date

1819 Jan. y 3 Parl. Reform Bill
1819 Jan. y 3

Parl. Reform Bill

Dialogue

Preliminary View

Evils & Remedies

Remedies

Miselection

Electors

16

11

Anti-Reformist. Very ingenious, very acute very convincing: so much so, that I give

up at once /altogether/ my plan of reform, and there is an end of it. /there there is

an end of my plan/ Are you now satisfied? /Will that satisfy you?/

Reformist. Yes, if you will come over to mine. For mine is not encumbered with any

such /has no such/ difficulties.

Anti-Reformist. Not quite so lively. In /By/ giving up mine, I have only rid myself

of /given up/ delivered myself from/ an incumbrance. In one word /few words/ what I

mean to say is this: - upon your plan men without /having no/ property would so far

outnumber men having property, that they would join in dividing among one another

/weeding out of the hands of the present proprietors/ the whole property of the

present /country/ proprietors and for this purpose would choose for representatives,

which /as/ upon your plan of universal eligibility they would be enabled to do: and

for this purpose I have no need to trouble myself about any such fixation as that

with which you hampered me by /under the description/ a man without property I

include every sort of man from him who has nothing in the world but the cloathes on

his back, and those be[?] in a state of rags, and the man who though he has property

has not enough of it for his subsistence. Now then what I say is – that at present

/under the existing order of things/ there is no danger of any such ruinous

equalization and subversion: therefore it is that I am for the existing order of

things. For if once the existing order of things were to be departed from, and reform

entered upon, every plan would be found impracticable inconsistent and untenable and

therefore impracticable, till it came down to yours would be ruinous under the name

of remedy a /an immediately/ mortal disease substituted to a mild and tolerable one.

And moreover this same insuperable objection will be found to apply to every sort of

qualification that ever has been or ever can be proposed: and in particular to housholdership, and to taxableness.
Similar Items
  • Title: [1819 Jan y 3 + Parl. Reform Bill]
    Description: 1819 Jan y 3 +

    Parl. Reform Bill

    Dialogue

    Preliminary View

    Evils & Remedies

    Remedies

    Miselection

    Electors

    Levelling impracticable

    5

    22

    17

    : from rich properties, the producers of […?] /expence[?]/ must have joined with the

    rest.

    Anti reformist. As to the actual impracticability of any such levelling scheme, you

    need not have given yourself all this trouble. The question is – not what the thing

    would be in itself but what in the imagination of the class of persons in question it

    would appear to be.

    Reformist. Agreed. But in stating thus explicitly what it would be in itself, it

    appears to me that I have already stated what in their conception it would appear to

    be. Even without, the help of any such regular and explicit statement as I have been

    here submitting to you strange indeed it would be if by one means or other there were

    any man to whom /whose conception/ by one means or other considerations /matter/ to

    this effect would not in sufficient quantity be in some other[?] presented. At any

    rate in what you have just heard there is nothing that could not be put into black

    and white at any time. The persons who on your supposition would be put in danger

    /ensnared[?]/ by the reforms thus bestowed by the system in question in regard to

    suffrage are all the proprietors[?] in the kingdom every body that has any thing.

    Government out of the question to where the matter would not be altogether a matter

    of indifference, do you think think you that the possession of property would grudge

    the few pounds that would be sufficient for placing this body of information in the

    hands of every non-proprietor[?]. Think you there would be more difficulty in the

    distribution of this antidote than in the distribution of the poison? Would it not be

    somewhat milder remedy than the bullet or the bayonet? Would it not be a more

    kindly[?] remedy? would it be a less efficacious one?
  • Title: [1819 Jan. y 5 + Parl. Reform Bill]
    Description: 1819 Jan. y 5 +

    Parl. Reform Bill

    Dialogue

    Preliminary View

    Evils & Remedies

    Remedies

    Miselection

    Levelling impracticable

    10

    1

    27

    22

    1. No promise[?] to[?]

    2. Being satisfied without outrage the majority would oppose outrage[?]

    Anti-Reformist. But, admitting that by your Electors by your universal-suffrage men

    the sort of mischief in question would not be effected in a legal way, through and by

    Parliament, might it not and to an indefinite extent be effected in an illegal way,

    and in spite of Parliament

    Reformist. Yes, if an effect can be produced by human action without either means or

    motives. Be the mischief what it may, I will /am ready to/ admitt the probability of

    it under the virtually universal suffrage system, provided /if/ you will admitt /on

    condition of you admitt/ it to be less than under the existing system, not otherwise

    Anti-Reformist. Exemplary candour, it must be confessed. But now for /as to/ the

    grounds of it.

    Reformist. If either adequate means /motives/ or adequate motives are seen by you to

    be wanting, your apprehension, I presume will not be great.

    Anti-Reformist. No: they will be found wanting likewise.

    Reformist. Well, then: first as to the means. At the commencement at any rate of the

    supposed enterprize, the army, the militia the navy will remain in the same safe

    hands as at present. So likewise the legal power of raising supplies of men and

    money, and /together with/ all the property out of which money can be raised. Turn

    now to the people’s side. The ready armed men by whom this revolution of yours is to

    be effected, whence /where/ are they to come /from/? Out of the earth, from so many

    dragons’ teeth sowed by M r Cobbet in the character of Cadmus? The

    money too – where is that to come from? From the moon, in the midst of a shower of

    aerolithes?
  • Title: [1818 Dec r. 30 Parl. Reform Bill]
    Description: 1818 Dec r. 30

    Parl. Reform Bill

    Dialogue

    Preliminary View

    Evils & Remedies

    Remedies

    Election

    Miselection

    Election

    Females

    1

    Anti-Reformist. Well now, why to you exclude females? That I exclude /should be for excluding/ them you need scarcely be told. But what the present occasion requires is that you should say why you exclude them.

    Reformist. I will give you the best reasons I can find.

    1. In the first place, so inseparably are the interests /such is the community of interest/ of the weaker sex interwoven with those of the stronger, that in the breasts of the male half self-regarding affection suffices to /for/ securing /secure/ them against all injury: unless it were clear that by the accession of the less informed sex more appropriate aptitude would be imported into the Election Office, than would have place there otherwise. Such at least is the presumption: for if any one were to stand up and shew that under the existing things the interest of the weaker sex is sacrificed to that of the stronger, and under the proposed scheme of reform would continue to be do to be, let one that can /that know how/ justify the exclusion. I am sure it is more than I am /should be/ able to do.

    2. In the next place, I know not at present of any dissatisfaction which at present to any considerable extent, if any, has place on this account in those tender breasts. For supposing any such dissatisfaction to have place, let the compleat identity of interests be ever so uncontrovertibly established, here again no fish[?] would be more perfectly mute[?] than I should find myself obliged to be.

    3. In the third place, in my own instance there is the personal satisfaction I feel in humouring, if I may be allowed so free a word, yourself and so many other of my friends: and in particular my honourable and learned friend M r Brougham, who by the single power of the word females pronounced in connection with my name and the word consistency raised /produced/ on the part of his honourable colleagues a laugh, in which there was just as much sense, as in any laugh which any one of them when in leading strings ever exhibited upon being tickled by his nurse.