WARWICK ELECTION. (Hansard, 21 June 1833)

§ Sir Ronald Ferguson
, in moving, pursuant to notice, for a Select Committee to consider the Report of the Committee on the Warwick Election Petition, said, that he would not trespass at any length upon the time of the House at that late hour, but should content himself with a brief statement of facts. On the 20th of February, a petition was presented from certain electors of the borough of Warwick against the return of Sir Charles Greville, on the ground of corruption, bribery, and the illegal and unconstitutional interference of the Earl of Warwick in the election. Immediately afterwards a counter petition was presented against Mr. Bolton King, the present sitting Member. A Committee was appointed in May to investigate the allegations of bribery and corruption against the agents of Sir Charles Greville, and the alleged illegal interference of the Earl of Warwick on his behalf. As regarded the case of Mr. Bolton King, there was no charge of unconstitutional interference, the petition against his return being confined to allegations of bribery. The Committee sat, and proof was given that twenty-two voters had been bribed by Sir Charles Greville's agents. Upon this the counsel of Sir Charles Greville gave up the case, and the Committee had no means of continuing the inquiry, there being no party to defray the heavy expenses inseparable from it. The investigation was therefore closed; but the Committee thought they had had sufficient evidence submitted to them to enable them to make a special Report. He was now to ask the permission of the House to institute a further inquiry into the subject. It wag 1103 proved that Mr. Brown, steward to Sir Charles Greville, had paid into a bank, in the town of Warwick, 3,500l., to the credit of Mr. Tibbetts, town clerk, who was the agent to the Earl of Warwick, and that Tibbetts gave checks to the agents employed in the election. He thought that he had stated enough to satisfy the House that this was a case for further inquiry. It was with great regret he found himself compelled to move for a Select Committee, but he referred any Gentleman, who doubted its necessity, to the evidence. He proposed to name, as a Select Committee, the Gentlemen who had sat on the Election Committee, because they were best qualified to resume and carry on the investigation from the point at which it had stopped. In conclusion, he moved, that a Select Committee be appointed, to consider and report the best mode of preventing bribery, treating, and other corrupt practices, in future elections of Members to serve in Parliament for the borough of Warwick.

§ Lord Molyneux
seconded the Motion.

§ Sir John Hanmer
opposed the Motion, and gave it as his opinion, that the allegations contained in the Report of the Committee were not borne out by the evidence. He deprecated the institution of the proposed inquiry, merely on the ground of so few as twenty cases of bribery, and expressed a hope that Parliament would not, at the present late period of the Session, enter into such a discussion.

§ Mr. Ellice
rose to suggest to his hon. friend (Sir Ronald Ferguson) the introduction of an Amendment into his Motion, which he thought was essentially necessary for the purpose of carrying the objects, which he had in view, into effect. One of the grounds upon which his hon. friend moved for this Committee was, that the late Committee had been stopped in its inquiries into the proceedings that had taken place at the late election for Warwick. Now it did not appear, from the terms in which his hon. friend's Motion was worded, that the Committee which he proposed to appoint would have the power to inquire into those proceedings. He would, therefore, suggest, that the Motion should be altered to this effect:—"That a Select Committee be appointed to make further inquiry into the proceedings that took place at the last election for the city of Warwick, and to consider and report what further means should be adopted to prevent bribery, treating, &c., in that borough." The present Motion was proposed 1104 without reference to who had, or who had not, been candidates there at the late election, and the object of it was to trace those proceedings to their source, and to provide a remedy against their recurrence.

§ Mr. Langdale
maintained, that the statements contained in the Report of the Committee were fully borne out by the evidence that had been laid before them, and that the House would lose its character with the country if it did not institute the proposed inquiry.

§ Sir Edward Knatchbull
suggested, that the precedent in the Stafford case should be followed in this.

Mr. Halcombe
said, if they should go into the inquiry, it would be found that Warwick was a place in which bribery had been little known. He was surprised at the Report of the Committee, looking at the evidence which had been laid before them, and he was further surprised that, instead of calling Sir Charles Greville's banker before them to give evidence, they had called Lord Warwick's banker for that purpose. That was a new way to elicit evidence. It was extremely hard thus to call in a third party, a banker, and make him produce the private accounts of an individual banking with him, in order to bring home a charge of bribery to another person. If he were placed in such a situation, he would rather go to Newgate than give evidence so required from him.

§ Sir Ronald Ferguson
said, Sir Charles Greville, he believed, had no banker in Warwick. He was ready to adopt the Amendment of his hon. friend.

Mr. Murray
said, that the carrying of such an Amendment would tend to cast an unjust reflection on the Members of the late Committee, who had fearlessly discharged their duty; and that the only effect of it would be to cloak the bribery that had taken place.