[125]
The third difference, of scarcely inferior importance, was, that the
Parliament only sat in alternate years. But, though these arrangements
suited the patrons and the members of the House of Commons, it was not
strange that the constituencies, whose power over their representatives
was almost extinguished by them, regarded them with less complacency,
and, at the general election which was the consequence of the accession
of George III., pledges were very generally exacted from the candidates
that, if elected, they would endeavor to procure the passing of a
septennial act like that which had been the law in England ever since
the early years of George I. A bill with that object was introduced in
1761, and reported on not unfavorably as to its principle by the English
law advisers to whom the Privy Council referred it. But, as if it had
been designed to exemplify in the strongest possible manner the national
propensity for making blunders, it contained one clause which rendered
it not only impracticable but ridiculous. The clause provided that no
member should take his seat or vote till his qualification had been
proved before the Speaker in a full house. But the Speaker could not be
chosen till the members had established their right of voting, so that
the whole was brought to a dead-lock, and the bill, if passed, could
never have been carried out.
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