JB/137/462/001

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To Erskine

Ch. 10 People best course
3 Grattan answered
Universality undangerous

8
5. Universal suffrage
non without property
have an interest opposite
to that of proprietors

"a body who have not with respect to you, like the Catholics in
"property, a common, but have a distinct and opposite interest;
"and are not politically the same, but essentially different;
"a body which puts nothing into the common stock, and is
"to take everything out of it; some of them are the objects of your
"charity; others the object of your justice, and all of them now
"invited to become IInstrument of Mischief and Members of
"Government. A plan which insults the beggar with a power
"in the state, and which robs the people of their influence in
"the Constitution, which goes against the rights of man and the
"principle of the British Constitution, which destroys all the
"Counties; which takes away from every Citizen and freeholder
"one vote by regulation, and extinguishes by the voice and votes
"of the Multitude the effect of the other; and which by its direct
"and indirect operation, taken together, disfranchises all the
"property in the kingdom, with such Electors as have none. |

10
6. Riots would abound

and
"whose condition alone, however subdivided their multitude, wd
"make an Election a riot; with such an unqualified rout the
11
67 Annuality increases
the mischief
"plan of personal representation becomes more alarming
"by doubling the number of Electors and making the parliament
"annual; that is, by diminishing the franchise and by
"doubling the confusion, afterwards making that confusion
"eternal, so that instead of 150 Elections once in eight years,
"we shd have every year 300 Elections.

12
Universal riot reasserted

"Suppose a potwalloping Borough without even the restraint
"of a potwalloping qualification; suppose an Election
"of which Swords+ gives you an orderly and tranquil image, + so in the original
"multiplied into 300 instances, and blazing out every year at
"the same moment in every part of the kingdom; trade
"industry, government order, liberty, external consequence
"and internal repose, in short young Ireland what must be
"your lot, while the business of your legislation, your trade
"and your agriculture stand still to give way to this universal
"canvass and universal disorder, to this permanent
"intoxication and revolutionary riot

13
8. Remedies inadequate
1 Power of the rich
in buying votes

"To destroy the influence of landed property is the object
"of individual representation, but its immediate effect wd
"be to extinguish the people. The rich might for a time make
a

Identifier: | JB/137/462/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 137.
Date_1		Marginal Summary Numbering	8-13
Box	137	Main Headings	radicalism not dangerous
Folio number	462	Info in main headings field	to erskine
Image	001	Titles
Category	collectanea	Number of Pages	1
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering	e3
Penner	john flowerdew colls	Watermarks	john dickinson & c<…> 1813
Marginals	jeremy bentham	Paper Producer	a. levy
Corrections		Paper Produced in Year	1813
Notes public		ID Number	47179
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