Note 20 — JOHN BRIGHT. ON THE FOREIGN POLICY OF ENGLAND; DELIVERED AT A BANQUET GIVEN IN HONOR OF MR. BRIGHT, AT BIRMINGHAM, OCTOBER 29, 1858.

Note 20, p. 167.—The important assertion here made can hardly be successfully disputed, though there are many who would be reluctant to admit its truth. The modern Tories, with Disraeli at their head, have held that the reform of 1832 tended still further to weaken the masses of the people. This position, fully elaborated and defended in Disraeli’s “Defence of the Constitution,” his “Life of Lord George Bentinck,” and his speech introducing the Reform Bill of 1867, is touched upon briefly also in the same orator’s speech on “Conservative Principles” given below. The question is elaborately considered in the first two chapters of Lecky’s “History of England.”