[p. 91]
|91| opponents do not care to hold out as a prize of victory that for which they are apprehensive; possessing much, they have indeed much to lose. But that more has not been brought up in Parliament about this more substantial side of the reform – in this the habit has a great share, that with important subjects in this assembly the most time is always spent in declarations of the members about their personal position; they set forth their views not as men of business but as privileged individuals and orators. In England there lies open for reform a wide field, embracing the most important purposes of civil society and of the society of the state. The necessity of it begins to be felt; some of what was pointed to on this occasion may serve as an example of how much work, which elsewhere is done with, still lies ahead for England.
Among the prospects of material improvements, the hope of savings in the administration is raised first of all; but as often as this saving is brought up by the Opposition as absolutely necessary for the relief of the pressure and of the general misery in which the people is said to find itself, so too it is each time repeated that all efforts for it have hitherto been in vain, and that the popular hope given by the ministries and even in the speech from the throne has each time been deceived. These declamations are repeated in the same way after all the reductions of taxes made in the last fifteen years. For the final fulfilment of them, better prospects are shown in a reformed Parliament, namely in the greater independence of a greater number of its members from the ministry, on whose weakness, hard-heartedness towards the people, interest etc. the blame for a continuing excessive expenditure is laid. But if one takes into consideration the principal items of English state expenditure, there appears no great room for saving; the one, the interest on the enormous national debt, is not capable of any
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