[clxiv. 211]

1820 June 30

Emancipation Spanish

?8. Corruptive influence

With no other considerable difference than that between possession and expectancy, between enjoyment and desire all this whole system of corruption is no less determinately and scarcely less extensively an object of fond and indissoluble attachment to the party /those/ who laud one another under the name of Whigs than to those whom they vituperate under the name of Tories.

Between the forms employed in the giving support to the system on the one part and the other, there is little more than this difference. In by far the greater part of it, the system of expenditure that necessitated by the payment of interest on the debt excepted is as completely needless as well as pernicious to the subject many as it is necessary to the support of the sinister interest of the ruling few. To This useless and superfluous part the men in office the Tories give their support in one way, the Whigs, in another. The Tories in a direct way, by continually calling for the whole amount, and defending it against all proposals of retrenchment: the Whigs by the inconsiderableness and utter inadequacy of those retrenchments which on pain of giving up the contest, they could not fail from time to time to call for: thus, of every retrenchment not called for, admitting, in a negative indeed and [...?] but not less decided and effectual way admitting and thus asserting the propriety and needfulness.