[p. 90]
|90| with which at the same time the proper monarchical power is joined, in order to procure for such principles entry and reality against merely positive privileges, inherited private self-interest and the unreason of the multitude. England has remained so strikingly behind the other civilised states of Europe in the institutions of true right for the simple reason that governmental power lies in the hands of those who find themselves in the possession of so many privileges contradicting a rational public law and a true legislation.
It is this relation upon which the projected Reform Bill is to have a considerable effect, – not, however, by the monarchical element of the constitution being given an extension of power; on the contrary, if the Bill is not at once to meet with general disfavour, the jealousy against the power of the Crown, well the most obstinate English prejudice, must be spared, and the proposed measure owes rather a part of its popularity to the circumstance that through it that influence is seen to be weakened still further. What awakens the great interest is the apprehension on the one side, the hope on the other, that the reform of the franchise will draw other material reforms after it. The English principle of the positive, on which, as remarked, the general condition of right there rests, suffers in fact through the Bill a shock which is wholly new and unheard of in England, and instinct scents in this overthrow of the formal foundation of what exists the more far-reaching changes.
Of such prospects something has been mentioned in the course of the proceedings of Parliament, yet more in passing; the authors and friends of the Bill may partly be in the good faith that it will not lead further than it itself reaches, partly, in order not to excite the opponents more violently, let their hopes not become louder, – just as the
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