To say that no man shall represent any portion of
his countrymen in Parliament without a specific qualification in property, is simply limiting the choice of the electors. In practice, this effect is pretty generally evaded: if the people wish a particular member, his qualification is generally managed as easily as may be. The operation, then, of the qualification, is to compel a resource to subterfuge. Neither property generally, nor property placed in any particu- lar district, can be taken as guarantees of honest legislation. Some men in garrets are far more independent than others in palaces. One of the reputed richest Dukes in the country once said to a confidential person, that he did not remember when he had had the freedisposal of a hundred pounds. The rents of many wealthy proprietors are all spent according to a programme, of which they are• the slaves: Terrible nonsense on this head, however, prevails in the minds of persons on other subjects tolerably enlightened, and at any rate well disposed. A correspondent of the Times writes thus, mid is permitted the privilege of large type- 4e; The account, in a recent number of your paper, of the application made by some hackney-coachmen at a police-office, in consequence of the non-payment of their demand for conveying voters to the poll, deserves the serious attention of all those who are ignorant of the sort of substantiality that belongs to a Radical candidate. In urging the absolute necessity of placing the Parliamen- tary qualification on such a footing as effectually to exclude King's Bench ad- venturers from a trust that involves the dearest interests of a mighty empire, and the security of all the property it contains, I indulge the hope that I shall not have written in vain, and that every respectable member of the new Parliament will direct his earliest thoughts to this subject, which is of paramount im- portance."
How is it that such persons do not see, by their own showing, that the law of qualification, like the smuggling-laws, must be incessantly liable to evasion? Let "qualifications" that depend upon title-deeds be at once swept away : the moment voters have a free.ehoice, they will choose no King's Bench adventurer, or other. person who is likely to sell their interests for the sake of advancing his own. The qualifications for a Member of Parlia- ment are established integrity, intelligence, and leisure.
Previous page
