1819 May 18

Disfranchising

Disfranchising

§.5. Evil 4. Encrease Country Members

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12

8

There stands the master as between the Country Gentleman on the one hand and a Candidate belong to any other class, and in particular to the commercial class on the other, there stands the matter the question of aptitude, on the ground of appropriate intellectual aptitude, on the ground of appropriate probity. Observe now how it stands on the ground of appropriate intellectual aptitude, and appropriate active talent.

On the part of the Country Gentleman you can have no assurance /probable cause/ of either of these desirable qualities /endowments/ in any degree. Nothing but fear of exposure without profit could /need/ prevent a Lord who has a seat at his disposal from putting in a son of his though he were in a state of idiocy or next door to it.

But never /at no time/ can the mind of the mercantile /commercial/ man have been /be/ in any such state. So long as he has been what by the supposition he is, his mind has been in a constant state of activity: of activity kept up by the spur of personal interest, much stronger than that of any public interest. It is therefore in the possession of a habit of activity, as well as of practical knowledge, obtained /acquired/ by experience and observation, in virtue of that habit. But, with more or less facility, according to circumstances, a fund composed of knowledge, judgment and activity stored up /once acquired/ by application to any one branch of business is a species of capital, transferable to any other branch of business.