The National Register.
London, England, 1818-06-22 00:00:00

ó'î tlldL ç>

~~~~

No. 541.—V0z.. XI.

POLITICAL DISQUISITION.

THE DUTIES OF ELEC lOUS AT THE PREiENT

CRISIS.

THE greatest beauty in the British Constitution is
the principle of renovation: in the natural body, this
principle characterizes living and organised beings, and
provides for the preservation of the animal or plant
amidst the constant flux and evaporation of the parti.
rlsz of am..er of which it is composed. In the body
politic it provides far the renovation of the Government

by the election of a new Parliament. If this is our
gmatan boast, it is accompanied, like all blessings,
with correspondent duties of the greatest importance:
and it behoves us not to pass over those duties care-
lessly. The present is the time to exercise diem.--
Whoever has felt anxiety upon public proceedings ;
whoever has condemned or approved of the measures
sanctioned by the late Parliament, ought now to recall
his past reflections to revive his former feelings, and,
weighing them with that coolness which time naturally
induces, act up to those which he still approves. The
olcient critic advises the poet to keep his pro'luctious
for nine years, in order to profit by his own cooler
judgment; unfortunately the politicians of this country
find too much of that coolness in the shorter period of
six years. Political questions succeed each other like
figures in a magic lantern, and leave not the slightest
vestige behind on minds which am never occupied
but with the object which is presented to them by t!•e
circumstances of the day It is net the mature jetig-
meta wlei.l Horace recommends for the author, bet
the indifference which springs from indolence; it ;re-
-leefbles not the subje.•tioo of early passion to the con-
trout of reason, but the impotence of age, in which
feeling is no more. It is of 101 marks the most fatal
symptom of the times. The Members of the late Rouse
of Cumulous arc now sent b:n•i: to their constituents, to
be conarated or rejected, and their constituents think
only of their coniluct during the last Session, or even
the two last months of it, not recollecting the occasions
during the five preceding years, when their Represeu-
t•ttives p-rhaps not only voted in d:rect oppositiou to
their wishes, but formed a part of thwe large majorities
who treat the petitions of those who sent them to Par-
:.ament with contempt and scorn. The greater the
v. rung, the insult ; and the keener the feelings with
which they were received at the time, the more childish
and pitiable is this forgetfulness. The paaeur el circen-
sis of the Romans may be more odious, bat cannot he
fore contemptible, for this is truly iufautine. Yet such
;:s exactly the case with a huge portion of the public in
a country prnad of the selility aad dignity its na-
t;:inal character.
Besides this strange forgetfulness, another and most
extensive cause of voting for Candidates whose public
conduct has not entitled them to the centiouation of
their egmstituents' confidence, is private friendship—
rot always for the candidate herself, hat fur same ef
his committee, .or of his committee's friends, or their
connexions, cr fer any one leo 1:e. taken a warm pert
in the election. Such a ratuive tbr giving a vote for
one of whose public conduct the elector does not him-
se t. approve, is absurd in the eye of reason. Vet men
ve.ose understandings are by no means weak, and
whose condnet in the:: own private eonee.-ns is any
thing but absurd, are daily giving, their votes in th:s
nu.nner. Would they tahe a deed• teieen tliet: itnew
to be ignorant of the common rule.; ofarithieetle, or to
be dishonest—or any other servant icier: aby expe-
rience to be totally unfit for his sitaati,o, and that si-
tuation of importance, merely to please a fit rid, or a
friend's friend nine times removel Certainly not—
; they wadi' say at once " The may you mom.
=end has been tried and convicted at the Old Bailey
of fraud--I will oblige you therefore taty other way,