date

1818 Sept. 5 Parl. Reform Bill
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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    So much as to appropriate probity - now as to appropriate intellectual aptitude.

    That reading goes to this point and that in the most direct /immediate/ way is altogether Manifest. That if at all it is only in an unimmediate way that property tends to this same point is equally manifest.

    So likewise to Householdership this same observation will be seen to apply with equal truth.

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    Answer 2. Because the possession of property be the amount of it great or small has no direct tendency to /immediate operation towards/ the securing of appropriate aptitude in either of the two shapes in question: to wit appropriate probity or appropriate intellectual aptitude. Money /Property/ is not itself probity: money is not itself either knowledge or sound judgement.

    As to appropriate probity, under the system of virtually universal suffrage, under the system of secret and free suffrage the vast majority of the whole number of Electors find, as hath been already shewn, for their effectual possession of this endowment such a security as leaves not any demand for any other. Were they all /every/ of them} without exception which is plainly impossible in possession each of them of a degree of opulence sufficient to confer independence this security would not from this circumstance receive any augmentation. /encrease./ Taken /Considered/ separately from any extra portion of the matter of wealth that it might happen to receive any change which it could happen to his aptitude in this shape to experience would if it amounted to any thing, be on the side of diminution: for of extra opulence one /a natural/ effect is to give to a man in this or that shape a particular interest hostile to the universal interest: a prospect of being a gainer by war, by a encrease of burthens /given to the burthen/ on dependencies, by judicial opposition by judicial oppression by rule or denial of justice, by a job in this or that other of its /one or other of its various/ shapes.
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    But on this as on most political questions, certainties not being within his grasp, man is reduced /subjected/ to the necessity of acting upon probabilities: upon ground of no firmer texture. How /And/ so it is that when for securing the attainment and possession of the great and good government all the means of security that are at the time in question within reach have actually been provided, still, so long as any ulterior ones[?] can be indicated which though not at present /as yet/ within reach afford a pretence of being by appropriate exertions sooner or later brought within reach, still so long as any hope of this hand[?], precedence the undeniable dictates /[...?]/ of precedence, press /urge/ with considerable force the necessity of calling forth their exertions.

    Now as to the existence of the advantages which in this respect a man who possesses the faculty or reading possesses over him who is not in possession of that important faculty - of the existence or of the vast magnitude of these advantages surely no reasonable doubt can ever be entertained {by any man}. A derived judgment, yes: but that sort of judgment, makeshift as it is, be allowed to suffice, suffice without the addition of a self-formed one.. Still in respect of the formation though it be of nothing better than a derived judgment how prodigious is the advantage which the reading man has over him who is unable to read! Within the reach of the reading man lie the very best means of information which the whole [...?] affords: within the reach of the non-reading man lie no other sources of information than what the conversation of a set of men whose means of information are /will for the most part/ as to all matters of detail not much more correct or ample than his own.

    That which by such means may have been placed within his reach is information of the general character /reputation/ possessed already in relation to the several points of appropriate aptitude, by the respective Candidates. That which by these same means can not be placed within his reach is after the Candidate of desire has borne his part in the management of the public business, the propriety /aptitude/, absolute and comparative, of the part acted for him in relation to the several particular questions that have come under his cognizance. /[...?] measures in relation to which he has had to operate./