United States or Iraq ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
There were placemen now in Parliament, and place-hunting was no longer a pastime to be proscribed amongst Nationalists.
I was about to reply to the last observations of my antagonist, when this gentleman opened out, with, "yes! that may do for Englishmen very well" he was an Englishman, I knew at once by his accent, and I verily believe the identical radical who set the village of Bracebridge by the ears, and pitched the villagers to the devil, on seeing them grin through a horse-collar, when they should have been calculating the interest of the national debt, or conning over the list of sinecure placemen.
By another wise measure placemen were removed from the Assembly; that is to say, permanent officials, such as judges and registrars, could not hold their positions and be members of parliament. For this important change LaFontaine was responsible, as well as for another bill which simplified the judicial system of Lower Canada.
No new laws are wanted; every rational and necessary reform may be achieved by dint of measures now on the statute-book measures which seem to slumber as soon as the agitation raised in passing them has glorified a certain number of placemen."
Forced to dance attendance, day after day, among sneering courtiers and insolent placemen, and to submit to the criticism of practical sages and philosophers of routine, while, he was constantly denied an opportunity of explaining his projects, the quick-tempered Italian had gone away at last, indignant.
There was no want of complaints of corruption, proposals to exclude placemen from parliament and the like; and in the days of Wilkes, Chatham, and Junius, when the first symptoms of democratic activity began to affect the political movement, the discontent made itself audible and alarming.
Placemen were little inclined to irritate those who paid them and were on the spot to watch their every move; while even the ablest governors often found themselves deserted by the Crown whose interests they attempted to defend.
He thought, moreover, that if the grave and reverend seigniors of the "Family Compact" would blacken their faces as they had blackened their hearts, and "star" it through the lowly hamlets of the Province, singing, say, the Jacobite airs of a previous generation, it would do more to cement the attachment of Canada to the Crown than all the efforts of the combined army of officials, placemen, and henchmen of the Government plus the Judges, the Sheriffs, the Recorder, the Incumbents of fat Clergy Reserves, the Gauge's, Tollmen, Hangmen, Customs Officers, Turnkeys, and Landing-Waiters.
No, Sir, no; for the purpose of purifying the administration of justice this bill is utterly impotent. It will be effectual for one purpose, and for one purpose only, for the purpose of weakening and degrading the House of Commons. More than a hundred and fifty years ago there was a general cry that the number of placemen in Parliament was too great.
Violent politicians are not the best raw material out of which to manufacture fortunate placemen." "The opinions do not so much matter; the expense does. I cannot afford L5000, or even L3000." "Would not Sir Peter assist? He has, you say, only one son; and if anything happen to that son, you are the next heir."
Word Of The Day