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The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria cover

The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria

Chapter 322: BILL FOR EXCLUDING CONTRACTORS, ETC.
By Edward Farr
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About This Book

The volume traces British political, parliamentary, and military developments from the accession of George III through the early nineteenth century, chronicling changes of ministry and cabinet, debates over colonial taxation and the American conflict, parliamentary controversies involving figures such as Wilkes and Warren Hastings, questions of Catholic relief and slave-trade abolition, and responses to the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, including major naval and continental campaigns, the union with Ireland, and domestic legislation on finance, civil liberties, and parliamentary reform.

BILL FOR EXCLUDING CONTRACTORS, ETC.

It has been seen that bills for disabling revenue-officers from voting at elections, and excluding contractors from the house of commons, had been repeatedly brought into parliament, and as repeatedly negatived. In order to acquire popularity ministers revived these bills, and they now passed with approbation and applause. And it seems to have been high time that such measures should have been adopted. In support of the former bill, the Marquess of Rockingham declared that the election chiefly depended on officers of the revenue in seventy boroughs, and that nearly 12,000 officers, created by the recent administration, possessed votes in other places. He argued that his situation, as first lord of the treasury, would be extremely uneasy if the bill were rejected, for he could not without remorse subject them through his influence to the necessity of voting against the dictates of gratitude and conscience. This was a curious argument, but it terminated the debate, and the bill passed. About the same time, also, Mr. Burke’s Reform Bill was again brought forward, and after some warm opposition in the house of lords was adopted. By this bill the board of trade, the board of works, the great wardrobe, the office of American secretary of state, and many sinecure appointments were abolished.