1819 Jan y 16

Parl. Reform Bill

Dialogue

Preliminary View

Evils & Remedies

II Remedies

Miselection

Electors

Qualification

3. Scholarship

13

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

whereas, according to the assurance given as above, three months will suffice to give

the possession of it all over the kingdom to Adults.

 The Remedies are not they now all gone through and applied?
Similar Items
  • Title: [1818 Dece 21. Parl. Reform Bill]
    Description: 1818 Dece 21.

    Parl. Reform Bill

    Dialogue III

    {Preliminary View}

    Remedies

    {16}

    9

    difficulties. 1. Where to fix the time of full age for this purpose, since by the

    supposition it is to be earlier than the time of full age for general purposes. 2.

    Then, be the age what it will, how to render the freedom necessary to the giving a

    vote, I mean to the repairing to the spot in question at the time in question, with

    the subjection in which partly for his own sake partly for his fathers sake it is so

    indisputably necessary that during a portion more or less considerable of his life

    every human being should be held.

     Quere whether this about the Non Adults had not better be abridged.
  • Title: [1819 Jan y 16 Parl. Reform Bill]
    Description: 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
  • Title: [[Part in copyist's hand] 1818 August]
    Description: [Part in copyist's hand]

    1818 August 1

    Parl. Ref Bill

    Reasons

    II. Electors Who

    Universality

    Property bad qualification

    Reading

    Poor Education?

    16

    14

    7

    1

    Complication[?]

    Between the plan for the education of the Poor, whatever it be and the requisition of the proposed faculty in the character of a qualification for voting between these two institutions is there any incompatibility? any thing of repugnancy? Quite the contrary. Not repugnancy, but facilitation.

    As yet at least this scheme whatever it is comprises none but the non-adult. But, for the non-adult, Schools, with School Masters,there must be every where. Neither of the Schools nor of the Schoolmasters will the whole of the disposable time be employed in the non-adult. Here then are the necessary requisites all of them already provided. For the making the full advantage of them - For giving completion to the mind creating plan nothing more is needed than the correspondent inclination. This is what the reading qualification, in so far as inclination fails of flowing from other sources, gives. By this cause the effect is produced: and if by any other cause it can be produced certainly by no other at so cheap a rate.

    The plan /design/ for the instruction of the non-adult could not take effect without funds, provided on purpose by the usual coercive means. Pursued in the mode here proposed the design for the instruction of the adult might be made to take effect, even without any such funds. In the former case the demand would /could/ not of itself suffice for the production of the supply: in the latter case the demand might of itself suffice for the production of the supply.