Essays on Parliamentary Reform
Walter Bagehot, Essays on the Parliamentary Reform, Kegan Paul, Trench & Co, 1883, 248p.
ESSAYS ON PARLIAMENTARY REFORM
[p.v]
ADVERTISEMENT.
Two of the essays here republished were first written in 1859 and 1860 for the National Review of that day – a very different periodical in political tendency from the Review of the same name lately commenced by the English Conservatives. The third essay was prefixed to the second edition of Mr. Bagehot's book on “The English Constitution,” and first published in 1872. It contained a review of the Reform Act of 1867, and a forecast of the results to be expected from it. It may be thought by some that portions of the first two essays are now a little out of date. But the three taken together contain so comprehensive a discussion of what Mr. Bagehot held to be the true principles of parliamentary representation, and put so forcibly what may now be regarded as the Whig, not to say the Conservative-Liberal side of the question, that it has been thought [p.vi] well to republish them, if only as contributing at least very important elements for the discussion which may be expected during the next twelve months on the subject of the Redistribution of Seats and the County Franchise.
[p.vii]
CONTENTS.
Parliamentary Reform (1859) p.1
The History of the Unreformed Parliament, and its Lessons (1860) p.107
The Reform Act of 1867; and the Function of the House of Peers (1872) p.183