JB_128_391.xml

Title: [1818 Dec. 23 Parl Dialogue]

Description: 1818 Dec. 23

Parl

Dialogue

Prel

Evils & Remedies

I Evils

29

10

Reformist. Evils in fact – evils in tendency only, and therefore not yet, if at all,

in fact. Another division, by your leave, and that too an exhaustive one.

Anti-Reformist. If you keep on exhausting much longer, I will tell you of one thing

that you will exhaust without intending it more than you could wish to do /exhaust/ -

and that is my patience. Well, there is a distinction between facts and tendencies

/facts and tendencies are not exactly the same thing/, every body knows that: But

where is the use of it.

Reformist. {A little} patience and you will see what a quantity of useless

complication it will serve to exclude. You are not fond complication are you?

Anti-Reformist. No, I hate it mortally. The more complication on one point, the more

attention requisite /necessary/ on the other. Attention I leave to those who are paid

for it: unless it be to a song, a poem, or a good novel: for that makes a difference.

Reformist. What will /would/ you say, if I leave the door of the hustings open to

madmen and to peers of the realm /peers and bishops/, all upon the strength of this

distinction?

Anti-Reformist. I should /shall/ say that you yourself are mad.

Reformist. We shall see.

Anti-Reformist. We are still in the clouds. One of these days /Some time or other/ I

hope, we shall land on terra firma.

JB_128_397.xml

Title: [1818 Dece r 24 Parl. Reform Bill.]

Description: 1818 Dece r 24

Parl. Reform Bill.

Dialogue

Preliminary View

Evils & Remedies

1 Evils

1

35

16

Inserendum

{Anti-Reformist. Proceed.

Reformist. I obey. Among Election evils such as are characteristic or say

appropriate I divide in the first place /at once/ into 1. Mis-Election. 2.

Non-Election. 3. Null Election.}

Anti-Reformist. Good: now I find myself at home {already}. Not that I remember to

have ever heard of any such Miss /Mis/ as Mis-Election. But I have heard and but too

much of other misses of the bad sort, such as Misconduct, and so forth /the rest of

them/: so that I believe I must allow you this one. But this division of yours how do

you prove that it is an exhaustive one? I thought that for proving a division to be

such, you had found it necessary never to divide the whole into more than two parts

at the same time? +

Reformist. Your /This/ recollection of yours does me honour /honours me/. My wish

was to have saved you trouble. When and where an Election takes place, either you

have an Election or you have none. If you have one either it is the right one or it

is a wrong one. To be /If it is/ the right one, that individual is the person elected

/put /placed/ into the seat/ who of all individuals that could have been placed in it

is the fittest. If so /yes/, there is no evil in the case: if not, here there is an

evil, comparative /comparatively/ at least if not absolutely such. comparatively at

least: absolutely if when in the House he either does nothing or does more mischief

than he does good: comparatively, if there be any other obtainable person that could

have done better.

+ Chrestomathia Part II

JB_128_399.xml

Title: [1818 Dec. 24. Parl. Reform Bill]

Description: 1818 Dec. 24.

Parl. Reform Bill

Dialogue II

Election Evils.

37

18

Anti-Reformist. The old story, { good[?] M r

Lack-learning}, always snarling at your too learned brethren. Sadly sower in your

eyes the grapes that adorn /shroud/ /shroud their clusters/ over the Courts of

Chancery and King’s Bench. Come, now for such of your characteristic or appropriate

Election evils as you call collateral ones.

Well but now for those appropriate Election Evils which apply to the situation of

Representative no otherwise than by apply /in as far/ as they apply to the situation

of Elector

Reformist. These I divide in the first place into such as are principal, and such as

are not principal, but /being/ only collateral.

Anti-Reformist. What? In the clouds again?

Reformist. Patience; one stop /dip/ more and you will feel ground. The principal

evils in question – those which I denominate principal,

consist in or if you please are caused by either non-admission or admission or

non-admission: admission given to voters and votes that ought not to have been

admitted, non admission or in one word exclusion applied to voters and votes that

ought to have been admitted.

In both cases a distinction that requires to be taken is that between the evil that

affects the public alone, and the evil which affects individuals