Thoughts on the Present Discontents, and SpeechesBurke, Edmund
General
Thoughts on the Present Discontents, and Speeches
Burke, Edmund
Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1760-1789
But admit it were true that the great mass of the electors were too vast
an object for court influence to grasp, or extend to, and that in despair
they must abandon it; he must be very ignorant of the state of every
popular interest, who does not know that in all the corporations, all the
open boroughs--indeed, in every district of the kingdom--there is some
leading man, some agitator, some wealthy merchant, or considerable
manufacturer, some active attorney, some popular preacher, some money-
lender, &c., &c., who is followed by the whole flock. This is the style
of all free countries.
--Multum in Fabia valet hic, valet ille Velina;
Cuilibet hic fasces dabit eripietque curule.
These spirits, each of which informs and governs his own little orb, are
neither so many, nor so little powerful, nor so incorruptible, but that a
Minister may, as he does frequently, find means of gaining them, and
through them all their followers. To establish, therefore, a very
general influence among electors will no more be found an impracticable
project, than to gain an undue influence over members of parliament.
Therefore I am apprehensive that this bill, though it shifts the place of
the disorder, does by no means relieve the Constitution. I went through
almost every contested election in the beginning of this parliament, and
acted as a manager in very many of them: by which, though at a school of
pretty severe and ragged discipline, I came to have some degree of
instruction concerning the means by which parliamentary interests are in
general procured and supported.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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