His _Speech on Economical Reform_ (1780) was the prelude to a nobly-planned and successful attack upon the waste of the Civil list.
Yet beyond these measures Burke could never be persuaded to go.

He was against the demand for shorter Parliaments on the excellent ground that the elections would be more corrupt and the Commons less responsible.

He opposed the remedy of a Place Bill for the good and sufficient reason that it gave the executive an interest against the legislature.

He would not, as in the great speech at Bristol (1774), accept the doctrine that a member of Parliament was a mere delegate of his constituents rather than a representative of his own convictions.

"Government and legislation," he said, "are matters of reason and of judgment"; and once the private member had honorably arrived at a decision which he thought was for the interest of the whole community, his duty was done.