country uprooted, the orders of society abolished—­you had even the landmarks and local names removed and erased.  But France could begin again.  France had the greatest spread of the most exuberant soil in Europe; she had, and always had, a very limited population, living in a most simple manner.  France, therefore, could begin again.  But England—­the England we know, the England we live in, the England of which we are proud—­could not begin again.  I don’t mean to say that after great troubles England would become a howling wilderness.  No doubt the good sense of the people would to some degree prevail, and some fragments of the national character would survive; but it would not be the old England—­the England of power and tradition, of credit and capital, that now exists.  That is not in the nature of things, and, under these circumstances, I hope the house will, when the question before us is one impeaching the character of our constitution, sanction no step that has a preference for democracy but that they will maintain the ordered state of free England in which we live, I do not think that in this country generally there is a desire at this moment for any further change in this matter.  I think the general opinion of the country on the subject of Parliamentary Reform is that our views are not sufficiently matured on either side.  Certainly, so far as I can judge I cannot refuse the conclusion that such is the condition of honorable gentlemen opposite.  We all know the paper circulated among us before Parliament met, on which the speech of the honorable member from Maidstone commented this evening.  I quite sympathize with him; it was one of the most interesting contributions to our elegiac literature I have heard for some time.  But is it in this house only that we find these indications of the want of maturity in our views upon this subject?  Our tables are filled at this moment with propositions of eminent members of the Liberal party—­men eminent for character or talent, and for both—­and what are these propositions?  All devices to counteract the character of the Liberal Reform Bill, to which they are opposed:  therefore, it is quite clear, when we read these propositions and speculations, that the mind and intellect of the party have arrived at no conclusions on the subject.  I do not speak of honorable gentlemen with disrespect; I treat them with the utmost respect; I am prepared to give them the greatest consideration; but I ask whether these publications are not proofs that the active intelligence of the Liberal party is itself entirely at sea on the subject?