William Rathbone : a memoir / by Eleanor F. Rathbone.

  • Eleanor Rathbone
Date:
1905
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: William Rathbone : a memoir / by Eleanor F. Rathbone. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    received ; —these, I fear, are symptoms of a national depravity, and do not wholly originate in the corruptions of Government. I ask myself, if the right of suffrage were (as I think it ought to be) universal, would it at this time make the Government more the organ of the Nation’s will than it already is ? If it would not, the evils we now suffer are to be attributed to the ignorance, the prejudice, and perhaps the luxury and riches of indi¬ viduals, and would not be removed by political Reform, though I still hope this would help to lessen them. Our most effectual Reformer must, I fear, be a national Calamity, and till then I despair of much being done either politically or individually as Citizens. I am almost afraid I may be misunderstood in what I have said when I consider how little I am known to my friend, but I hope this will not be the case, though I ought not perhaps to have entered on the subject without having time to make myself more clearly understood. I sent thee a few days since by one of the Greenock traders a small parcel containing a few tracts. The Life of Isaac Jenkins was written by a friend of mine in Shropshire, and I think is likely to do good to the lower classes. I wish it had occurred to me to send the Duke of Richmond’s letter to Colonel Sharman. It contains the idea I alluded to about a reform in the mode of voting. At present the plan for doing this would have some diffi¬ culties, but they might be assisted—on the plan of Uni¬ versal Suffrage and the elections through the kingdom being on one day and at the same hour, the mode would be the easiest imaginable. I have some ideas about the reform in this respect under the present system, such as increasing the number of Returning Officers to shorten the time of contested elections, voting by Ballot, shut-