date

1818 Decr 30 Parl Reform Bill
1818 Decr 30

Parl Reform Bill

Dialogue III

{Prel}

II Remedies

Universality

3

3

Anti-Reformist. {Good.} /Be it so./ {Three is a ticklish number to speak of.

However} Your tread shall not be forgotten. {And as to your Miselection, good and

evil, I am sensible are as commonly considered in a comparative, as in an absolute,

sense. Nobody can refuse the appellation of evil to any arrangement by which a less

good is substituted to a greater good.}

Reformist. Well then. Now for the best possible Representative. I will tell you how

I make sure of him. Appropriate probity, appropriate intellectual aptitude, and

appropriate active talent, under these heads in the case of this as of any other

situation are included all the elements of appropriate aptitude.

Now then see what universality does for me. Applied to the

situation of Representative, universality secures to me a

choice almost unlimited. With at most one exception only /alone/ my Electors may each

set of them, choose any living son of Adam that they please. Applied to the situation

of Elector, this one word, with no limitation to it but that which is applied by the

word virtual, allows to all in whose instance there can be

any use in their participating it, the faculty of participating in this important

choice.

Anti-Reformist. Well what is this limitation to which you allude. who is it that you

exclude

Reformist. Office-bearers of every description holding respectively any office at

the disposal of the Executive branch of the government, or if you please in one word

placemen. for shortness as well as familiarity thus in the way of conversation it may

serve: though for certainty, a complete list would be indispensable.
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    Anti-Reformist. As you please. Come then, card in hand, I proceed to call over once

    more your evils, and under the head /on the occasion/ of each evil to call for such

    general conception as in your judgment may for the present be sufficient of the

    nature of the remedy or remedies which your scheme provides for it.

    1. First then as to your Principal Election Evils: and amongst them those which

    apply more directly to the situation of representative: to wit 1. Miselection. 2.

    Non-Election and 3. Null Election: and in the first place Miselection: for that of

    itself will, I expect find you work enough.

    [marginal note:] 31 Dec r 1818. Postpone or discard what follows?

    Reformist. Indeed it will. But /Mean time/ in the first place before I present to

    you /bring to view/ any specific /particular/ remedy I must beg to remind you of my

    three leading words – my cabalistic words you may call them if you please universality, equality, annuality: virtual universality of suffrage, virtual

    equality of influence on the part of each such suffrage, and annuality of election,

    i.e. annual recurrence of the faculty of substituting to a less approved a more

    approved representative.

    In the next place {you must allow me to include} under the head of Miselection, you

    must allow me to include the election of ever so apt /good/ a representative, so long

    as by a different arrangement one still more apt might have been found

    /provided/.
  • Title: [1818 Dec. 30 Parl Reform Bill]
    Description: 1818 Dec. 30

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    Anti-Reformist. Well, and why are /must/ men so circumstanced {to} be excluded?

    Reformist. For three reasons. 1. Placed in this universally superintending

    situation, a place-man can not but be judge in his one cause. + 2.

    The duty of this situation is quite sufficient to occupy the whole of his disposable

    time. 3. Howsoever by the election proved to be possessed of the confidence of one

    set of Electors, he would still be an object of well grounded suspicion and thence of

    desertion[?] and disapprobation to the 657 others. And not only he, but on his

    account his Electors likewise.

    Anti-Reformist. This last reason considered I know not very well how to refuse my

    fiat to the exclusion thus applied. Otherwise I might have puzzled you a little. For

    by one man’s vote, you must acknowledge if you have not already acknowledged, no

    sensible evil can in this situation be produced without the concurrence of others in

    a number sufficient to constitute a majority. And then as to the demand which the

    situation presents for the whole of a man’s time, {though} you may thus prevent him

    from stealing from his parliamentary trust /function/ time and applying for the

    purpose of applying it /to apply it/ to other public business you can not prevent him

    from stealing it for the purpose of applying it to private business, or to whatever

    goes by the name of pleasure.

    Reformist. For the term of one year, no. But by the arrangements which you will see,

    I render it not very probable that if he steals from his parliamentary business much

    time to give to /bestow upon/ any other employment he will ever sit a second term:

    and at any rate if he bestows upon his parliamentary business any considerable part

    of that time which is not necessarily occupied by private avocations, either the

    duties of his other public situation whatever it be, will be ill-performed, or the

    situation itself will be a sinecure and as such a /an unendurable/ nuisance not to be

    endured.

    + Parl. Cat. Introd. §. | | Plan §.
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    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