date

17 Aug 1809 Parl y Reform Complacency
17 Aug 1809

Parl y Reform

Complacency[?]?

Ch. Fears groundless

§.? Fears groundless

{4}

{4}

{2. Example of French /France at the time of the/ Revolution.}

{Answers.

1. The provocation and consequent irritation were far /beyond comparison/ greater than any which could have place on the supposition of the great effectuation, of the proposed parliamentary reform.}

Under the name of parliamentary reform in augmentation of the power or rather of the influence of the people nothing more is contended for than what has had place already: + {1. the members of the intended /imaginable/ and still supposed or at least stiled popular branch of the government placed /replaced/ under the influence of the people as they used /were/ to be: duration of the authority of their deputies instead of continuing long-protracted, viz septennial[?] to be as by /in consequence of/ the usurpation of those deputies it has now been for /a/ these < > years, short as it used to be. 2. those deputies instead of being to a number certain of composing a majority on almost all /all ordinary/ occasions in a state of dependence, withdrawn in some measure from under that dependence withdrawn in some measure, though in great measure still left under it withdrawing them from under it altogether being in the existing state of things /at the state of society at which the country has arrived/ impossible.}

+  Insert or omitt these particulars?
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  • Title: [17 Aug 1809 Parl y Reform Ch]
    Description: 17 Aug 1809

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    Ch. Fears groundless

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    2. Example of France and the late French Revolution.

    Answers.

    1. The provocation and consequent irritation were beyond all comparison greater than any of which there is any the smallest probability in the supposition of the effectuation of the proposed parliamentary reform.

    2. The great bulk of the people - all that were not noble viz. out of about 28 millions of people all but a few hundred thousand were kept in a state of degradation: their /the/ welfare /of this vast majority/ indisputably made a sacrifice to the welfare of that small minority: {an oppression resembling in kind but exceeding in degree that under which the majority of the people continue to labour, though their continuing in it much longer is morally impossible.}

    In comparison of this all comprehensive and in prospect [...?] grievance all minor grievances such as those created by temporary dissipation and bad economy in other shapes were inconsiderable. The insurrection of the people was accordingly rather against the whole of this unjustly and absurdly favoured class and against the monarch for upholding it than against the monarch himself on other accounts. {And thus far even of that most mischievous and sanguinary of all recorded insurrections the ultimate result has been felicitous /advantageous/. They have got for the time a harsh /a tyrannical/ government, but they have got that sort of glory which the folly of the people in general and especially of that people I mean the dominating part of it is but too apt to consider as a compensation for the severest /acutest/ sufferings of the whole: and as to the harshness it will with the author /person/ and with the exigencies which gave it birth.}

    To this provocation and cause of irritation even at present there is nothing that can enter by any means /so much as/ into comparison in the British United Kingdoms: that excepted which has been peculiar to the Catholics and of which, even sitting under Parliamentary reform, the much longer continuance is become morally[?] impossible; and under which they have in the meantime been labouring with such admirable patience.
  • Title: [29 Dec r 1809 Parl y Reform]
    Description: 29 Dec r 1809

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    '.6

    Ch. Parl. Corruption I. Members

    '.6.II. Corruption continued

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    1. Mischief to public

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    On /To/ /Thru/ a transaction of this sort, in the present state of things /as things stand at present/, is mischief /mischievous/ their case, on any substantial grounds be imputed /stated as resulting/.

    Not that in /of/ the /that/ state of things out of which /which is in so high a degree fertile in such/ transactions arise, and in which they are so abundant any such innoxiousness can be predicated: mischief it is productive of in abundance.

    {Understand in the eyes /opinion/ of those by whom /by which/ parliamentary reform is regarded as a necessary-measure: and who look for and claim the restoration of the original /old/ constitution, {in a state corresponding to that in which it existed before /antecedently to the time whe[?]/ the canker of corruption and corrupt dependence had preyed /begun preying/ upon its /the/ vitals /of it/ in any such degree as at present.}}

    But it is only in comparison of that state of things to /into/ /in/ which the constitution /government/ would be restored /replaced/ by parliamentary reform that this mischief can be said to have any existence. If parliamentary reform be an eligible measure, then is this state of things an /a pernicious and/ ineligible state of things. But if parliamentary reform be not an eligible measure, then there is nothing pernicious or [...?] in this state of things.
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    '.3 Dependence most mischievous

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    {This[?] reason is an arithmetical one: if no dependence, no more than one instance of undue obsequiousness is produced by one complex operation: if dependence, as many instances as the nature of the case /situation/ produces during the man's continuance in it.}

    dependence apart, the effect of the undue influence is but occasional and momentary: but, if dependence be the fruit of it, the effect is permanent, continuing as long as the dependence continues, and producing on the part of the corrupted trustee as many instances of breach of trust as the corruptor has occasion to call for during that length /span/ of time.

    Of the two species of political trust viz. that of the member of parliament, and that of the parliamentary elector, it is in the situation of member of parliament that in which influence undue influence is beyond comparison in an almost infinitely greater degree most apt to be productive of this pernicious fruit. Why? - Because, a vote /the act of voting/ being in both cases /situations/ the act by which the power is exercised, the number of votes which within a given space of time it may happen to a Member of parliament to give is beyond comparison greater than the greatest number which it can happen to a parliamentary elector to give. Under the system of septennial parliaments, casualties apart, a parliamentary elector as such does not find it in his power to be corrupt /violate that his trust/ oftener than once in seven years,