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4
Such might be expected to be the language: it seems to arise naturally enough out
of what any body may see of the facts. I state it with the less reserve, knowing as I
have such good occasion to know, how destitute it would be of foundation in the real
dispositions of Administration. But to form an opinion for the public, we must
put ourselves in the place of the public: to whom reality is nothing, any farther
than as it may have been certified by appearance.
Upon what plan too could a new choice be instituted? To whom committ the
initiative? To the Proposer alone? — that lies open to the objections already
stated. To the Supervisors appointed under the original plan? That would be
still recurring to the old farce of actum agere. Is it for them to be called upon to
condemn their former choice and make a new one? to condemn too the 12 Judges
and their high Colleagues who confirmed it? Once again to what purpose and on
what ground?
Other Trustees then would be to be sought after for the purpose. But who then
shall they be? In the first place, by whom named? By Administration? — be it so.
But at whose suggestion? All the Proposer's? — This again would be another farce.
Without his privity then or approbation. — Observe the consequence. What shall
be the force and measure of their influence? Decisive, absolutely binding upon him,
it can never be. It is out of his pocket that the money is to come for the purchase
of the land: it is out of his pocket that the money is to come that is to be laid out
upon it. From Administration advances & assistance are to come it is true: but
this does not vary the argument. Will it be expected of him that he shall submitt
to see his money laid out for him, his whole property perhaps disposed of, by he
knows not who, by persons who are not to be of his own choice? They and he may agree,
it is true, whoever they are. — But what if they disagree? There the plan sticks:
as the original one did more than once from this very cause. Yet were circumstances there
much less favourable to the growth of differences than here. Here one of the parties, the
very party over whom the other is set as a guard, is one who may have the whole force
of personal interest to steel him against concession: there nobody had any such interest
to rivet him to a wrong choice. What augments the difficulty is that the possibility of
carrying on the employments, to which all the Proposer's views & all his resources
have been directed, is dependent on situation. All his raw materials, (timber) much
of his finished work, are of the bulkiest kind: Water-carriage, and a near market
are absolutely indispensable.
Of
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Identifier: | JB/119/133/004 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 119.
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119 |
panopticon |
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133 |
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004 |
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copy/fair copy sheet |
4 |
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recto |
f1 / f2 / f3 / f4 |
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39644 |
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