6 ‘ New Parliament. [ Jury, 
will not do, till seniority brings me up among the seven select; if at 
Canterbury, I must purchase of the corporation, and they may refuse’; 
if in Manchester, I can geta vote on no terms, for there are no repre- 
sentatives; and I lose my University right, if I do not continue my 
name on the boards, that is, continue to pay a refreshing fee of three or 
four pounds every year. If I have a freehold of forty shillings in any 
county—a copyhold of forty thousand pounds is useless—I havea vote for 
that county ; but I might as well be without it ; because, unless there are 
men to spend forty, fifty,—one hundred thousand pounds, there will be no 
choice, and where there is a choice, it lies between the sons or protéoés 
of overgrown peers. But if I am the lucky owner of Old Sarum, or Corfe- 
Castle, or any one of fifty other places, I can even seat any body I like, 
without further trouble ; or if I choose to make money of my privilege, I 
can put it into my attorney's hands, and sell it for five thousand pounds. 
How such discrepancies arise every body knows, but on what prin- 
ciple is the continuance of them so pertinaciously defended? “The 
terrors of innovation? no; we can innovate fast enough now-a-days, 
when the Government leads the way. It is simply, because those who 
have the power, choose to keep it. But that is just so much the more 
compelling reason for the excluded to club and exert their power, and 
force the privileged to surrender an equitable participation. 
But not only are one-half of the nation excluded from a single vote, 
but numbers have a plurality. This is as intolerable as the exclusion: it 
is an insulting mockery of those who have none. The same person may 
have votes by birth, residence, purchase, and corporate privilege ; and one 
hundred pounds a year will secure forty shilling freeholds in every 
county in England and Wales, while half a million in the funds or thou- 
sands in copy-hold, will not give one. If property is to qualify, multiply 
votes in proportion to property; but if property does not in numerous 
instances at all, why should it in any? Universal suffrage, and no 
‘ qualification,’ is the only rational course. 
The petty plans of our whig reformers fill us with contempt. Let all 
who pay direct taxes, says Lord John Russel, the oracle of reform, 
have a vote. Now observe, only five or six millions out of fifty-seven 
are so raised—that is, one out of eleven. We do not say the number 
of suffrages would be reduced in the same proportion ; but we ques- 
tion whether this precious scheme would not disfranchise as many as it 
would enfranchise. Besides, why such distinction? The indirect is as 
much a tax asthe direct. Some men can make a distinction and forget 
to ascertain the difference. 
So much for the rights of electors. Let us turn for a moment to the 
elections. What scenes of riot and confusion ;—would you extend 
these horrors of turbulence into districts that are at present happily 
exempt from their periodical visitations? No. We say why congre- 
gate a mob at all? Why’ assemble freemen from -every side of 
the kingdom to the borough, and freeholders to the county-town ? 
Qualify every man in the district in which he resides, and let proper 
officers take their votes on the spot, parochially and simultaneously, 
after the manner in which the last population-act was carried into exe- 
cution. Why cast a needless expense upon the candidate, for carriage, 
for subsistence, and then talk about bribery?) The sums that are spent 
in direct bribery, except in close boroughs, where five, or twenty, or 
fifty guineas a head is the current price—or three, four, or five thou- 
sand to the patron—these sums so spent, we say, are insignificant com- 
