date

4 Dec 1809 Parl y Ref m Influence
4 Dec 1809

Parl y Ref m

Influence

'. Dependence how created

6

The case in which it may happen to parliamentary corruption not to be productive of dependence is, as already intimated, not altogether without example. It is the case where the corruption is so circumstanced as to bear the name of bribery, the party to whom the matter of corruption is administered being a parliamentary elector, and the body by whom or on whose behalf it is administered, a candidate for a seat in parliament.

Take the case of a venal but open borough: in which the thus corruptible part of the electors, receives each of them from one of the candidates a guinea for his vote.

By /In/ this transaction, by corruption in this shape no sort or degree of dependence is produced on either side /part/ in particular not on the part of the elector. This transaction past this contract fulfilled on both sides an /a sort of/ expectation may /will/ naturally enough be produced, that in a future election the like contract may be repeated. But naturally speaking not being accompanied either by hope or fear, by this transaction no dependence /no dependence of the corrupted elector on the corrupting candidate/ will naturally speaking be produced. In the regular course of things, the /any/ occasion for repeating the transaction will not recurr again much sooner than at the end of seven years: when it does come, comes with it naturally enough perhaps the expectation of another guinea viz. from the same or another hand, but without any decided /small/ fear of less or hope of more: and be it what it may, viewed at so considerable a distance, no decided probability will naturally present itself /appear/ of its being either more or less if presented /offered/ by that same thing if presented /offered/ by any other hand.
Similar Items
  • Title: [4 Dec 1809 Ch.1. '.2 + Parl y Ref]
    Description: 4 Dec 1809 Ch.1. '.2 +

    Parl y Ref m

    Influence

    Ch.1. Explanations

    '. Dependence how produced

    1

    1

    strange[?] as fair or market

    desirable thing or object

    '. Corrupt dependence, by what means producible /how produced/.

    The instruments by which dependence is produced by which a man is placed and kept in a state of dependence are all resolvable into two {assortments viz. hopes and fears}: hope the expectation /prospect/ of good; fear the expectation /prospect/ of evil.

    Note?

    Even Hope and fear have each of them a mixture of the other: for unless the acquisition be looked upon as being at the highest degree /pitch/ of certainty, hope of gaining can not exist without some fear of not gaining intermixt with it: fear of losing, without some hope of not losing intermixed with it.

    But where the probability /chances/ of enjoyment is regarded as the greater, hope is the word employed: fear in the opposite case.

    Fear may exist without the prospect of good in any shape as in the case of suffering expected to be inflicted under the name of punishment: hope, unless preceded by fear, can not: unless preceded by fear, as in the case of punishment expected in the first instance but the expectation accompanied or followed by an /a counter/ explanation of deliverance.

    In the case of parliamentary corruption some instrument of enjoyment some object of desire - some portion of the matter of position good is commonly the instrument which in the character of an instrument of corruption and thence of corrupt dependence is employed: in this case the only fear which has place is that which has for its object a portion of the matter of positive good for its object and consists in the fear either of not gaining or of not keeping it or of not gaining it.
  • Title: [4 Dec 1809 Parl y Ref m Influence]
    Description: 4 Dec 1809

    Parl y Ref m

    Influence

    '. Dependence how produced

    4

    Though by a single benefit received and conferred and received all at once no dependence is not produced, yet by two or more such benefits it may happen that dependence /corrupt dependence/ shall be produced.

    But in this case the production of the dependence depends upon the production of hope, looking to benefit from the same source. Hope in the /some corrupted/ breast looking to the receipt of future benefits from the same corrupting hand.

    In the natural course of things, and in default of special grounds for the contrary expectation, as between protector and protegé, every good benefit is considered as a pledge and earnest of future benefits, howsoever indeterminate and contingent, as about to flow into the same reservoir from the same source.

    If on my first coming into a new neighbourhood I send for a shoemaker in the same street, and after having been /after being/ measured bespoke of him a pair of shoes, by this transaction, a hope of my custom in future is naturally excited in {my} /his/ breast, and in a degree correspondent to the expected value of my custom, he is by this transaction placed in my dependence.

    If instead of thus dealing with a shoemaker to whom I am known, I drop into a Yorkshire warehouse where I am not known, and there with ready money, and without making myself known buy and carry with me a pair of shoes ready made, by this transaction I create not in the breast of the master of the shop any such dependence.
  • Title: [4 Dec 1809 Parl y Ref m Influence]
    Description: 4 Dec 1809

    Parl y Ref m

    Influence

    '. Dependence how produced

    2

    The object of desire - the desirable thing - may be either a thing the receivable nature of which is to be received all at once such as a sum of money once paid, or a thing the nature of which is to be received only in parcels or instalments, in respect of which the several acts of delivery and receipt delivery on one part receipt on the other are spread over a more or less considerable length of time as in the case of a pension a lucrative office the use of a house or the use occupation or profit of a portion of land.

    {As it is only either by hope or fear that dependence is created, so it is}

    In regard to the connection between corruption and dependence, so intimate is the connection between these two objects, that the difficulty /only difficulty which it admitts of/ consists not in conceiving how corruption should be productive of dependence - corrupt dependence - but how it should fail of being thus productive. But though extremely rare the case in which it is barren of dependence, and thence almost barren of evil is not altogether without example.

    As it is only by hope or fear that dependence can be created, so the only case in which, corruption being employed, dependence fails of being produced, is the case in which the receipt of the benefit is neither preceded nor followed by any hope or fear having respect /that benefit for its object/: viz. neither by the hope of receiving it, nor by the fear of not receiving it, or of losing it.