The fact is this—­in the representation of this country you do not depend on population or on property merely, or on both conjoined; you have to see that there is something besides population and property—­you have to take care that the country itself is represented.  That is one reason why I am opposed to the second reading of the bill.  There is another objection which I have to this bill brought forward by the honorable member for Leeds, and that is, that it is brought forward by the member for Leeds.  I do not consider this a subject which ought to be intrusted to the care and guidance of any independent member of this house.  If there be one subject more than another that deserves the consideration and demands the responsibility of the government, it certainly is the reconstruction of our parliamentary system; and it is the government or the political party candidates for power, who recommend a policy, and who will not shrink from the responsibility of carrying that policy into effect if the opportunity be afforded to them, who alone are qualified to deal with a question of this importance.  But, sir, I shall be told, as we have been told in a previous portion of the adjourned debate, that the two great parties of the State cannot be trusted to deal with this question, because they have both trifled with it.  That is a charge which has been made repeatedly during this discussion and on previous occasions, and certainly a graver one could not be made in this house.  I am not prepared to admit that even our opponents have trifled with this question.  We have had a very animated account by the right honorable gentleman who has just addressed us as to what may be called the Story of the Reform Measures.  It was animated, but it was not accurate.  Mine will be accurate, though I fear it will not be animated.  I am not prepared to believe that English statesmen, though they be opposed to me in politics, and may sit on opposite benches, could ever have intended to trifle with this question.  I think that possibly they may have made great mistakes in the course which they took; they may have miscalculated, they may have been misled; but I do not believe that any men in this country, occupying the posts, the eminent posts, of those who have recommended any reconstruction of our parliamentary system in modern days, could have advised a course which they disapproved.  They may have thought it perilous, they may have thought it difficult, but though they may have been misled I am convinced they must have felt that it was necessary.  Let me say a word in favor of one with whom I have had no political connection, and to whom I have been placed in constant opposition in this house when he was an honored member of it—­I mean Lord Russell.  I cannot at all agree with the lively narrative of the right honorable gentleman, according to which Parliamentary Reform was but the creature of Lord John Russell, whose cabinet, controlled by him with the vigor of a Richelieu, at all times disapproved