date

1819 Jan y 16 Parl. Reform Bill
1819 Jan y 16

Parl. Reform Bill

Dialogue

Preliminary View

Evils & Remedies

II Remedies

Miselection

Election

Qualification

3 Scholarship

12

Anti-Reformist. Well – to be sure /Doubtless/, Scholarship – I mean in the same

degree of it which you have in view is a very /mighty/ good thing: it is what on all

sides of the question we are all so anxious to give the utmost possible extension to.

But are you aware how you are thus departing from your principles thus adding

exclusion to exclusion? Is there no inconsistency in thus shutting the door not only

against so many Non-Adults to whom it might have been left /thrown/ open, but even to

Adults in countless numbers? Among your professed[?] principles has been that of

excluding as far as possible, all sensible evil – if not all discontent, that being

impossible, all discontent founded on just cause. Will not discontent and according

to you just /well grounded/ discontent be let in, by shutting out Adults, and in such

vast /incalculable/ numbers.

Reformist. No inconsistency – no well-grounded discontent – if I do not greatly

miscalculate, if I do not greatly deceive myself in misjudgement of the men I have to

deal with, no discontent well or ill grounded. Consider how plain[?] it can not but

be to every one of these, how sincerely not only the general good /benefit/ but his

own individual benefit is aimed at by the condition thus imposed: how surely and

compleatly it will be in his power to fulfill it, and with no more trouble than so

many thousands have already submitted to take upon themselves, and without any such

then unthought of reward as is now for the first time offered to his hands:

Long
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    Reformist continued

    Long before the indispensable preliminary arrangements which you will see can by any

    possibility have been made /carried into effect/ there would be time over and over

    again, for all the adults in the United Kingdom thus to have qualified themselves.

    Yes: if the right /privilege/ in question were in their hands already, and the effect

    of the change were to take it from /out of/ them – in that case cause of discontent

    might not be altogether wanting. But what is it in fact? It is to give them and upon

    such easy conditions what till of late none of them could entertain the smallest hope

    of on any conditions. The principle in question – the principle of virtually

    universal suffrage – was not[?] in your eyes departed from (was it?) when the door

    was shut against Non Adults against Non-Adults in such multitudes, by whom in support

    of admission a case not altogether implausible or even ungrounded might have been: to

    go no further back say those from 18 to 21. As a youth {can} no more add on a sudden

    a year to his age than a cubit to his stature, for the age of admission at 21, all

    the power of man will not suffice to put a youth of 18 in possession of the

    qualification in less than three years /a moment/. Such is the case of the Non-Adult

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    the possession of it all over the kingdom to Adults.

     The Remedies are not they now all gone through and applied?
  • Title: [1819 Jan. y 12 Parl. Reform Bill]
    Description: 1819 Jan. y 12

    Parl. Reform Bill

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    51

    Anti Reformist. Ah now – here are you running riot again. You have forgot your list

    of qualifications. Are you come to the end of them?

    Refromist. Not quite: there remains one more. With your leave to save words, I will

    call it in one word Scholarship.

    Anti-Reformist. Scholarship, quotha? and so your voters are to be all Scholars: and

    none but such as are Scholars are to have votes. Well – one comfort is – that the

    multitude which I confess I have always been so much afraid of will be somewhat

    thinned.

    Reformist. Not so much as you seem to imagine. All the scholarship I require is

    contained in a man’s being able to read the bible in his mother tongue, and to trace

    out in any legible manner the small number of characters of which his name is

    composed.

    Anti-Reformist. And of those who do not /would not otherwise/ possess it how many do

    you expect and in your expectation put themselves in possession of this qualification

    /it/. How many are there that would find means? how many are there that would find

    motives?

    Reformist. As for what regards means, the point /matter/ has been pretty well

    settled already: settled by an experiment made in a scale of such extent, and under

    such disadvantages, as suffices already to throw the /all/ idea of difficulty out of

    the case.

    Anti-Reformist. What is this you are talking of ? /have in view?/ {you are so

    sanguine about? What new and curious invention have you got here?}
  • Title: [1818 Dece r 21 Parl Reform Bill]
    Description: 1818 Dece r 21

    Parl Reform Bill

    Dialogue III

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    Universality

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    {14}

    7

    Anti-Reformist. Well, since you do not, for the present at least insist upon the

    giving votes to females, I, in so far as concerns myself /for my own/ /speaking for

    myself/, am content to humour you so far, as to keep to myself my share in the laugh

    which you seem so much afraid of /that laugh which makes you talk so seriously/. But

    now as to Non-Adults.

    Reformist – If you recollect /have not forgot/, I expressed myself still more

    decided upon exclusion in this case than in that of females. Will not this satisfy

    you?

    Anti Reformist. Certainly as to the result. But this is not all. What you have

    /undertook/ to do in this case likewise, is to clear yourself of the imputation of

    inconsistency.

    Reformist. Fine: to act by shewing that though on my plan this class would be

    excluded yet that neither in this case could the sinister sacrifice so often

    mentioned have place, because neither in this case can there be any opposition of

    interests: opposition of interests between the Adults in quality of sole Electors,

    and Non-Adults in quality of Non-Electors. I think you will not on reflection look

    /regard me/ as labouring in this case under any great difficulty.