[p. 87]
|87| is wholly corrupted, has in this way finally yielded. A more thoroughgoing reform has been demanded all the more since the proposals for an improvement occasioned, at the entry of each new Parliament, by the charges of bribery that had occurred remained without significant result, – since even the recently made and so highly commendable proposal to transfer the franchise taken from a borough on account of proven bribery to the town of Birmingham, and thereby to show an equitable inclination [merely] towards even a most moderate remedying of the most striking inequality, had been manoeuvred away by ministerial parliamentary tactics, especially of the minister Peel, otherwise extolled as more liberal-minded, and a great onset taken at the beginning of the session of the present Parliament had reduced itself to this, that candidates were forbidden any longer to distribute ribbons to the voters favourably disposed to them. The charges of bribery against a place entitled to vote, and the inquiries and the process upon them, since the members of the two Houses, who are the judges of such a crime, are in overwhelming number implicated in the system of corruption, and in the House of Commons the majority owe their seats to it, have been declared too openly and too loudly to be mere farces and even shameless procedures for any single remedies whatever to be still expected in such a way.
The ground otherwise customary in Parliament against attacks upon positive rights, which is taken from the wisdom of the ancestors, has not been invoked on this occasion; for with this wisdom, which is to be placed in this, that the allotment of electoral rights of the members of Parliament was measured according to the population or other importance then of the counties, towns and boroughs, the relation stands in too glaring conflict, as population, wealth, importance
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.