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Untitled Article
the necessary expenditure . Form yourselves into district and parish societies for these purposes . Summon your candidates to meet these societies * Such meetings are a thousand times better than a personal £ anVass > aboiit Which there is much of drudge ry * influence ; and degradation , that might well be spared . And let no confidence in your candidate supersede the exacting from him
the most distinct avowals and pledges on all great principles and essential points . No reasonable man can object to being pledged * If his mind be not made up on the principles by which the most important matters that can come before him must be decided , he had better continue in private life until he has considered the subject more thoroughly . The House of Commons is not a school to afford instruction to those who are ignorant df ^ or undecided
upon , the elements of such legislation as the times require . As to going unshackled into the House , no trustee can be free ^ or , if honest , will wish to be free , from the obligation of attending to the interests and wishes of those for whom he acts . It is very desi ~ rable that * on the present occasion , the same or similar pledges should be adopted ^ generall y * throughout the country . Various
lists of proposed pledges are in circulation . I have seen none with which I am perfectly satisfied , though it is gratifying to ob * serve that the same spirit pervades most of them . Some , however , are so indefinite that they may be easily evaded . Others are so numerous and minute that they become vexatious , may exclude some of the people ' s best friends , and do not leave sufficient latitude for the discretion which a man , who is fit to be chosen at
all , may be safely trusted to exercise under circumstances which it is impossible to anticipate . As I purpose to make my own vote contingent on the following , I submit them to the consideration of my fellow-electors . I . The Repeal of all Taxes which tend to impede the Diffusion of Knowledge . —The claims of no candidate ought to be entertained for an instant who does not give his unequivocal and hearty assent
to this proposal , and declare his determination actively and promptly to support it in the legislature . The stamp duties on newspapers , the advertisement duty , the excise duty on paper , the custom-house dues on foreign books imported , ought to be swept away at once and entirely . Calculations have been made for the purpose of showing that the most pernicious of these imposts , the newspaper stamp , may be taken off without any loss to
the revenue * add even with profit , by allowing the circulation of printed papers through the post on the payment of a very small postage . But it ought not to be made a Question of revenue . Taxation should find other food to feed upon than public intelligence * The means of knowing all that it concerns a member of the community to know , should be allowed to come at the lowest possible rate to every inan ' s door . The public treasury ought rather to be drained for the diffusion of knowledge , than reple-
Untitled Article
On Parliamentary Pled ge ** 439
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1832, page 439, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1816/page/7/
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