The Sun.
London, England, 1838-08-08 00:00:00

services.

4. With regard to the first of these things, namely, Annual Parlia.
ments, your petitioners beg to remind your Honourable House, that
there never were any other than Annual Parliaments in this country for
many ages, during which the great mass of the people enjoyed more
real happiness, and were less prone to crime, than at any other period
of our history; and that it was unknown to our laws for Parliaments to
be of more than three years duration until the Whigs (wham God has
permitted so long to infest this country) passed the Septennial Act—the
same faction who invented the Funding system, the Excise, the new
Poor Law, and scores of other acts of innovation on the ancient rights of
the nation, all tending to impoverish and degrade the people. A great
reason in your petitioners' estimation why Parliaments should not be
permitted to exist longer than one year, is the certainty that the re-
presentatives of the people, being sent back as frequently as possible to
render to the people an account of their conduct in Parliament, they will
be more disposed to cultivate the good opinion of their constituents, and
will not have the opportunity nor the desire )af making a seat in your
Hon. House the mere means of forwarding their own private interests,
instances of which we witness every day, and hundreds of which we could
name, were we not restrained by that salutary dread of bringing your
Hon. House into contempt, which, we trust, will always influence us
whenever we may presume to lay our humble supplications at your feet.
Your petitioners beseech your Hon. House to consider also how
manifestly unjust it is that Parliaments should continue longer than one
year, inasmuch as a vast number of persons will have arrived every year
at the proper age for giving a vote Ibr Members of Parliament, who wil
otherwise be unjustly deprived of the exercise of that right, and thus
render it impossible for them to have any eon Hence in the wisdom and
integrity of Parliament, a thing so necessary to the happiness and well-
being of the people, These reasons alone, your petitioners believe suffi.
cient to show that Parliaments ought to be elected annually " or oftener
if needs be."
5. In petitioning for the extension of the right of voting for Members
of Parliament to every man who has arrived at the age of eighteen, your
petitioners are actuated by this reason :—That, as the law has fixed
that as the age when a man chall become liable to be called upon to
bear arms in the defence of his country, it is unjust to refuse him the
right of voting for persons whose acts may cause him to be compelled to
come forth and risk life and limb in the defence of the institutions of a
country in which he has scarcely more privileges than if he were an
alien. And your petitioners further believe that it is not more unrea.
sonable to entrust such persons with the right of exercising the elective
franchise, than it is to place the executive POWER OF THE NATION in THE
HANDS OF • PERSON of that age, nor more dangerous than it is to en-
trust them with the possession of muskets and other deadly weapons.
G. Your petitioners are aware that it has long been the standing ar.
gument with the tyrants who oppose the freedom of the people, that
the poor man is "virtually" represented; but they are, at the same
time, firmly convinced, that, Ls a pictorial representation of a dinner
would not satisfy the appetite of even ono of those doomed unfortu-
nates who are being taught to live upon such minute infinitesimal P or.
Cons of bad food, and who inhabit the New Poor-law Bastiles which have
been so kindly provided for them by their " virtual representatives" in
Parliament, so will such representation not much longer be endured by
the people of this nation, seeing, that the industrious part of them are,
almost to man, fully alive to the monstrous mischiefs which have re:
suited to them from this fraudulent and insolent, usurpation, which,
without their own consent, appropriates the fruits of their labour, and
places them in that state in which it might be truly said of them that
their very bodies are not their own. They are aware (as Blackstone
expresses it) that upon the " true theory and genuine principles of li.
berty, every member of the community, however poor, should have a
vote in electing those delegates to whose charge is committed the disposal
of his property, his liberty, and his life." They are also aware that, as
the same writer says, "the lawfulness of punishing criminals is founded
upon this principle—that the law by which They suffer was made by their
own consent." And further, they are told, not only by the Constitution
of England, but by reason, by justice, by plain common sense, that,
"LAWS TO BIND ALL MUST BE ASSENTED TO BY •LL." The same unerring
guides also tell them that the right to vote for those who make the
laws is the great characteristic distinction between freemen and slaves.
Whilst your petitioners are occupying the precious time of your Ho-
nourable House on this subject, they would beseech you to permit them
to remind you that the Act, passed in the second year of the reign of
William IV., and which isfalsely and ridiculously called the "Reform,'
Act, instead of having extended the elective franchise, as prayed for, has
absolutely narrowed it, and has retained it wholly in the hands of the
more wealthy part of the people! And this is the "great boon," given
to us in the place of that Reform for which we had, for so many years,
been praying, and for endeavouring to obtain which, so many of the
people have had to endure scorn, mocking, ignominy, stripes and impri_
sonment, banishment and transportation from their native land, whilst
the hangman's noose, and the axe, and the ripping-knife have been the
reward of others! We prayed for such a Reform as would give to
every man a vote; we were at length told by the Government that they
were ready, not to give us all that we prayed for, but to give us a substan.
tial Reform; and, after thus lulling our suspicions, and gaining our con.
fidence, they, with Whig-like perfidy, pass a measure that is so clogged
with conditions, that, in its operation, the number of electors is found to
be smaller than it was before this " BOON" was granted !
7. As regards the composition the "Reformed" Commons' House,
your petitioners beg to be permitted to direct your attention to the fol-
lowing facts :—Namely, that a majority of the Members of your Ho-
nourable I-louse are, at this time, returned by 151,492 electors, whilst,
in the United Kingdom, the number of mates, above 18 years of age, is
about 7,000,000, and the entire population is 24,000,000, thus we find
that less than 1.46 th of those who ought to possess the elective fran-
chise, or 1-160th of the entire population, have the power of passing
laws its the House of Commons to bind the whole people! And to show
to your Honourable House how the property-qualified constituency ex-
ercise the right of voting, we tender to your notice the fact, that, among
the Members chosen by the 1.160 th part of the population, we and no
fewer than 167 officers of the army and navy, which is more than I.4th
of the whole House ; and, in addition to these, there are 51 placensen,
and not fewer than 100 sons, brothers, and other near relations of Peers.
Here, then, are 318 Members of your Honcurable House, of whom_
more than one-half are dependent on the Government, and the wholeo
them have an interest in direct opposition to the interest of the indus-
trious t
,e
in a
class, and, therefore, arc not likely to be faithful guardians of
bin.
persons and property of that class. And your petitioners, I
mility, affirm, that, out of the whole 658 who compose your Honour-
ableot five)
House, there are not more than two or three (certainly n
Members in whose capability (they will not say integrity) for manag lug
the affairs of this country they have the smallest confidence.
s for
8. With regard to the manner of taking the votes at elec.hn tink
nthat
Members of your Honourable House, your petitioners du
rotec.
when the suffrage shall be universal, the voters should have the
.ii their p
tion of the Ballot, inasmuch as they will then hold the vote iii te
own right, and not as a trust ; for, whilst it is a trust, those who have
to be
it slot, ought to know how it is exercised ; but, whilst it ceases to
man
a trust, then no man will have any right to know how another
votes, and cannot wish to know but from some unworthy
motive.
9. Concerning the qualification of Members, your petitioners think,
ethat it should not consist in the possession of wealth, which
c left toannot
confer talent or honesty ; but that the voters themselves should b
choose their representatives for any of those qualities or endowments that
.
they, the electors, may wish to have engaged in their service, believing,
as every sensible man must, that they will never choose glen whose
conduct would be likely to produce injury to those whom they represent,
and who ought to be the sole judges of the qualification of those whom
they may desire to engage in their service; at any rate, it is not Om"'e
for them to choose men who would do acts worse than those perpetrates
by the men who passed the new Treason-laws, the new Trespass-laws,
the new Game-laws, the Six Acts, the Draco.like code of laws for fet-
tering the press. They will never send men to Parliament as their
representatives possessing less talent and moral worth than those men pos-
sessed who once agreed to a resolution declaring, at the time of the great
depreciation of paper money, that a pound.note and a shilling were equal
in value to a golden guinea, whilst the guinea was being constantly
sold for 28s. in paper ; and who afterwards agreed to another resolution
declaring that, at that former period, a pound-note and a shilling were
not equal to a golden guinea! They will never send men into your
Honourable House who will be found to be so stupid, or unprincipled,
or both, as those men who passed a law to prevent the Bank of England
from paying its creditors, and who afterwards came to a unanimous vote,
which had, as they innocently thought and triumphantly declared, "set
the question of the currency at rest for ever," by diminishing the
amount of the circulating medium of the country without making an
"equitable adjustment" of all contracts—that is to say, without di.
minishing the amount of debts, taxes, and pecuniary burdens of
all kinds in the same proportion—thus compelling the people to
pay the same amount of debts, taxes, and burdens, with a dimi•
nished amount of money! They will not send men to Psrlia-