the measures of the Whig 'Administration, hut the mutilations of their.lnry. oppoueuts. The bills, as framed and proposed to Parlianient in the spoils is 1$31, were not the bills which received the coerced consent of the Lords eel the sanction of the Crown in Peskt. What contract did the People mt,1 is either you that they would accept as final the amendment of the lupresematloa then effected? The nation made no such bargain. For half a century pre- ceding, they had demanded a real representation. The persecuted melt !heY that day suet to celebrate had asked more than the short measure of the ltrlStnt Bills. III 1e1:30, on the formation of the Ministiy of Earl Grey, public opimest in all the great meetings throughout the country, claimed '11 iennial parlor- meat& Household Suffrage, and Vote by Ballot. The ten-pound fouchee wss the unexpected proposition of the Ministry ; and the People widely advocated the Ouvernment scheme of Parliamentaiy reform. But who ever .1ece11ed 1. in full of all demands? What Ministry, what temporaty House of Coelesn,, could bind a nation, or sign fur a people an irreversible contract, such a Lord.

Ebrington stated to exist ? He denied wholly the existence or oblisarreu such a bargain. .Nay, if any contract could be set up against the ets:ntry,

W5 the oi iginal awl far oupetior proposition of Earl Grey, which, it laul s. passeul into law, would have finally disposed of Toryism. Moreover, +hie p.see-st Ministry could not recognize the honourable restraint avowed by Lied Isle uha in his opposition to tutther atuendineut uf the representation. L. oril Russell had himself last sessiun euppotted the virtual ahrogatieu 1st li,s CS'e. paying clauses, by propusing in lieu of Apr a the preceding 11111111:41. of Ueloost nieten thZ the PaSineut of rates, oral the effect of which Arc/ilia be to suer eme teL numbers of the constituency. • That would be an organic change of the ex- isting representation, if eventually carried ; and therefore he could not believe that the Ministry of Lord Melbourne was opposed to alterations of the Reform Bills. Further, Lord John Russell in 1831 had declared the principle of the Reform Bills to be founded on the disfranchisement of all bomughs under a constituency of 300 electors. Lord John Russell had further distinctly left the question of the duration of Parliaments fur future discussion.

Mr. Parkes went on to expose several of the glaring abuses of the representative system ; and declared his fires: belief that a more exten- sive reform was necessary.

Among the remaining toasts, were "Civil and Religious Liberty," and" Mr. O'Connell and Justice to Ireland."

At the Angel Inn, St. Giles's, a dinner was given to Mr. Wakley, on Tuesday, by a portion of his constituents ; Dr. Epps in the chair. 111r. IVtikley again pledged himself to divide the House of Commons on the motion for the Address' on the three questions of Household Suffrage, Vote by Ballot, and Triennial Parliaments. Very well. Now, we presume, it is certain that the discussion on the Address will not be merely formal, but highly interesting and important. Mr. Wakley may rely upon it, that if he back out, or yield to Ministerial cajolery, he is utterly lost as a Metropolitan Member.