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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
is , to our apprehension , by far the best ; especially in combination with the ballot There would ^ then be a stimulus to instruction , where now there is only a temptation to corruption . But a vote is regarded by the Peers as property ; a something for the poor man to sell , and the rich man to buy . They have endeavoured to provide for the permanency of this most degrading of all kinds
of traffic . They , who clog the borough-suffrage of respectable inhabitants with all sorts of vexatious restrictions—they , who fought so desperate a fight against the very limited franchise conferred by the Reform Act—they cherish , as the apple of their eye , the poor man ' s property , forsooth ; his property in the misgovernment of the entire community : and they are equally careful of all other property which is capable of being turned to similar account .
Never before have the poor been favoured with such a court of guardians . Loud was the outcry for the freemen ' s property ; tneir hereditary property , as sacred as the hereditary estates of their lordships themselves . Now ,, as to the present possessors of these common lands , charity-endowments , &c , be it observed , there was no question . They were secured , or an equivalent assigned , by the Bill . The only point at issue was the future enjoyment of such property by freemen in posse . To continue the existence of a vendible class of voters , —to endow its future
members with the matter of corruption ., —these were the objects of the vaunted stand which has been made for pauper property . For these was the public interest to be sacrificed , including that of the individuals themselves , whose share ia that public interest would be an ample remuneration . But the peculiar attachment shown for this species of property is not surprising . It is precisely that with which certain fingers are most familiar . Church
property , as it is called , is of a similar description . * It is neither earned , nor inherited , nor heritable ; but consists of public funds , which are divided amongst those who can possess themselves of the government of the country , and their dependents and supporters . Church reform is resisted , because it would diminish
the amount of these funds , and change the principle of their distribution . Law reforms are resisted for analogous reasons , although in that department the competition is more open , and the service to the public more substantial . Of such property it is that the Peers have constituted themselves the peculiar guardians ; property , neither fairl y won by individual industry , nor ministering to the purposes of public good ; the property which Idleness
pos-* And is cherished by their lordships with similar tenderness . While writing the above remarks , we Hod they have rejected the appropriation clause from the Irish Church Bill . How will Ireland bear this ? The first pour pittance of good for the people out of the Church it withheld ; the crumbs of educational advantage from the tabus of Protestant E p iscopacy are refused . Church or no church , congregation or na congregation , will , say the Lords , the clergy * hall have the money . The panted conduct of JLoid Melbourne , through the very trying situations in which he naa been placed , during the proceeding s on these two great measure * , entitles him to ihm warm respect mud gratitude of the country .
Untitled Article
568 The House of Lord *—Reform or Abolition ?
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1835, page 568, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2649/page/4/
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