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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
thelw , fmd * oOfcfld « tly too , on the efltect of pwblid opinion , ^ ntightened and matured by knowledge and discussion . ' Be it so ; This is not an antithesis to organic changes , it id the measure of thmr worth . Do they , or do they not , tend to give effect to public opinion farmed and matured according to your description ? If they do , your hostility is altogether mistaken and misplaoed .
Those organic changes ; as they relate to the House of Commons * consist of the simplification and extension of the right of suffrage , secret voting , and the repeal of the Septennial Act . Each of these either tends to give ' effect to public opinion , * or to provide for the maturing of that opinion by * knowledge and discussion /
The present system of registration is a tax or penalty on the franchise , which has grown into an evil not to be endured . The inconsistency of the decisions , the activity of the hired agents of party , and the many causes which prevent the attendance of persons whose votes are objected to in the barristers' courts , render the system little better than a contrivance for reducing the num *
berg of the constituency ; and that in a mode which must often operate to the depreciation of its worth for the expression of public opinion . It is scarcely more reasonable , and it is far more vexatious , than would be the reduction of a certain proportion of votes by lot . A rotatory disqualification would be much preferable * Many a qualified voter would gladly compound , by
disfranchisement every third election , for the necessity of an annual investigation , a sort of perpetual law-suit . The old venal freemen are exempt from this reduction of their numbers ; it only falls upon the better qualified . Chance on the one hand , and corruption on the other , are thus interposed between the present constitution of the constituency and that which would make it the true
index of public opinion . The remedy of this evil is so urgently called for , that it is to be hoped you will consider an amendment of the process of registration as not within the catalogue of organic changes . There can be no provision like the Ballot for giving ' effect * to ' public opinion , enlightened and matured by knowledge and
discussion . ' Its adoption would make elections the expression of opinion , instead of being , as they now are to such an enormous extent , simply the result of influence . The necessity of cultivating opinion , by diffusing knowledge and promoting discussion amongst electors ) would be imposed on the candidates . The dexterous canvasser , the bribing agent , the authoritative landlord or master ,
would find their electoral occupation gone : they would be displaced by the political instructor . The impossibility of carrying an election but by the real opinion of the majority , would ensure attention to the formation of that opinion . It would be the establishment of an universal plan of political instruction and discusawr ; * mad ndfc . iall tk » jsbpbittry rad falsehood whiok would be
Untitled Article
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1835, page 702, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2651/page/10/
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