JB_127_122.xml

Title: [11 Aug 1809 + Parl y Reform]

Description: 11 Aug 1809 +

Parl y Reform

B[?].III Duration

Ch. 2. Objections

2

1

To this duration of duration /a length of duration thus short/ heads of objection have been or might be opposed.

1. By the inordinately frequent narrowness of the process of election, the nation /country/ would be kept in a state of perpetual ferment.

2. The government would thus be thrown altogether into the hands of the great body of the people: who, howsoever they may be desirous of [...?] on every occasion their own interest, are incapable of possessing a right comprehension of it.

3. By reason of the instability and precariousness of its duration the administrative body, or the Minister (no matter what term be employed) would be incapable of obtaining from any foreign power /foreign powers/ the degree of confidence necessary to their engaging in treaties with us. /our own./

4. The arrangement there proposed does not go far enough to be conformable to the principle on which it is grounded: for if the running counter to the opinion and will of his constituents is a sufficient reason for the dismissal of them /discharge of this their trustee/, the arrangements established ought to be such as would put it in their power to discharge him immediately, as soon as the supposed breach of trust on his part has been committed.

5. The dissolution of Parliament being upon this plan an event which with such regular frequency would be taking place of itself, the prerogative under the King now is and would still remain /be/ nominally in possession of in relation to that point, would be so much curtailed, as to be in effect nearly abolished.

JB_127_094.xml

Title: [26 Aug 1809 Parl y Reform B. Modus]

Description: 26 Aug 1809

Parl y Reform B. Modus obstruendi[?]

Ch. Applications to whom

3

3

2. In the next place to the House of Commons - And why to the House of Commons?

1. Because though in former days, before the constitution had received its settlement /was as yet unsettled[?]/, the fixation of the districts by /from/ which Representatives should be commissioned /sent/ had been made by the King alone, Parliaments /Parliam/ depending for their frequency for their duration and even for their existence on the will of the King /pecuniary necessities of the Monarch/ - though in this state of things the assumption of this power by the King was through necessity submitted to, yet at present the constitution being settled the annually repeated or rather temporary and short recess excepted the constant session of parliaments received[?], to behold the assumption and [...?] of so extraordinary a power performed by the Crown alone that is by the King's advisers, secret or official, is what /an arrangement which/ even in force[?] no one, it is supposed, would at this time of day endure.

2. Because since the fixation of the existence of Parliament as a necessary part[?] of the constitution, and that, short recess excepted, as much at one time as another, whatever has been done in the way /view/ of rectifying abuses or making improvements in the constitution of the House of Commons has in fact originated in that House.

Witness the Grenville Act: also the Borough disfranchisement Acts of which presently.

JB_127_120.xml

Title: [[...?] Aug 1809 Parl y. Reform]

Description: [...?] Aug 1809

Parl y. Reform

Note

duration

1

2

Not. *1

Under the term annual parliaments two very distinguishable ideas are apt to be included: 1. the duration of the assembly, /the assembly i.e. the limitation applied to the time during which without fresh election the same members can continue in that their office sitting/ and the constancy of its renewal. It is in the first sense only that parliaments were annual in antient times. In modern times /as matters stand at present/ parliaments not being annual in the first sense, the term annual is not inapplicable. But the regularity, and in this sense the annuality of its sitting is effectually secured by a variety of circumstances: and in particular by a circumstance /cause/ which of itself is sufficient to secure the production of the effect, viz the constant recurrence of these exigencies /wants/, and in particular the pecuniary ones on the supply of which the continuance of the government depends. /government depends for its continuance./

Accordingly in calling for annual parliaments all that men can have in view in the character of a state of things not now in existence is the limitation of the Assembly and consequently of its powers, in point of duration, to that length of time.

But though in antient times it was only in respect of the shortlivedness of the assembly that parliaments were to any degree approaching to regularity annual in fact, yet according to law they ought to have been so in the other sense, viz in respect of the frequency of sitting, ever since the Act of the [ ] of Edward 3 d ch. [ ] made expressly or that purpose, and to this hour not repealed+.

Parliaments shall be held once in a year, and oftener if need be. The clause if need be, afterwards pretended to be understood as if the obligation of convoking /by which the King was bound to convoke/ the Assembly was meant to be confined on every occasion to the case of and he being such[?] judge of the existence of the need, this clause in point of grammatical construction[?] was as capable of being no otherwise than applied to the additional and extraordinary frequency expressed by the word oftener than to the ordinary length of time expressed by the word once a year. And such moreover is the interpretation which in common [...?] it ought to have had: since otherwise it bound the King to nothing and was of no value. The great probability is, that the King's draughtsmen knew what they were about, and having secured that if possible the King should not be bound to any thing, t the same time that to keep fair with the Lords and Commons at whose instance the act, this parliamentary pressure of the Kings was made, they took this course to accomplish their purpose. A century later this purpose might perhaps not have been thus accomplished. I mean when the Commons as in the reign of Henry the 6 th were established in their right of taking a part in the framing of acts of parliament. Be this as it may the expression by which the chains put upon the Kings hands were converted into cobwebs was such as we see: and his successors, and in particular Charles the first, made this advantage of it.

+  Examine.