1818 Dec. r 31

Parl. Reform Bill

Dialogue

Preliminary View

Evils and Remedies

Remedies

Miselection

Representatives situation

12

7

Anti-Reformist. Providence /Foresight/ {I see} in plenty: I wish I could say /see/

as much for delicacy. Providence /Foresight/ - I mean as employed against annoyance

in a physical shape in the House. But your stock of remedies against Miselection, is

it quite /already/ exhausted, am I to understand it is exhausted?

Reformist. Not altogether. There are certain instruments force and fraud I mean by

which (as you /we/ have seen Non-Election and Null Election are capable of being

produced: by force and fraud, whether applied to the situation of Representative or

to that of Elector. By those same instruments so may Mis-election. By a lying story,

by confinement applied to the individual or by obstruction applied to the roads

/avenues/, the Electors in any number may be prevented from giving their votes,

proposed Members or persons who should have been proposed may be prevented from

receiving or doing what was /would have been/ necessary to the receiving a /in/

sufficient number of votes. Practices of this sort may be obviated partly by {such}

penal arrangements such as those by which /defence[?] or

provided against/ the same instruments to whatsoever other mischievous purposes they

are applied, partly as you will see by precautionary arrangements in the face of

which nothing of a penal character is visible.

[marginal insertion:] By any /In /Of/ any such/ of these enormities the effect may be

to put an exclusion upon some individual by whom the seat would otherwise have been

filled, and in comparison of whom the one by whom it comes in consequence to be

filled is unfit: and this being supposed, miselection is the effect.
Similar Items
  • Title: [1819 Jan. y 10 Parl. Reform Bill]
    Description: 1819 Jan. y 10

    Parl. Reform Bill

    Preliminary View

    Evils & Remedies

    II. Remedies

    Miselection

    II. through transgressions of law

    1

    37

    Leget ut Clericus.[?]

    Anti-Reformist. Well now, suppose them all effective and adequate these remedies of

    yours for the prevention of Miselection through unfitness on the part of that law

    itself in that part of the law by which the qualification of proposed Members and

    Electors are respectively appointed /determined/ prescribed, let us now see what

    provision you make One cause of Miselection shall remain, I mean the misexecution or

    non-execution of the determinations /appointments/ so made. Under the provisions so

    made according to the plan chalked out by you, in the District of Freeborough,

    Francis Freeman is the proposed Member that ought to have been returned But by mal

    practice in some shape or other say force or fraud, not he but William Wrongham has

    been returned. What remedies does your plan provide against Miselection from such a

    cause?

    Reformist. The same that it provides against Non-election and Null Election. Such is

    the connection All those Election evils, they are, all of them, liable to be produced

    by the same set of causes, all of them capable of being prevented /obviated/ by the

    same remedies. Force, fraud, accident – to /under/ one or other of these heads may

    all the disastrous causes in question be found referable /reducible/. {Simplicity of

    arrangement despatch.} Care taken for the Exclusion of motives to delinquency – for

    the exclusion of the means of delinquency, for the notoriety of all the relevant

    facts – in this short list you have /these words will conduct you to/ the

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

    Parl Reform Bill

    Dialogue

    Prelim

    Evils & Remedies

    Dialogue 3

    II. Remedies

    Recommendatory Certificate

    6

    6

    Anti-Reformist. Very well then. Open the doors of your House to the /your/ full

    width, and I will peer[?] in upon your swinish multitude, till all your principal

    Election evils Miselection, Non-Election and Null Election are poured[?] in upon you

    in a full tide.

    Reformist. Excuse me Not you indeed.

    Anti Reformist. How so?

    One short paper stops your hands: - my Recommendatory Certificate. No person can be

    susceptible /put in/ of receiving votes without a certificate declaring an opinion

    /in pursuance/ of his aptitude, and after being eventually willing to serve, signed

    by a certain limited number of persons: say half a dozen or a dozen. By these a

    deposit in money towards the expence of the Election must be made. Unrespectable men,

    in number sufficient to produce confusion would not be found thus to throw away their

    money: respectable men would not throw away their reputation by proposing a man known

    to be unrespectable.
  • Title: [1818 Dec r. 30 Parl Reform Bill]
    Description: 1818 Dec r. 30

    Parl Reform Bill

    Dialogue

    Prel

    Evils & Remedies

    Dial. 2. Remedies

    2

    2

    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/.