The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1832-12-14 00:00:00

THE DUTCH WAR.

TO TILE EDITOR OF THE LIVERPOOL SZPINDARD.

SlR,—After the very clear and able exposition of Sir Howard
Douglas, as to existing treaties between Holland and the allied
powers, and his 'very excellent reasons for withholding his judg-
ment as to the line of conduct his Majesty's Ministers had pur-
sued, it is not my intention to enter on the subject, beyond
asking whether, if it proves there was a sufficient cause for our
interference in assisting France, we have done as much as we
ought to have done ? And, if there proves not a sufficient
cause, then, have we not done more than we can justify ?
Under all circumstances, under any explanations that can
take place, it appears to me that to one of these conclusions we
must inevitably come.—Yours, &c.

December lOth.
THE PLEDGING SYSTEM.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.

SIR,—In a leading article which appeared in the Liverpool
Journal of last Saturday, there is a puerile attempt to defend
the practice of exacting pledges from candidates at elections.
The writer of that article has the modesty to insinuate, by de-
signating them as the fooleries of the day, that the objections
to the practice in question, so generally felt by candidates and
the public, proceed from ignorance. Ile says that the real
meaning of the pledge, and the purpose it is meant to serve,
have escaped the penetration of those who deprecate it; that it
is not, in fact, a pledge, in the common acceptation of the
word, but a declaration of principles, because the candidate
need not perform his engagement but to the extent that he
deems it expedient to do so ; or, in other words, he may violate
his pledges with impunity, whenever it suits his convenience;
consequently, when a candidate has pledged hithself to use his
efforts in Parliament to procure the repeal of all taxes, for ex-
ample, in return for his election, this writer's penetration has
discovered that he is not bound to do any such thing. This is
the meaning of the argument, if it mean anything; for although
the candidate engages, in the most solemn manner, to do cer-
tain things, as the condition of obtaining the suffrages he soli-
cits, he is nevertheless under no moral obligation to fulfil his
engagement; he is permitted to forget it, whenever it suits his
purpose:
If this be a defence of the pledge-exacting system, I leave
you to judge. The case is represented in a new form, divested
of its objectionable qualities, and, thereby, totally changed in
its character; and in this altered shape it is held up for appro-
bation. What the writer professes to be a defence of the pledg-
ing principle, turns out in fact to be a defence of a different
thing,—the declaration of principles. He therefore relinquishes
the former as indefensible. If a declaration of sentiments be
all that is meant, and not a binding to specific acts, why should
that test of a candidate's fitness be applied in so objectionable

a form?
But the reasoning by which the obligation of a solemn pledge
is attempted to be converted into a discretionary engagement
only, by which the engagement a man enters into, when he de-
clares, as a man of honour and veracity,' that he will use his
utmost endeavours to promote certain measures in Parliament,
and in consequence of this obtains the suffrages of his consti-
tuents, the reasoning by which it is attempted to represent this
engagement as holding no control, no tie, no obligation on his
conscience, but that he may with impunity disregard and vio-
late it, discovers a principle which, I trust, will never be reduced
to practice in the transactions of this Protestant community.
It is evident that when a candidate gives pledges, and thereby
induces the electors to return him, he comes under an obliga-
tion from which he cannot be released, but on the Jesuitical

ground that when he made the pledge it was accompanied with

certain mental reservations, in virtue of which he exercises a
kind of dispensing power, by which he releases himself from his
obligation. This is the principle on which the editor of the
Journal endeavours to reconcile the public to the plan of giving
pledges. The pledging system, however, will not meet much
encouragement in this country. It is a Radical invention,
adopted from aberrative views, or to answer sinister purposes.
No man of principle and character will give pledges but with
the intention of bona fide fulfilling them; and if what is pro-
posed to him be of such a nature that he cannot conscientiously
accede to it, he will without hesitation decline it.

The pledge-exacting faction appear, by their proceedings, to
be ignorant of the principle of representation. They misun-
derstand the exigencies which, in a civilized community, have
rendered it expedient to intrust the legislative authority to a
representative body. It is true that the impracticability of all
the members of the society meeting together to deliberate on
public matters, and to,frame public laws, has rendered it neces-
sary to delegate this function to a few individuals, selected from
the community for this specific purpose. But the impractica-
bility of making. the whole community a deliberative body is
not the only inconvenience to obviate which the principle of
representation was invented. Another object is answered by
the expedient, equally important, that of securing the necessary
capacity for the business of legislation ; an object which ren-
ders it essential to separate the employment of a legislator from
the other occupations ,f.scsciety. would be as absurd to
place a man from the loom or plough-tail in the senate, as it
would be to place him at the head of, the army, or in command
of the fleet. He would be just as fit for the one employment
as for the other.

The same.prineiple of expediency which has placed the le-
gislative authority in a representative body, has also rendered
it necessary to confine the trust of choosing•that body to a part
only of the community, who, in their capacity of electors, ex-
ercise the trust confided to them, not in their own behalf only,
.but in behalf of the whole community, which they, jp. this in-
stance, represent, in selecting competent persons to represent
the whole community in Parliament.
The powers which, by the elective franchise, are conferred
on the constituent body, are plain and sufficiently defined, both
by express law, and the nature of the case. Their business is
simply to choose fit persons to represent them in Parliament,
and the powers which they can constitutionally- exerki;e are
limited to what are requisite for executing this specific act, to

what is necessary for ascertaining the fitness of candidates for
serving in Parliament. If, under pretence of ascertaining the
fitness of candidates, they attempt to exercise powers which are
not only not necessary for that purpose, but-incompatible with
the functions of a constituent body, .they assume powers with
which. they arc not entrnsted; their proceedings are illegal and
unconstitutional.

The practice recently introduced by. the Republican faction,
of exacting pledges from candidates, is incompatible
.with the
powers which, as electors, they can constitutionally exercise.
It is not indispensable as a test of the qualification of candi-
dates, and is therefore au assumption of power ivith which. the
constitution has not intrusted them. It is an unconstitutional
attempt to transfer the powers of the representative to-the eon-
stituent,body ; the function of the legislature to the electors ;
the initiative as.well as .the deliberative. faculty, sincesand.i.;
dates are not'only.pledged for the introduction of specific n:cia-
sures, but also •for their decision in a specific way.
• .
The constitution. does not. place in the .hands of the consti-
tuency the power of.controlling the legislatnre,.in respect to,the
indicative or deliberative faculties, the introduction or decision
of questions ; it places that power in•the hands of the commu-
nity,. of which the ejectors form but a section. Thcir powers
as electors terminate with the elections, and .they themselves
merge in.the mass of the community. When an active exer-
cise of the controlling power is .neccssary, the. constitutional
.method is petitioning, by the cotninunity -at large,- notby the..
electors, as. .electors.. The Parliament .tapresenzi.?g the com-
muiiity,..not:the electors, • the community is. the, body which can
constitutionally control it.-,-yam,„ &e, R. N.