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be convicted of fraud or felony ? A whole district may be distracted by feuds , may be plundered by mismanagement , may be injured by partialities , may be subjected to a thousand annoysttices , from the very institutions that should be the safeguard of its comforts and the means of its improvement , without being able
to bring home proof of criminality . Sheer uselessness is a ritt isance that ought to be abated . No guilt was ever proved upon that venerable civic authority , the Bear of Bernfe ; and yet the Bernese were perfectly justified in saving the cost of his food , cage , and keeper . It is put in proof that the constitution of existing corporations is not well adapted for the purposes of municipal utility . That is enough . Let another be framed more
m harmony with the dictates of observation and experience . e say thfc Lords , in effect ; * there is something of greater moment than doing the best for the inhabitants of a town ; and that is , securing the emoluments , gratifications , and influence of the present corporators , who are , like ourselves , one of the great
classratetests of the country . ' O , the strong affinities of corruption The Reformers are well lessoned on the necessity of close union and active co-operatioti . llie introduction of a property qualification for municipal offices , even for the town council , which is to constitute the only rifcteck arid control of the people upon mismanagement , is alone
diiflfefcierit to settle the Question of aristocratical legislation for ever . Our readers will observe , that the object of these remarks is not < d illustrate the present condition of the Bill , but the character of tli 6 legislation by which that Bill has been reduced to its present Cdfidition . Why should the Peerage insist on a property qualification , or , what comes to the same thing , the belonging to the highest class of rate-payers , for town councillors ?* Not from any
abstract veneration for the wisdom which belongs to property , and is by some presumed to be naturally associated with its pos-SfcSsibn . Their lordships would demur to a property qualification for their own House . Their lordships know what numbers of their own order are as poor as rats ; they know the muster-roll
6 f a hundred and seventy pauper Peers ; but they know also that the sinister interests of an impoverished Peerage are leagued with the predominance of the propertied classes 6 ver the industrious Classes throughout the country . Their objection is not to a poor man , either in a corporation , the Legislature , or the Peerage ; but
only to a poor man who is identified with the honest interests of the class to which he belongs . Who but the Peers used to practtftfc trie wholesale evasion of the qualification for the House of Cottrfnons ? They were always ready to open its doors for any tfoor boy , "provided he were a clever rascal , whose talents would rtelj ) them to carry on the war against the ( adverse faction ;' Hltose wit and rhetoric would be the ' life , grace , and ornament *
* Their lordshi ps have vibrated ; on the recommitment a property qualification was adopted , and the bankruptcy of an alderman was allowed to disqualify .
Untitled Article
666 The House of Lords- ^ lltfortn or Abolition ?
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1835, page 566, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2649/page/2/
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