JB_126_248.xml

Title: [23 Dec r 1809 Parl y Reform]

Description: 23 Dec r 1809

Parl y Reform

Ch.5. Both situations

'.1. Errors

2

2

But in the case of parliamentary corruption the seat of the disorder comprizes /disorder affects /applies itself to// two situations /stations/: viz. that of Member {of Parliament} and that of Elector: and in each of those situations corruption considered as the effect supposes and requires two different persons to be concerned in the production of it, viz the person to /by/ whom it /the matter of corruption/ is administered: and in the instance of each of these persons the disorder may require to be considered, forasmuch as it has been customary to consider it /customarily considered/, with respect to its influence on two distinguishable objects, a general and a particular one viz. the welfare /health/ of the country, and the health of the corrupted persons mind.

Moreover in each situation the part of corruptor may be performed on the one hand by the King or an agent of the Kings: or on the other hand by some individual not[?] dependent on either the one or the other.

In regard to the treatment of this disorder /offence[?]/ /species of delinquency/ or supposed disorder, if such it be to be stiled two dispositions seem to have been hitherto very generally prevalent: 1. in the first place a disposition and that a determinate one to foster it, and preserve it /to give encouragement /protection/ and encrease to it/ not only from cure /suppression/ but even from all abatement /check/; and a disposition /coupled with /all the time with/ disposition towards the offence[?] a disposition/ to apply punishment to it: always understood and provided, that by the application of the punishment no such effect will or shall or will be produced as the /any/ abatement, or much less the extirpation but rather the aggravation /the exacerbation/ of offence, in a word, for form's and reputation's sake to apply punishment to it, but so as, by confining the punishment to the cases in which the offence[?] is productive of least mischief or of no mischief at all, so to manage as that by the very punishment the mischief of offence so far from extirpated or so much as checked shall be encreased: things being so managed that by confining the punishment to the cases in which the offence if productive of little or no mischief, the offence /delinquency/ shall be confined to those channels[?] in which the mischief producible by it, is at its highest pitch.

JB_126_247.xml

Title: [23 Dec r 1809 + '.1 Parl y Reform]

Description: 23 Dec r 1809 + '.1

Parl y Reform

Ch.5. Both situations

'.1. Errors

1

1

Those who profit by the corruption are determined not to prevent it, but ready to punish it in such manner as not to prevent it

Ch. 5. Of corruption &c {considered as incident to} /in/ both situations, viz. that of Member and that of Elector.

'.1. Radical errors respecting the treatment of /in the mode of treating/ the disorder.

If in this country there be any man in the country in whose opinion /to whom it appears/ it were better for the country that the King should not be absolute, or that if it were best /better/ /supposing it right/ that he should be absolute that it would be better he should be rendered so at a cheaper rate than by so expensive an engine as a corrupt parliament, or that, supposing the relation borne by the /an/ agents of the people to those /an agent/ of the King to that of Judges /a Judge/ to parties to be judged, it were wrong that /better those/ Judges should not be either themselves of the number of the parties or linked in interest with the parties - if in the country there be any such person it will probably appear to him that parliamentary corruption and its consequences parliamentary dependence and blind and habitual obsequiousness to the will of the King determined /governed/ /influenced/ as it can not but be by his /a/ separate and sinister interest can not but be pernicious.

JB_126_250.xml

Title: [23 Dec r 1809 Parl y Reform]

Description: 23 Dec r 1809

Parl y Reform

Ch.5. Both situations

'.2. Error causes

4

1

'.2. Cause of these errors, sinister interest.

In /On/ this as in /on/ every other part of the field of morals and legislation, it is the interest of those who have an interest in /derive a profit from/ misrule classes of men /influential men/ whose predominant interest is opposite to that of the community at large, that the differences between right and wrong, between virtue and vice should be as indistinguishable as possible: that so, finding no other star /mark/ to steer by /rule to walk by/ men should be generally disposed to accept on each instance /individual occasion/ to look with blind confidence for the standard of right and wrong such notions as on each individual occasion it should suit the convenience of these men of influence to give currency to.

Thus it is for example that Judges inveighing all the while against falshood to gain the praise of virtue, and punishing it in all its several forms wheresoever /in so far as/ they find a convenience in punishing it, not only practise it, but in its most as well as its least flagitious forms, encourage it and even compell it, when /where and in so far as/ they find their conveniences in practising it, encouraging it and compelling it.

Thus it is that official men /statesmen/, inveighing against official corruption all the while to gain the praise of virtue, and contributing each in his place to the punishment /punishing/ of it in so far as they find their convenience in punishing it, not only practise it, but in its most pernicious forms support and defend and support it when and in so far as they find their convenience in thus supporting it and defending it and supporting it.