date

[129b-593] 27 Jan 1817 Plan
[129b-593]

27 Jan 1817

Plan Cat

Introd

Idlers

Voters[?] 1. Firm[?] or inexpedient painful seduction

2. - seduced by pleasurable d o

N.B. absentation not mischievous but in so far as that in case of pressure there would be aptitude enough to engage them to the right side

Terrorists 1. Vote compelling

2 Competition repelling

Both these sets

The mischief done by offices of profit converted into sinecures is great enough: but it is as nothing compared with the mischief done by places of power such as these – shares in the supreme power – thus converted into sinecures. In one way, and that in no small degree the money sinecurism is ever of service to reform, viz. by drawing down upon the system of corruption that hatred and contempt in the intensity and extent of which the nation beholds its only hope of safety. In the other case there is no such compensation.

Think of a man and such are at least two thirds of these men – who being invested with a 658 th share of the supreme power for such it is in effect – in a government which beholds at its feet about 70 millions of subjects in one part of the world or another – beholds at its feet about 70 millions of subjects, and by whom the only place in which any exercise can be made of it is ever visited – or so much as any idea /such conception/ entertained either by himself or any body else for him as that of his being under any obligation of visiting it, if there be any one other place in which he can find a better lounge.

A call of the House – yes,[?] once or twice perhaps in a session upon an average: and if it were ten times as frequent, what would it prove? It would prove exactly what is notorious to every body and which has here been brought to view: viz that in the exercise of this power, of this share in the virtually supreme power – all idea of trust – all idea of obligation is repelled: the general rule is written in continued[?] general practice: these are all of them cases of exception; and by every case of exception the /a/ general rule is confirmed.
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  • Title: [4 Feb. y 1817 Plan Cat. Introd. I]
    Description: 4 Feb. y 1817

    Plan Cat. Introd. I Rudiments

    §. Introd.

    Members classed.

    3

    32 or 15 Property

    Conceditur; for exercising influence of understanding on

    understanding, property affords peculiar means

    1 Books

    2 Living Dictionaries

    3 Experience modern ancient home and foreign.

    33 or 16 Property

    But | | when property is thus employed with effect, it is not by the property but by

    the intellectual aptitude that the effect is produced

    34 or 17. Property

    With property to any amount no such effect may be produced. with very little property

    the maximum of aptitude.

    35 or 18 Property

    No such aptitude without hard labour: the stimulus to labour is rather inversely than

    directly as property –

    36 or 19 Idlers

    Without the Idlers the Men of all work would be

    insufficient for the sinister sacrifice –

    Active betrayers of their trust, the men of all work:

    passive, the Idlers.

    37 or 20 Members classed

    1 Number of men of all work compleatly at command about 70. With occasional

    assistance from less closely dependant, these suffice for the ordinary business –

    38 or 21 Members classed

    Other classes are -

    2 Distant absentees with commission from Ministry –

    3. d o. without commission –

    39 or 22 Members classed.

    3 Casual attendants on local or other particular business –

    4. Placemen in expectancy.

    5 Independants who support government i.e {Masters} to save the trouble of thinking

    Impropriety of Government vice Administration.

    40 or 23 Idlers

    Of the Idlers, supposing all to attend there might be such a number of Oppositionists

    or honest men, as might Obstruct or | | prevent | | sacrifice have Monarch’s interest

    | | the faculty of idlers absentation - p 5.

    41 or 24 Idlers

    Ministerialists[?] being perfectly under command, Oppositionists not at all, hence

    with a Majority inwardly hostile to or indifferent, Ministers work can go on.

    42 or 25 Idlers Absentation

    At the close of the Session, temptation to absentation encreasing, Ministers | |

    hence to this period are postponed the most indefensible measures –

    43 or 26 Idlers Absentation

    Suppose aptitude sufficient to engage them if present to the right side, the mischief

    done by the sinecurists is exceeded by that done by absentee idlers, by whose places thus endowed with shares in supreme power are

    sinecurized.

    44 or 27 Idlers

    Share in the vertically supreme power over 70 millions treated as a Sinecure! –

    45 or 28 Idlers

    In us civilized nation does the Monarch profess to hold his power so compleatly clear

    from obligation as many an English parliamentary Tabler does –

    46 or 29 Idlers

    Call of the House, inadequate as a remedy, is evidence of

    the general notion – viz. that to this power no obligation attachs of course –

    47 or 30 Idlers

    By habitual absentees abroad, this remedy is rendered constantly inadequate –
  • Title: [[129b-468] 27 Jan 1817 Plan]
    Description: [129b-468]

    27 Jan 1817

    Plan Cat

    Introd

    **6

    In the case of the East India Directors salary has been added to salary. But that example does it prove that so much as a halfpenny of salary was in that situation necessary? not it indeed: no more than that /yes: if/ the £38,000, and the £23,000 a year sinecures were necessary – and that the noble[?] proprietors who never so much as pretended /professed/ to do any service either, of this for his salary, served all the better for it. When

    What then does the East India example prove? It proves that as in the universal monarchy by the matter of corruptive influences the corrupter general engages and keeps[?] the agents of the people in the constant habit of betraying their trust and sacrificing the universal interest to his and their separate interest – or in one word /two words/ to betray and cheat their principals, so in that great subordinate aristocracy by the quantity of the matter of wealth existing in the shape of matter of patronage and employed or employing itself in the character of matter of corruption, a majority of the comparatively small proportion of their principals who in respect of labour think it worth their while, and in respect of appropriate intellectual aptitude can have regarded themselves as competent to give their attendances at the small number of meetings which in the course of the year are held, have by the possession or the hope of a more than equivalent profit to themselves alone been engaged in the constant habit of thus cheating themselves and their co-proprietors together, cheating that whole concern of /in/ which their own shares formed a part
  • Title: [[129b-623] 9 March 1817 Plan]
    Description: [129b-623]

    9 March 1817

    Plan Cat

    2 o

    Introd

    *29

    *29

    Me

    morandum?

    Such being /are/ the sources, from which the population of the House is generally speaking derived – such the instruments by which it is injected: opulence the source, sham election, without suffrage, or without freedom of suffrage, in a word by spurious suffrages: of the possession taken of the seat, efficient cause in appearance and in appearance only the free will /and genuine will/ of the Electors, in reality no other will than that of the person /representative himself who is/ thus seated, the wills of the Electors having, in the requisite proportion of the whole number been subdued by the will of the seducer and moulded to his purpose. From this state of things follow divers consequences the existence of which is as unquestionable, as to the extent of that part of the population in the instance of which it has place to that extent, and thence to the great majority of the whole number of the Members it is compleatly and unquestionably destructive of all title to the reputation of appropriate probity. Instead of dependence as towards the people in the character of constituents, coupled with independence as toward every other authority, independence as towards all those same constituents dependence on the C – r General or on some other sinister interest.

    Looking a little further in this conjunction of the almost universal absence of all due dependence with the incidental but generally […?] presence of undue dependence results one all comprehensive symptom of corruption and depravity in which a number a multitude of […?] ones will be seen to flow /have their origin/. This is the exclusion of all idea of obligation, political or moral as attached to the possession of the office with the power attached to it. Instead of being regarded as charged with obligation, and thereby converted into a trust the power is regarded as a subject of property, and as such, with as little scruple or danger of reproach as the land or the money by which it was arraied[?], capable of being applied to the personal use of the possessor /possessors/, in any shape at pleasure