1819 Jan y 16

Parl. Reform Bill

Dialogue

Preliminary View

Evils & Remedies

II Remedies

Miselection

Electors

Qualification

3. Scholarship

13

Reformist continued

Long before the indispensable preliminary arrangements which you will see can by any

possibility have been made /carried into effect/ there would be time over and over

again, for all the adults in the United Kingdom thus to have qualified themselves.

Yes: if the right /privilege/ in question were in their hands already, and the effect

of the change were to take it from /out of/ them – in that case cause of discontent

might not be altogether wanting. But what is it in fact? It is to give them and upon

such easy conditions what till of late none of them could entertain the smallest hope

of on any conditions. The principle in question – the principle of virtually

universal suffrage – was not[?] in your eyes departed from (was it?) when the door

was shut against Non Adults against Non-Adults in such multitudes, by whom in support

of admission a case not altogether implausible or even ungrounded might have been: to

go no further back say those from 18 to 21. As a youth {can} no more add on a sudden

a year to his age than a cubit to his stature, for the age of admission at 21, all

the power of man will not suffice to put a youth of 18 in possession of the

qualification in less than three years /a moment/. Such is the case of the Non-Adult

whereas, according to the assurance given as above, three months will suffice to give

the possession of it all over the kingdom to Adults.

 The Remedies are not they now all gone through and applied?