He who cannot by his labour
suffice for his own support has no claim to the privilege of helping
himself to the money of others. By becoming dependent on the remaining
members of the community for actual subsistence, he abdicates his
claim to equal rights with them in other respects. Those to whom he is
indebted for the continuance of his very existence may justly claim
the exclusive management of those common concerns, to which he now
brings nothing, or less than he takes away. As a condition of the
franchise, a term should be fixed, say five years previous to the
registry, during which the applicant's name has not been on the parish
books as a recipient of relief. To be an uncertified bankrupt, or to
have taken the benefit of the Insolvent Act, should disqualify for the
franchise until the person has paid his debts, or at least proved that
he is not now, and has not for some long period been, dependent on
eleemosynary support. Non-payment of taxes, when so long persisted
in that it cannot have arisen from inadvertence, should disqualify
while it lasts. These exclusions are not in their nature permanent.
They exact such conditions only as all are able, or ought to be
able, to fulfil if they choose. They leave the suffrage accessible
to all who are in the normal condition of a human being: and if any
one has to forego it, he either does not care sufficiently for it to
do for its sake what he is already bound to do, or he is in a
general condition of depression and degradation in which this slight
addition, necessary for security of others, would be unfelt, and on
emerging from which, this mark of inferiority would disappear with the
rest.
Pages:
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200