1818 Sept. 5. +.2.

Parl. Reform Bill

Reasons ult o

'.2. Electors Who

2 Householdership

1

1

Question Why not {seek to} establish Householdership in the character of a necessary qualification.

Answer 1. Because in addition to the security afforded as above under virtual universality and compleat secrecy of suffrage by the impossibility of giving effect to any particular and sinister interest no other security is needed.

Answer 2: Because in the case in question on the part of a proposed Voter it is not in the nature of Householdership, any more than of possession, any more than of the possession of property to afford any security for appropriate aptitude in any shape on the part of the Voter nor therefore for the right direction of his vote.

True it is that, supposing the faculty of reading established in the character of a necessary qualification, so far as regards the fact of a man's being in possession of this faculty, householdership is if not an indispensable, at any rate, a highly useful security for its existence. For if upon the bare assertion by which the fact of a man's possessing the faculty in question he were admitted whether he were or were not a householder a person who whether for want of the faculty or for want of being competent in respect of age and sex were admitted to vote the want of a fixt residence might in case of falshood suffice to render him unpunishable. But under the proposed system for the substantiating of this fact the written evidence of no fewer than three other persons, each of them a Householder is made requisite. Thus it is that under this system all the case[?] capable of being made of householdership is actually made of it.