date

7 Jan y 1810 Parl y Reform
7 Jan y 1810

Parl y Reform

A + '.2.

Ch. 10.III. Seat Traffic

'.2. Objections insufficient?

1

1

'.1 or 2. Objections to the traffic of seats - insufficient and inconsistent

The real mischief is of these who act as agents of the people the interest is not sufficiently identified with the interest of the people.

In so far as to any mode of obtaining a seat /coming into Parliament/ any objection is made that is founded on public utility and the acknowledged principle of the constitution, it resolves itself into that: and if that objection be set aside one mode of coming into Parliament is easily[?] as good as another.

Allow /Admitt/ that so far as the state of the representation admitts of this traffic the interest of the agents of the people is not sufficiently identified with that of their principals, and admitting at the same time that it ought to be so /such identification has not been effected /accomplished/, and at the same time that it ought to be effected/, then on this condition you may without inconsistency /rationally and consistently/ reprobate this traffic: refuse either of these admissions, you can not.

No consistent censure of which this traffic is the object can by any [...?] be pronounced, but that in pronouncing it, and for the purpose of grounding it the necessity of parliamentary reform must, virtually and substantially, howsoever tacitly - must by an implication altogether necessary have been assumed.
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  • Title: [7 Jan y 1810 Parl y Reform]
    Description: 7 Jan y 1810

    Parl y Reform

    Ch. 10. III. Seat Traffic

    '.2. Objections insufficient?

    2

    2

    The objections to the purchase and sale of seats - the "traffic" in seats as it has been called - the venality of seats these /this/ objections so far I mean as they apply to this mode of coming into Parliament in contradistinction to the /any/ mode of coming in by court interest /favour/ ministerial interest /favour/ or individual favour - in contradistinction in a word to any other mode than that of free election for a county or a populous and perfectly open borough - is founded on confusion of ideas and misapplication of words.

    1. The term venality being without impropriety applicable to the seat, is by a confusion of ideas improperly applied to the man who sits in it.

    In fact, on occasion of this transaction neither to this man nor to any other does /is/ the term venality applicable with any sort of reason.

    But if it were, it is to the seller of the seat and not to the purchaser /buyer/ that it would be applicable. To the seller if to either it would be applicable: for though he does not sell himself outright, that is whatever services of whatever kind it may at whatever time be /lie/ in his favour to render, what he does sell is the /a/ service, viz. the service which he renders to the buyer in placing him in the seat.
  • Title: [15 Jan y 1810 Parl y Reform]
    Description: 15 Jan y 1810

    Parl y Reform

    C + '.2

    Note ?

    Ch.10. Seat Traffic

    '.2. Objections insufficient

    1

    12

    Note (a)

    (a) Be not deceived - and lest ye be deceived, be not governed and led captive by names /suffer not your understanding /judgment/ to be blinded /fascinated/ by concord or melody of sweet sounds/. Be not led by names /words/ to approve and reprobate the same thing, when presented under different names. Be not led to approve or to reprobate two things of opposite natures, because presented under different names. Be not led to approve or to reprobate two things of opposite natures, because presented under the same name.

    There are services services in abundance which a man may sell without prejudice to his probity /the moral purity of his mind/: there are others which he can not. Every Merchant /Dealer/ - every illiterate[?] or retard[?] is venal in respect of the articles which having bought them for sale he sells. Every Husbandman, fisherman, miner, manufacturer, every handicraft is venal in respect of the articles which having made for sale he sells. /and in that respect venal, and the term venality applicable without injustice to his conduct/

    Every medical man every instructor in every lane[?] of instruction is a hireling in respect of the services for the rendering of which he receives takes a reward.

    Every professional lawyer, whether Attorney or Advocate is a hireling with the same trusts[?] and propriety in respect of such services as in that his character it lies in his way to render: but in a moral point of view between these two branches of the same profession observe how great the difference.

    The Attorney in his character of conveyancer may sell his services without any prejudice to his /the/ moral purity, unless taking advantage of the licence given by the pretended declarers and real makers of the law he allows himself to drown in the usual quantity /sea/ of surplusage the ideas which the nature of the instrument /conveyance or agreement/ /legal disposition/ he has to frame requires to be presented to view /expressed/.

    The Attorney in his character of agent to him whose misfortune it is to stand in the situation of party in any seat depending in /before/ any of the regular judicatories may sell his services without any prejudice to the moral purity /purity of the moral part/ of his mind, unless {he allows himself to take advantage} in favour of the oppressor in the character /station/ of plaintiff or of the deeds[?] of a just denounced[?] in the character of defendant, or more immediately /in a more immediate way/ in his own favour, by swelling the amount of his own bill, he allows himself to take advantage of any of the numerous contrivances which by the same reverend and learned arbiters of human destiny have been provided for affording, for the sake of the profit extractable out of the expence, the means of giving encrease without bounds to the quantum /mass/ of judicial /factitious/ delay, vexation and expense, for encouraging groundless demands and defences by enabling the work to triumph over the better cause.
  • Title: [15 Jan y 1810 Parl y Reform]
    Description: 15 Jan y 1810

    Parl y Reform

    Note continued ?

    Ch.10 Seat Traffic

    '.2. Objections insufficient

    2

    13

    To the Advocate in such his character it is not possible without the sacrifice to sell his services without "tainting and contaminating", without "degrading and debasing" and that day by day, and cause by cause, the moral part of his mind. Even when by accident placed in the right, much more when by like accident placed on the wrong side, misrepresentation, even by self-conscious falshood, still more indispensably by fallacious reticence, is his perpetual task.

    Yet the Attorney, pursued by public reproach, has within the last century and less universally sought refuge under the till then comparatively narrow and peculiar appellation of Sollicitor: out of which by the same task /scourge/ he will, sooner or later, if the technical or fee-gathering system of judicature continues, be drawn into some other, and so on:

    while the in the person of the Advocate ennobled by the title of Counsel, synonymous /common to him and/ to wisdom, or and that of Councellor, common to him and the Messiah, Falshood sits on high /seating himself on high/ and receives universal homage.

    Why? - but because the Bar is the only ladder to the Bench: and because the same wretchedness which when crushed by power is the object of contempt, cloathed with power is the object of respect and admiration.

    Cause the death of one man you are hanged. Cause the death of four[?] hundred thousand, by some indeed you are executed, and kept in continual danger of experiencing the same fate, but in the mean time by others you are worshipped and glorified.