[p. 88]
|88| of the regions and of the interests have shaped themselves in more recent times. Nor has the point of view been brought up that so many individuals suffer a loss of property, a still greater multitude lose a money income; the pecuniary gain drawn from direct bribery is illegal, although all classes are involved in it by giving or receiving. The capital value that is lost on the boroughs whose franchise is to be taken away rests on the transformation, which has taken place in the course of time, of a political right into a money value, and although the acquisition at a price which is now sinking has occurred bona fide just as much as in the purchase of slaves, and although in the English Parliament, with new laws in such a case, much regard is otherwise paid to the preservation of real property and to compensation, when a loss arises for it, yet in the present case no claims to this, nor difficulties from this side, have been raised, however much this circumstance may be effective as a motive against the Bill in a number of Members of Parliament.
On the other hand, another principle of right, preeminently peculiar to England, is attacked by the Bill, namely the character of the positive which the English institutions of public law and private law predominantly bear. Every right and its law is indeed, in form, a positive one, ordained and posited by the supreme power of the state, to which obedience must be rendered for the very reason that it is law. But at no time more than today has the general understanding been led to the difference whether rights, even according to their material content, are only positive or also right and rational in and for themselves, and in no constitution is judgement so much occasioned to attend to this difference as in the English, after the peoples of the Continent have for so long let themselves be impressed by the declamations about English freedom and by the
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.