JB_160_455V.xml

Title: [[160-455v] 1821 Nov r 13 Codification]

Description: [160-455v]

1821 Nov r 13

Codification Offer

'8. Foreigner best

'.8. Foreigners work a bond of sympathy

To form a distinct conception of the advantage suppose a work of the sort in question drawn by the hand of a foreigner, and then another of the same sort as far as may be drawn by the hand of a native. Take first the work of the foreigner. In this unless forced into it by the native legislators after its coming into their hands, no particular and thence sinister national interest or affections no national prejudices to be truckled to: No homage from nation to nation to be paid: no national self-humiliation in any shape. In he instance of each ulterior nation, by the amount of the obstacles of this sort thus excluded, will the chance which the Code has of obtaining adoption be encrease.

Take now the work of the native. In this, it is true, here as before, we must suppose the end throughout pursued the all comprehensive and only defensible end - the greatest happiness of the greatest number - so often mentioned In this case too, as in those others we must suppose the existence of that exclusively efficient security for aptitude on the part of the work - a perpetually interwoven rationale. Still however after every thing which, by the obligation of giving admission to this security can have been done towards the exclusion of those efficient causes of inaptitude has been done, still to an amount more or less considerable they will actually have been left to operate upon the work, and in the texture of it will have given birth to those pernicious effects. But, to the present purpose the question is - not merely of those same pernicious effects what portion will actually have been produced in the work, but by the other nation what portion of them will naturally be supposed to have been produced in the work, and to have place in it accordingly: To this question the nature of it considered it will in any instance not be possible to find any precise answer. But that which to the present purpose is sufficient, amy be affirmed with full assurance: and that is, that, by a work, produced under the influence of particular and thence sinister interest and prejudices, national as well as individual, and this without the benefit of any check or correction applied by any impartial hand - by a work so circumstanced the utmost confidence that can be inspired can never be equal to that which naturally falls to the share of a work in the composition of which the operation of all those causes of inaptitude had been so effectually excluded, as in the case of the foreigner than would be seen to be.

Having been drawn, the original draught it is true must have had a hand to draw it: and by the supposition that hand is a hand who with reference to the ulterior nation in question is the hand of a foreigner. But by the supposition so would it in the other case.

JB_113_035v.xml

Title: [[113-035v] 1821. June 20. Codification]

Description: [113-035v]

1821. June 20.

Codification Offer

'.7/8/ Foreigner why

'. Advantages of foreignership summed up

of these prejudices will those persons, from whom alone the Code of his framing can derive its binding force, have any share.

The national prejudices - the erroneous preconceived opinions - derived from nationality, whatever they may be, which may have exercised an influence, more or less prejudicial, on his work, will find, ready prepared for them, a check, composed of the prepossessions, reasonable and erroneous together, of those on whom the work will have to depend for the acceptance given to it: at their hands it will not fail to receive any alterations which, in the name of amendments, they may be pleased to make in it.

In the case where the draughtsman is a native, this check, useful as it can not be denied to be, has no place.

Upon the whole, the advantages promised by the choice of a foreigner on this occasion in preference to a native, may be thus summed up -

1. In its ultimate state, the Code will be less exposed to be vitiated by particular and thence sinister interests.

2. It will be less exposed to be vitiated by prejudices, appertaining to the country in relation to which it obtained the force of law: he being, by the supposition, no partaker in them.

3. The draughtsman being, with reference to that same country, a foreigner, whatsoever prejudices imbibed by him in his own country it may happen to him to be a partaker in, will not be likely to be adopted, and thus made to vitiate the Code: and thus it is that it will have the fairest chance possible of remaining as clear as possible of all pernicious prejudices.

4. So far as regards positive intellectual aptitude and active talent, a comparatively unapt hand will be less likely to have been employed than if it had been the hand of a native: the foreigner having neither recommendation nor support other than the reputation of appropriate aptitude.

5. After its supposed completion, as far as capable of being compleated by the foreign hand, it will be more jealously watched and searchingly scrutinized into than it would have been had it been the work of a native hand: and thus, whatsoever imperfections may have place in it, will be more likely to receive correction in such other hands as it will have to pass through.

JB_024_459v.xml

Title: [1821 Novr 11 or 12 Codification Offer '8]

Description: 1821 Novr 11 or 12 Codification Offer '8. Foreigner best '.5.II. Intellectual

aptitude 5. Effects of Foreigners aptitude will not be destroyed by Legislation

Committee

To the aptitude of the supply from this quarter one moment may present an

objection, but another will dispell it.

By the supposition it may be said, these natives will be labouring under those

causes of inaptitude, those sinister interests and affections - (as well as

prejudices) by which their appropriate aptitude, as well in point of moral

aptitude as in point of appropriate judgment, is, according to you, placed so

much below that of the foreigner. True: but, by that same supposition, the

draught - the groundwork which they will have to work upon is a draught not

drawn by their own hands, or by those of any other native, but by the

foreigners: and by him it has been furnished with a rationale. In the outline

then of the drawing, with or without the instructions above spoken of - in the

outline of his drawing, with the bridle which it affords as well as the guide,

will they find a check to, and a security against the effective predominance of

those same sinister interests.