JB_129_200.xml

Title: [1818 March 25 Parl. Reform Bill]

Description: 1818 March 25

Parl. Reform Bill

Heads proposed.

I. Election Deposits

1. Number

2. Formation of

+ 2.

II. Electors

1. Who?

+ 2. Mode of previous ascertainment.

III. Candidates

1. Who.

IV. Elections

1. Time

2. Freedom – securities for

+ 3. Mode of voting

4. Mode of making known the result.

V. Sessions regular

1. Commencement

2. Duration

VI. Sessions incidental. viz. in case of dissolution

II. Electors. 1 Who

I Qualification 1. Antecedent residence in quo. 2. Reading 3. Writing

II. Mode of ascertainment. 1. Churchwardens stamp Householders name in docs[?] of

Voters residence. 2. Certifica certificate of reading. 3. Voters writing on the

certificate. 4. Duplicate of certificate registered in time.

Accidents and Abuses – how to obviate

1. Election Districts – overloading of by ambulatory Electors: viz. to the diminution

of the value of their one vote and those of fellow-Electors.

Soldiers and Sailors how previously to ascertain in districts in which they shall be

entitled to vote.

{Ascertain previously who shall be bound to vote orally who may vote

epistorately[?]}

{ Birthplace the place each man shall be entitled to vote

for: not place of settlement.}

{Of Those whose birthplaces can not be entertained, the votes to be distributed

among those districts which have least populations.}

{The reading and writing qualification a good preventative remedy here In the

certificate of sufficiency state the place of residence if fixt by householdership:} {or in case of non-householdership the

birth place, according to belief.}

{Residence of father Mother Grandfather Grandmother Uncle Aunt Nephew or Niece,

Grandson or Grandaughter, if the actual residence at the time for a month past may be

taken for the place of residence, and save the need of recurrence to Birth places}

{In every Election District Sub-Districts for taking the Votes all on the same day:

object of this concerns[?] of the[?] members[?] preventing exclusion and disturbance

by crowding Parishes the parish join or divide them, as occasion enters.

Qualification certificate to be authenticated by the signatures of 6 or 12

Housholders of the same district, hearing the man read, and seeing him write at the

same time. Minister, Clerk Apothecary or Publican recommended to be and[?] might[?]

be a […?] resident in the Parish […?] an adjoining Parish.}

{ Epistolary Votes not to be reckoned but in case the

number is sufficient reverse the decision given by the Oral

votes.}

{Inequalities and exclusions producible by accident only, and not by any anxiously

prevented.}

Penal Securities for freedom of suffrage and genuineness of Election.

Election Offences –

1. Election tyranny: in 1. exaction of promises. 2. asking how the vote was given.

2. Election servility – complicity with Election Tyranny

3. Election forgery: viz. of Voter’s qualification signature

4. Election imposture: false certificate of Qualification by reading

5. Election personation or imposture by personation.

Prefatoria.

Maxime

1. Inequalities resulting from mere accident, and not producible by design, not

material.

2. Inequalities producable by design, not material, if not rising to such an amount

as to be capable of affecting the general result.

Why the public functionaries appointed for furnishing or joining in the Certificate.

Reasons

1. Not to consume the time of such persons for the service of persons to whom as

being no […?] to them they will not be willing to render such service

2. Not to put it in the power of any particular person or persons, by negligence or

refusal, to deprive the would-be voter of his right.

Annuality

Mem. m On use of it prevents Election collusion[?] and other

lies[?]: viz. by the strictness[?] of the advantage conspires with the lasting[?]

punishment[?] in the shape of appropriate infamy

Splendor of the Crown.

See Lansdowne and other in Lords of the 15 th Morn g Chron. April 16 th.

Hodghkins Letter 6.

March 4. “The Georgianum a free School for Noblemen exclusive which was established

and endowed by Imperial Majesty.”

Prefatoria.

Ends to be aimed at

1. Avoidance of needless complication

2. Efficiency: avoidance of causes by which the system or any part of it may be

prevented from coming into occasion

N.B. Every person whose concurrence is rendered or suffered to be necessary to the

plan taking effect in the whole or any part has it in his power to prevent it from

taking effect: to prevent it, viz. by non concurrence.

A great cause of implication[?] in the entrance of imaginary[?] dangers /ideas/.

From Population Returns 1811

Great Britain Persons including Army &c 12,596,803

– Houses inhabited 2,544,215

– – building 18,548

– – uninhabited 62,349.

Army Navy Marines

and

Seamen on registered Vessels

(deducted from the total 0,640,500.)

Parishes including parts of d o England 10,674

Scotland 921

Persons England & Wales 10,488,000

Scotland 1,865,000

From p.509

Great Britain Families

1. Agricultural 895,998

2 Miscellaneous 519,168

1,415,166

Trade, manufactures or handicraft 1,129,045.

Encrease from the years 1811 and 1818 both exclusive viz. 6 years at 1/ | |

th per year.

Universal Suffrage

Heads of Argument for

1. As to intellectual aptitude present means of information[?] superior to those of

our Ancestors who transmitted to us the existing Constitution

2. Undangerousness of democratic ascendancy proved by d o in U.S.

where there is no standing army to check sudden disorders. Apter men /Statesmen/ are

chosen there in greater abundance than here.

3. / 2/ So in the days of our Ancestors no such security against

sudden disorders.

4. / 3/ The existing means of appropriate information are

susceptible of an indefinite encrease.

Maty[?] Committee

5. / 5/ Thus any deficiency in intellectual aptitude is

susceptible of unbound and indefinitely encreasing supply.

6. / 6/ On the other hand the want /deficiency/ of appropriate

probity by reason of sinister interest in the ruling few opposite to that of the

subject many, then the universal interest is sent in obstruction[?] to the aggregate

of appropriate aptitude as is in its nature everlasting and unsurmountable.

7. / 4/ No tendency has ever been shewn to the choice of violent

and ignorant and low bred men for Members in any one instance: they might exist in

considerable numbers and still without being productive of any ultimate practical and

sensible evil mischief or inconvenience

8. A greater proportion of members then is likely to be drawn even under Universal

Suffrage from the unopulent classes is highly desirable. It presents on every

occasion of supply measure the quantity of demand from their own habits: so also of

the supply: hence the waste of public money on objects deduced for the pleasure of

the few: and where relief is afforded, the superfluity of such relief.

9. The instances if collected would prove that upon principle as well[?] in practice

the interests of the many is invariably[?] sacrificed to that of the few and that by

this means government is converted into a system of […?] and irresistible

pillage.

JB_127_519.xml

Title: [1818 March 28. Parl. Ref. Bill]

Description: 1818 March 28.

Parl. Ref. Bill

+ '.2

Reasons

'.II Electors Who

Vote Conferring Certificate

1

1

Why, for the purpose of constituting a man's title to a vote require an antecedent residence at one place for so long a term as four weeks?

Answer That in and for each District the number of persons entitled to vote at the then next Election may be ascertained in time. Such ascertainment will be necessary for several purposes.

1. That the documents /instruments/ hereby required to be provided by the Registrar /Election clerk/ may have been provided in time. 4[?] '. Subjective[?] '.'.

2. To prevent that inequality which by accident or evil design might be produced as between District and District in the number of votes intitled to be given in the several Districts; and thereby to preserve /save/ the voters in every District from being liable to see the value of their votes subjected to unexpected diminutions by the influx of unexpected members.

3. To save in each District the Election from being rendered null /prevented from taking place/ by the delay produced by the unexpected influx of unexpected numbers, whereby the utmost time /number of days/ that could without annual[?] inconvenience be allowed for the taking of the Votes might in some Districts be insufficient for the taking of the whole number of the Votes of those entitled to vote: in which case, some men to an unlimited number might thus be deprived of their rights: and by the fear of such private victims crowding and thence personal accidents, quarrels and tumults might take place.

By antipathy produced by personal or party cause or towards this or that Candidate, or as towards the majority of the settled and ordinary voters in this or that District on the ground of their supposed attachment to this or that Candidate, or to this or that party, an influx /inroad/ of this kind would be but too apt to be produced. For though by such means a man could not diminish the value of other men's votes without diminishing in equal degree that of his own, yet what would be but too liable to happen is that For to obtain the satisfaction of a social principle of this sort, men in the requisite numbers would not scruple even were it to throw away entirely their respective votes: and such disposition would be the more likely to prevail the more indifferent a man was about the common good, and the pleasure of such triumphant exercise of power would operate as a sort of bounty, reversing and promoting such indifference.

131-619.xml

Title: [1819 Oct. 7 ┴ + Parl. Reform Bill]

Description: 1819 Oct. 7 ┴ +

Parl. Reform Bill

§.5. Election Apparatus

§.8.

Art. Secresy

V. Vexation and expence

1

17

1

V. Avoidance of vexation and expence: namely by journeys to and fro and demurrage.

The quantity of the vexation and expence necessitated by the operation of voting depends partly on the length of the time occupied in the taking of the votes; partly in the distance of the ordinary abodes of the several voters from the place of polling: in a word partly (to use a sea phrase) on length of demurrage; partly on length of journeys.

Under the existing system, to the vexation and expence of the journies no limits at all can be assigned: not even the limits of the United Kingdom itself: inhabitances within the Election District whatever it may be, being but in few instances a necessary qualification. Even where the voter has no habitation but within the district, burthensome in a high degree is the vexation and expence produced by this cause in the Counties in general: more particularly in Yorkshire: equal in extent to some half dozen ordinary Counties. +

To p.2

Under the here proposed system various arrangements concurr in reducing this expence to a very small matter: 1. the confining the right to persons having habitation within the district: 2. by dividing the whole kingdom upon /into Election Districts on[?]/ a plan of division of which equality in extent is the object: 3. by dividing these Districts into Polling Districts. Under this system of arrangements, even suppose the open mode and with it the system of terrorism admitted, the quantity of evil in the shape here in question could not {be} great /comparatively speaking but be very small/: But by the substitution of the secret mode even this little is excluded. No man whatever being likely to be forced to the place of poll in a state of things in which if by /through/ fear of the terrorist he goes and gives his vote, the vote is more likely to be against the terrorist than for him, every man who finds the expence or the vexation too great for his circumstances will /may/ stay away at pleasure.

To p.3

+ ☞ State the proportion more exactly?