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?