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1818 Sept. 5. +.2.
Parl. Reform Bill
Reasons ult o
'.2. Electors Who
2 Householdership
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Question Why not {seek to} establish Householdership in the character of a necessary qualification.
Answer 1. Because in addition to the security afforded as above under virtual universality and compleat secrecy of suffrage by the impossibility of giving effect to any particular and sinister interest no other security is needed.
Answer 2: Because in the case in question on the part of a proposed Voter it is not in the nature of Householdership, any more than of possession, any more than of the possession of property to afford any security for appropriate aptitude in any shape on the part of the Voter nor therefore for the right direction of his vote.
True it is that, supposing the faculty of reading established in the character of a necessary qualification, so far as regards the fact of a man's being in possession of this faculty, householdership is if not an indispensable, at any rate, a highly useful security for its existence. For if upon the bare assertion by which the fact of a man's possessing the faculty in question he were admitted whether he were or were not a householder a person who whether for want of the faculty or for want of being competent in respect of age and sex were admitted to vote the want of a fixt residence might in case of falshood suffice to render him unpunishable. But under the proposed system for the substantiating of this fact the written evidence of no fewer than three other persons, each of them a Householder is made requisite. Thus it is that under this system all the case[?] capable of being made of householdership is actually made of it.
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Title: [[Copyist's hand] 1818 April 13 +]Description: [Copyist's hand] 1818 April 13 + Parl Reform Bill Reasons[?] 2. Electors Who 6 5 {Art. 7. No person who, during the whole or any part of the time of his residence, in any such dwelling house as aforesaid, shall have been either Officer or Private, a in any branch of his Majesty's Military service ( ) whether by land or water shall in respect of such residence be entitled to a Vote, unless during the whole of such time he shall have ben the Householder thereof: (c) nor accordingly shall any Vote-making Certificate in his favour be received at the Posting Office, unless in the blank left for the insertion of the word Householder or the word Inmate as the case may be, the word Householder be inserted.} (a) Question. Why on the part of a man engaged in the King's military service require householdership, rejecting Inmateship as insufficient. Answer. Lest by stationing, in this or that Election District troops in sufficient numbers to constitute a majority of the whole number of electors in that district, the servants of the Crown in the military department should have the power of filling according to their own pleasure the respective seats: and by possibility even, by the same body of troops, seats more than one, by marching the same body in one and the same day, from one polling district to another polling district in a different Election District. N.B. Supposing that Inmates are admitted to vote, Inmateship in the instance of the individual in question is the efficient cause of his title to vote, and that this clause stands part of the Act, a correspondent clause will require to be inserted in the blank Certificate. He has not during any part of this time been a Soldier in the regulars, a Sailor, a Marine or an Artillery man in his Majesty' service, either Officer or Private.
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Title: [1818 Oct. 26 Parl. Reform Bill]Description: 1818 Oct. 26 Parl. Reform Bill Reasons '.2 Electors Who Univ. III. Taxedness 9 Where taxedness in respect of direct taxes has been brought /propos/ in the character of a necessary qualification, it is not by itself alone that it has been proposed in that character, but in company with householdership. By householdership alone the degree /on the scale/ of affluence supposed /endeavoured/ to be secured was not regarded /thought/ as high enough: to raise it, recourse was had to the supplemental qualification of taxedness. But if affluence, with the addition of householdership, is but one indifferent test and measure of aptitude - of appropriate aptitude in any of its forms - let even taxedness be added the test is not much mended. Affluence itself is no proof of aptitude: householdership of itself is no proof of affluence: add taxedness, still householdership and taxedness put together compose not any proof. By a man's having made payment to the tax say say a quarters tax say half a years tax - all the affluence of which /proved by/ such payment is so much as the payment so made amounts to, and when this payment is made, even this affluence is gone: gone, and for any thing that can be known has left nothing behind it. But in regard to taxedness, the tax being a direct one all that the law can do on the instance of any man the law can do is to call upon him to make payment of the tax: of his paying it /actually making the payment/ when the time came for making it no law can make sure: for no law can make sure of any man's abilities to make the payment. What the law may indeed do is - to provide that if at the time for giving the vote, payment to tell[?] the tax /taxes/ in all its /their/ forms has not been made no vote shall be given: but in this case, as what may very well happen is - that by the very expedient which has been employed to secure the wished for affluence, all /the/ affluence has been destroyed.
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Title: [1818 Sept. 5 Parl. Reform Bill]Description: 1818 Sept. 5 Parl. Reform Bill Reasons ult o '.2. Electors Who Universality Money Qualification Reading 3 If {in any way at all opulence has any tendency towards securing,} /As to appropriate aptitude in the intellectual shape, if/ under the system of virtually universal and free suffrage, opulence has in any property to any amount, great or small, has any tendency at all towards securing it in this shape, it is only in so far as it has a tendency to cause a man to be endowed with the faculty of reading. He therefore whose desire it is that by the Electors in question by the persons in question considered in the character of Electors appropriate aptitude in this shape should to the greatest possible extent possible be possessed - it is the faculty /possession/ of reading that he will wish to see established in the character of a necessary qualification for the exercise of the right in question, not the possession of property to this or that amount. Answer 3. The fact of a man's possessing at any given time the faculty of reading is one simple fact, one and at the same at all times, not susceptible of degrees. As to affluence it is susceptible of an infinity of degrees: and at no one degree /part of the scale/ to the exclusion of any other can any point ever be found at which it is proper to draw the line. Answer 4. Possessed at one time, the faculty of reading is possessed at all times. If property be the qualification, today the man has property, and it is at or above the mark: tomorrow it may be below the mark, or it may the whole of it have vanished.
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