FAGOT" VOTES: EXTENSION OF THE SUFFRAGE. Ir is not safe
poop enfranchise the masses, .say the Whigs, because they have no prerty : their actual deficiency in intelligence and education would be compensated by the favourable presumption which the renting of a ten-pound house or the possession of a
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small freehold imparts, but their poverty is a bar to their admis- sion within the electoral pale. It is not our present purpose to controvert this doctrine—valeat quantum ; but the inconsistency of the professions with the practice of the party which advances it may be permitted to raise a smile. What have the Whigs been doing in Mid Lothian? They have been at work to invest with the right of voting for that county, persons who have not bond fide the amount and description of property which their own Reform Act declares shall alone confer the privilege of voting for Mem- bers of Parliament. They have gone cunningly to work for the purpose of legally circumventing the law ; and a party implicated in these proceedings is Mr. Hoesmasr, M.P. for Cockermouth, the censor of all such practices, and Chairman of the Fictitious Votes Committee of the House of Commons. Briefly let us state the nature of the artifice by which " fagot votes" have been created in the metropolitan county of Scotland. Four distinguished Whigs, Sir JAMES GIBSON CRAIG, Mr. MURRAY of Henderland, Sir JOHN DALRYMPLE, ci-devant Mem- ber for the county, and Mr. FORREST, Lord Provost of Edinburgh, executed 160 conveyances of liferents on their respective estates to certain lackland Whigs, for prices specified : no cash was paid, but promissory notes were given for the purchase-money : the grantees then executed counter-deeds, irrevocably appointing trustees to take possession of the property " conveyed," and pay the income of it over to the grantors, until the notes aforesaid, with interest, were taken up. One of the trustees was Mr. Hoes- MAN; though that gentleman declares that he was " so nominated in the bond" without his knoa ledge. Of course, the understand- ing among the parties was, that the property should remain with the present possessors, and that no actual exchange should take place; the object being to create a number of fictitious qualifications. These transactions have been pronounced perfectly legal. Su we know of at least 160 Whig voters in Mid Lothian, who have not bona fide that qualification in the county which Whigs and Tories declare to be the only safe and practicable test of capacity to ex- ercise with discretion electoral privileges; and for the want of which, they exclude the great body of the People from any direct share in the election of their Representatives. This case of Whig "fagot vote" making is cited as the latest and most notorious. The Tories have done the same thing, though not exactly in the same way, and probably to a greater extent, in proportion to their siperior means- tt Iliacos intra mums peccatur, et extra."
Much wrath is vented by Whigs and Tories against the prac- tice of fagoting ; but, for ourselves, we are well content that it should continue, believing that the constituent body requires ex- tension, and that it is fair to use all the means the law permits to effect it. The voters in question are not phantoms, but real men, with blood in their veins and coats on their backs; and w hen they appear at the hustings in propriis personis, we should be puzzled to discover any equitable or rational excuse for turning them away denuded of the rights of citizenship. We hope that the great landowners will not he allowed to have the game entirely to themselves, but that the example will be followed by all who have the means of imitating it, in whatever shape. It is manifest, however, that under the Reform Act, cunningly contrived in this as in so many other ways, to secure predomi- nance to the favoured landed interest, the possessors of property in counties will have a large advantage over the dwellers in towns. Property which confers the franchise in towns will not also enable its owner to vote for County Members; but the landowner within the county electoral limits may com- mence fagot-making as soon as be likes. In Mid Lothian, it appears, that by giving a promissory note for 881., payment of which is never to be demanded, and signing a lithogra- Owl instrument, equally a sham, a person may acquire the county suffrage. Thus, a gentleman with an estate of the mode- rate value of 20,000/. may put 227 electors on the registry with- out the expenditure of so many pounds. Of course, WI the Scot- tish counties will be swamped with the landed gentlemen's nomi- nees; and hi England an equally effectual process may be carried ea.
The result will be an augmentation of' the constituent body— itself a benefit, and a glaring proof that the Reform Finality Men are not sincere in defending the property qualification on the plea that it is requisite as a guarantee of the voter's fitness to perform his electoral ditties. It is not necessary under the new plan that the voter should even have the reputation of honesty, for not an atom of' the property is intrusted to him: he has not the right to touch a farthing of the rents and profits of his estate, for be appoints such a trustee as the grantor directs, with- out power of revocation. We congratulate Sir JAMES GIHSOIN CRAIG and his scrupulous coadjutors on their very ingenious device for the multiplication of electors.
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