date

1818 Dec 7. '.2 A Parl. Reform Bill
1818 Dec 7. '.2 A

Parl. Reform Bill

Principles

Beginning

'.2. Ad[...?] or Exclude

1

๏Œ 3 Sept 1819. Not to be marginalized, till after the Bill is finished.

๏Œ 3 Sept 1819. Is not this superseded by the Decalogues?

'.2. Election Evils analysed - Present state of the Constitution. By law a despotism is momentarily tempered[?] by Jury-trial - an institution, - and liberty of the press - a custom contrary to law.

In the case of the here proposed plan of Parliamentary Reform, as in the case of any other plan /a plan/ for reform or improvement in any other shape, the object or end in view may be comprehended under this one expression, to wit the exclusion of evil, to wit in so far as the nature of the case /thought/ admitts of its being excluded.

Within the compass of this same expression, may without impropriety be comprehended /included/ ever[?] the introduction or establishment /fixation/ of peculiar[?] good. For in comparison of any good greater than itself which the introduction or fixation of it would exclude, even that good which with the exception of that use is the greatest, may without impropriety of denomination be termed evil, and without impropriety of conduct be dealt with as such.

Thus it is, that for the convenience of conception and discourse, every spring of action is by Locke comprehended under one denomination, to wit uneasiness. With what propriety it belongs not to the present purpose to inquire.

Follows an analytical view /sketch/ of the evils which on the present occasion, it will be for the legislative endeavours to exclude and amongst which it will for that purpose be necessary for him to make a choice.
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    1. On the part even of the least instructed classes, adequate assurance of an adequate /a competent/ quantity of attention to the essential points of government: to wit of that branch of art and science, of which government is the subject.

    Of this branch of art and science the proper object is the {avoidance or} exclusion of those evils which are liable to be produced by misconduct on the part of those by whom a constantly active part is latent in the business of government: in one /a/ word, the exclusion of the evils of misrule.

    Here the radical point to be comprehended /attended to/ is the universal and constant tendency towards misrule in what those hands whatsoever they be, in /by/ which the rule is lodged, the powers indicated /expressed/ by the word rule are possessed. The cause of this tendency is the {universal and necessary predominance} of self-regarding interest over social in every human breast. Of this predominance the existence may be /is/ seen to be necessary to the very existence of the species. When once clearly /plainly/ pointed out, wilful blindness alone will be able to avoid seeing it, folly alone will so much as think of repining at it. In this predominance then may be seen the general and universally operating cause of misrule. For the counteracting it in such sort as to exclude, in so far as it is capable of being excluded the disastrous and ever impending effect, in the hands of those whose interests taken together either compose either the whole of the universal interest, or at any rate such a mass of aggregate interest as does not materially fall short of the whole a /an occasional/ power of placing and displacing the hands by which the constantly acting powers of government are exercised may be seen and shewn to present the only corrective - against the ever-threatening /impending/ evil /disorder/, the only remedy.

    {Here then we have the general nature of the disorder - the general cause of it - and the only remedy which the nature of the disorder admitts of.}
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    Reformist. I come down from them at a word.

    You see what I have done to humour you. At one stroke, struck out so many millions

    of votes: within a trifle as many as I have left in. Now then, in this as in other

    cases, does not one good turn deserve another?

    Anti-Reformist. What is it you would be at?

    Reformist. I will tell you presently. /in a trice./ In comparison of what I have

    granted what I ask /call for is a mere/ nothing, and in asking it I do but follow

    your example. {What you insist upon is to exclude females from power in one shape:

    what I want /ask/ is to exclude them from power in another. In your eyes they are

    unfit from joining each of them /respectively/ in the exercise of the /a minute/

    fraction of a small fraction of a fraction of coercive power. What I would propose is

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    Power being the good thing in question, you exclude them from it by millions, all I

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    Text Note ult o

    ยง.14. Penal Securities

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    As to the {characteristic} misdeeds /characteristic or not characteristic/, in this case as in every other, be they what they may, they will have had for their instrument either force or fraud. In so far as force is the instrument, against these as against others in the case of their employing this for their instrument, provision such as it is, is already made by law: for example the offence called false imprisonment employed in preventing persons entitled to be voters from giving their votes; destruction or detraction[?] of any of the articles forming part of the necessary apparatus above described. Threatening those employed is /would/ force put upon the mind: how far this would be punishable by law as it is, or rather as it is supposed to be, we need not stay long to inquire /it would here be waste of time, thought and paper to inquire/.

    In so far as these same misdeeds respectively have fraud for their instrument, such fraud will be found to be mostly if not exclusively a modification of falshood of wilful falshood: always observed that by falshood even when not wilful consequences /evil effects/ of the same nature may in some cases be produced Of falshood thus applied the modifications will be found referable it is believed to one or other of the heads following: to wit 1. Forgery. 2. Fraudulent personation. 3.

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