I now proceed to draw some comparisons between the French constitution and the governmental usages in England.
The French constitution says that every man who pays a tax of sixty sous per annum (2s. 6d., English) is an elector. What will Mr. Burke place against this? Can anything be more limited, and at the same time more capricious, than the qualifications of electors are in England?
The French constitution says that the National Assembly shall be elected every two years. What will Mr. Burke place against this? Why, that the nation has no right at all in the case, and that the government is perfectly arbitrary with respect to this point.
The French constitution says there shall be no game laws, and no monopolies of any kind. What will Mr. Burke say to this? In England, game is made the property of those at whose expense it is not fed; and with respect to monopolies, every chartered town is an aristocratical monopoly in itself, and the qualification of electors proceeds out of these monopolies. Is this freedom? Is this what Mr. Burke means by a constitution?
The French constitution says that to preserve the national representation from being corrupt no member of the National Assembly shall be an officer of the government, a placeman, or a pensioner. What will Mr. Burke place against this? I will whisper his answer: "Loaves and Fishes." Ah! this government of loaves and fishes has more mischief in it than people have yet reflected on. The English Parliament is supposed to hold the national purse in trust for the nation. But if those who vote the supplies are the same persons who receive the supplies when voted, and are to account for the expenditure of those supplies to those who voted them, it is themselves accountable to themselves, and the comedy of errors concludes with the pantomime of hush. Neither the ministerial party nor the opposition will touch upon this case. The national purse is the common hack which each mounts upon. They order these things better in France.
The French constitution says that the right of war and peace is in the nation. Where else should it reside but in those who are to pay the expense? In England this right is said to reside in a metaphor shown at the Tower for sixpence or a shilling a head.
It may with reason be said that in the manner the English nation is represented it signifies not where the right resides, whether in the crown or in the parliament. War is the common harvest of all those who participate in the division and expenditure of public money in all countries. In reviewing the history of the English Government, an impartial bystander would declare that taxes were not raised to carry on wars, but that wars were raised to carry on taxes.
The French constitution says, "There shall be no titles"; and, of consequence, "nobility" is done away, and the peer is exalted into man.
Titles are but nicknames, and every nickname is a title. The thing is perfectly harmless in itself, but it marks a sort of foppery in the human character which degrades it. If no mischief had annexed itself to the folly of titles, they would not have been worth a serious and formal destruction. Let us, then, examine the grounds upon which the French constitution has resolved against having a house of peers in France.
Because, in the first place, aristocracy is kept up by family tyranny and injustice, due to the unnatural and iniquitous law of primogeniture.