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Untitled Article
They will have much more to do than merely to vote , aye or no , as the people ' s proxies , on a single question . We want men of the highest intellectual capacity that can be found . They should have souls that can grasp futurity , and yet be equal to any temporary emergency which may arise . The present ministry is not likely to last long . The court is not with it , and the peers are
against it . Whenever it dissolves , its supporters will be seen in hostile ranks . It does not appear , indeed , how any ministry that will satisfy the people can long exist without some great changes in the spirit of the peerage and of the court . The manner in which the Reform Bill was got through with , is sufficiently
ominous . We shall evidently want men of clear heads , sound principles , and great moral courage , in the Commons . These are no times for compliment . Those who voted well last session deserve our thanks ; but those on whom we can rely for voting and acting well through coming sessions , and it may be very trying and stormy ones , alone have claims on our suffrages .
The requisite qualifications for a member of the House of Commons have been , at all times , very much underrated by some electors , falsely estimated by others , and by too many totally disregarded . There are many men fitted for activity in parish and civic contentions , where only some limited and tangible interest is at stake ; useful members of vestries and corporations , quite
competent to the honourable discharge of the duties of local magistracy , whose minds are utterly incapable of expanding to the comprehension of national interests , and who only signalize themselves in the great council of the nation , by adding to the already monstrous mass of shortsighted , pettifogging , and vexatious legislation . There are others who aspire to represent particular interests , and
who , therefore , only misrepresent the general interest . These are just the persons to sacrifice a great question to a little one . The timber trade almost upset the ministry and the Reform Bill together . Their practical knowledge is inestimable , as a source of information , but it is no security for their ability in its legislative application . Mere practical men have seldom any large views , even of the peculiar interests of the class to which they belong .
In the various entanglements of those interests with the interests of other classes , they are often utterly confounded . Of the mutual dependence of all classes they have seldom any conception ; they are chosen under the notion of protecting this or that trade ; and so they stickle for duties and prohibitions which injure all trade . Then , again , there is another set of persons whom some would
send into a reformed parliament , simply because they have stimulated the popular discontent with a corrupt parliament . A man may know how to pulL down , and animate others in the work of demolition , who has little capacity for building up . Great effect may be produced at public meetings by a fluent orator , who has , perhaps , a stirring question of corruption or oppression to deal with , which only requires a direct appeal to the elementary
Untitled Article
436 On Parliamentary Pledges .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1832, page 436, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1816/page/4/
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