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Untitled Article
the total to be below 500 \ and the elective house ^( x ^ oo ^ i ^ t ^ of 150 members . As there are now 620 , here would be 650 rejected candidates ; most of them * perhaps of the old ; atoqk , and feeling all the irritation of complete and permanent , < i $ g ? a < - dation . And who would the new ones be ? Junior brajipheB of the present peerage ; aristocratic commoners ; meji tyhpse
nabits and associations would give the new house 89 , vwy strong a resemblance to the old , as that the couatry would not much felicitate itself upon the change . If the popular choice were to create a peer , the plan would be somewhat mended . Yet this would only give us a cumbrous machinery of two houses , to do the work for which one would be a
simpler and fitter instrument ; and it implies , moreover , a trenching upon the royal prerogative . Your scheme introduces so much of democracy , as must render it most offensive to the peerage ; while it is not less obnoxious to the enemies of aristocraev . bv the manner in which it oroooses to widen and
perpetuate that burden and bane of the community . It is very premature at present to enter into the details of a
plan , but it may not be unwise to discuss the principles on which any plan should be based . That of Mr . Roebuck ' s is very simple ; it is merely the extension of the period , of ctelay and deliberation which is required before a proposition passes
into a law . That extension may bo in many cases needless , aoid in some pernicious ; but generally it would at least be harmless ; and it is buying off a great mischief at a cheap rate . You profess to rest upon the principle of representation ; but what sort of representation is that in which the choice is limited by the accident of birth , and the nomination of the sovereign ?
Election there is ; but that may be a very different thing from representation , mid is capable of being totally separated from it . The voters might be compelled to select a certain number of men from the front rank of the first regiment of the guards ; and it would be as reasonable to call this representation , as the
exercise of their suffrage upon a Peerage . The elected would , in both cases , much more correctly represent the class to which they belonged , than the class by which they were appointed All the electoral ceremony in the world , even with the addition of Hiich responsibility an consists in the chance ol' not being
re-elected , would not destroy those affinities which would continue to sever both from the mass of the people , and draw the one towards his fellow shoulderers of muskets , and the other towards his comj > eers in privileges and interests . You have (• unfounded material distinctions , which often grow into contrarieties , when you sjiesik , as if it were one of " the principle of election and representation . " The title of your proposed Bill— " A ? i Aot for th * Reform of the House of Lords by combining the representative principle
Untitled Article
Agitation of Peerage Reform . 5 7
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1836, page 57, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2653/page/57/
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