§ Sir Samuel Whalleyrose for the purpose of presenting a Petition from the Vestry of the parish of Marylebone, complaining of the inquisitorial and vexatious proceedings of the Conservative Association established in that parish. He hoped that the House would bear in mind that the establishment of these Conservative Associations had been recommended by the leaders of the Conservative party as the best means of attaining a predominant influence in that House. Now, if that object could be attained by that party in the exercse of legitimate means, he should be the last man in the world to complain of it; but he was surprised that the establishment of Conservative Associations for that purpose should be recommended by those who were so vehement in their denunciations of political unions during the summer of 1832. He did not expect from that party the establishment of Conservative Associations in every part of the kingdom, and the establishment of them, too, for the more efficient prosecution of such proceedings as those of which he was then about to complain. He recollected that in 1832, the objections urged by the Conservatives of that day applied both to the institutions and to the objects of the political unions. It was deemed by them an impertinence on the 259 part of the people to combine for the purpose of obtaining reform. It was deemed by them a high crime and misdemeanour for the people to associate for the purpose of obtaining good and cheap government; but when the object was to re-establish abuses, which a long-suffering and much-injured people have succeeded in abolishing—when the object was to impede the progress of reform, and to embarrass the march of a liberal Government on its road onwards to further ameliorations, then it was the height of patriotism to form clubs and combinations—then such associations were recommended by princes and nobles—then they were lauded and exalted in high quarters—ay, and from the very altar itself. We have seen a Prelate of the Established Church recommending with all the influence of his station and his character the establishment of Conservative Associations—we have heard him calling upon the pastors of his flock, and upon his flock also, to be active, co-operating, and united in such associations. Co-operating unions! Why, these were the very societies that in good set phrase and in rounded periods were formerly denounced as unconstitutional and disloyal by those who were now straining every nerve to form clubs of this character. Co-operating unions! Was it possible that a rev. prelate in a pastoral letter should recommend any associations which were formed to carry political objects, to be united and co-operative? "'Tis true, 'tis pity—pity 'tis 'tis true." Yes! not for the sake of establishing peace and good-will, but for the sake of prolonging party feuds—for the sake of reviving religious hostility—for the sake of keeping alive the recollection of events which ought to sleep forgotten in the annals of history. The establishment of these associations, so fatal to the harmony and well-being of society, had been recommended by a rev. prelate of the Church of England. He regretted, he deeply regretted, that such societies, with such objects, had been recommended by any prelate. It was true that they were recommended for the purpose of stopping what the rev. Prelate denominated the progress of Popery, but there was in his letter of recommendation more of the spirit of Popery than of the meek, forbearing, apostolical spirit of religion. Conservative Associations, then, having been recommended by principalities and powers, having met with the highest eulogiums from the highest quarters, he did not wonder that a Conservative Association had been established in what they deemed the 260 low quarter of Marylebone. He did not, however, complain so much of its establishment as of its proceedings. He must inform the House, that by an Act passed under the auspices of the right hon. Baronet, the Member for Nottingham, (Sir John Hobhouse)—an act which would hand down his name with honour to posterity—yes, he would repeat in the presence of the right hon. Baronet that which he had often said in his absence—namely, that there was no measure of greater utility upon a small scale than the Select Vestry Act, which the right hon. Baronet had been successful in carrying through Parliament. By that Act it was provided that all rate-payers in the parish should have access on payment of a small fee to the rate-books, and should be entitled to make extracts therefrom, in order that they might know that their funds were properly administered, and that the receipts and disbursements were properly apportioned. This power given to the ratepayers was not intended for the gratification of idle curiosity, still less for the purpose of being abused and perverted in the way in which it had been abused and perverted by the parties of whom he then complained. Acting upon their construction of a clause in that Act, the Conservative Association, or rather the clerks of the Conservative Association—for it had its agents, and its runners, and its official inquisitors out in every direction—went to the court-house of the parish, insisted on seeing the rate-books, and then made extracts from them under the printed form contained in this petition. It was a sort of schedule in several columns, containing under different columns, the name of the street, the number of the house, the name of the occupant, the time of his occupancy, his number on the registry; whether he was friendly to the Conservative Association, whether he was hostile, or whether he was doubtful. Then came another column, entitled "Column of Observations." The existence of that column had frightened, and was in itself enough to frighten, all the tradesmen who were electors of the borough, especially as the knowledge of the existence of this schedule was communicated to them at a time when the Conservatives, through their most influential organs of the press, were recommending a system of exclusive dealing, from which they soon afterwards recoiled themselves in no dissembled alarm. He admitted that the great majority of his constituents were retail dealers. They, therefore, derived from the 261 higher classes of society their chief means of support. They were anxious, in consequence, not to offend those classes. The result of that feeling on their part had been, that many who would have voted, had they voted at all, for the liberal cause, had declined voting altogether, and that some, who could have qualified themselves to vote, had refused to qualify themselves, in order that they might escape solicitation from either one side or the other. When the knowledge of this schedule got abroad, these parties found that their Conservative customers had devised a scheme by which they could neither exercise their elective franchise, nor refuse claiming their qualification without the prospect of injury to themselves and their families. People had been hired by this association to go from house to house, street by street, and address the owners in the following language:—"Mr. Tomkins, don't you belong to the association? Your best customers, Sir Jeffrey Longpurse and Lord Robert Highborn, approve of it—won't you join?" The frequency and the annoyance of such solicitations had induced these petitioners to call upon the House to devise some means of protecting the electors of Marylebone from the intimidation proceeding from these Conservative political unions. The petitioners felt that no law could reach the conduct of these unionists. They felt that the Ballot was their best, indeed their only protection, and they therefore prayed for the introduction of vote by ballot into our elective system. In moving that this petition be laid upon the Table, he must observe, that he gave his most cordial support to the prayer with which it concluded. He had no doubt that the House, on receiving the Report from the Intimidation Committee, would find that no other remedy for this, and indeed for every other species of intimidation, could be devised; and he therefore hoped that in another Session of Parliament the House would be prepared to give the electors of the country the protection of the Ballot.
§ Mr. Mackinnonhoped, that as he had the honour to be the Chairman of the Association which the petitioners attacked, the House would indulge him with a hearing during the few words which he had to address to them upon this subject. He should confine himself entirely to matters f fact, and without following the hon. Member for Marylebone into the wide field of declamation into which he had so unnecessarily entered, should briefly state the reasons why 262 the Conservative Association had endeavoured to collect a correct list of the voters for the borough of Marylebone. Before proceeding to the circumstances of the case, he would take the liberty of stating that this petition could scarcely be considered as the petition of the vestry of Marylebone. That vestry consisted of 120 persons. Now, this petition had been very much hawked about—it had been left for some time at the Court-house, the vestry had been canvassed daily, he might say hourly, for their signatures, and yet, what was the number of names attached to it? He must trouble the Clerk at the Table to count them. [The Clerk: Twenty-seven attached to the petition.] He appealed to the House, whether it did not require some degree of confidence to enable an hon. Member to place upon the Table a petition signed by only twenty-seven persons as the petition of the 120 vestrymen of Marylebone? Could a petition so signed be considered as speaking the sentiments of the majority of the vestry of Marylebone? Certainly not. To come, however, to the real point. The association, of which he had the honour to be the Chairman, had been formed not for any party purpose, and a proof of this was contained in the fact that the association numbered in its ranks individuals of every description of politics. We have in it many Conservatives. We have in it also many persons who wish well to the Administration of the noble Lord opposite; therefore we have no party objects in our view. Our object is to enable every qualified person in the borough to record his vote upon the register, and to give it to such candidate as he may approve, whenever an opportunity is granted to him of making another selection. He contended that it was incumbent upon the parties who presented a petition like the present, to take care that they came before the House with what the lawyers called "clean hands;" for such parties had no right to complain of others if they had been the first to commit similar, and it might be, worse injustice. Now, the vestry of Marylebone had been a very influential instrument in returning the Members for that Borough during the last two Parliaments. He spoke not of the aggregate body of vestrymen, but of those twenty-seven important personages who had signed this petition, and who, in their character of vestrymen had surreptitiously endeavoured to get themselves enrolled as freeholders of the county of Middlesex. He would briefly mention to the House what took place at 263 the last election, as it was communicated to him in a letter which he had that day received from a respectable elector of the Borough, which stated that the vestry were not even agreed on the propriety of the Ballot, for there had been a division in the vestry on the point, in which thirty-two had divided for, and fifteen against it. Of these fifteen, seven were the decided partisans of the present Ministry. The writer said, that the vestry of Marylebone had interfered most openly in the last election; that the vestries of Marylebone, of Paddington, and of St. Pancras had met together; that Mr. Hume had presided at their meeting; that they had first of all determined on supporting Mr. Harvey as a fit person to represent the Borough, but that on his declaring his intention to try his chance at Southwark, they had afterwards determined to give their support to Mr. H. Bulwer, and to recommend him to the support of their various friends. Now, was not that an interference on the part of this vestry of Marylebone with the freedom of election? He did not state these facts upon his own authority, but on the authority of a respectable individual who had placed this letter in his hand. He trusted that he had now shown to the satisfaction of the house, he was sure that he had shown to the satisfaction of every reasonable person, that these members of the vestry had taken upon themselves a greater interference with the freedom of election in the Borough of which they were inhabitants than the Association of whose proceedings they had come forward to complain. He had only further to state, that the sole object of the Conservative Association in sending to the vestry to inspect the rate-books was to learn the names of the parties on the rate who had paid up their quota The very Act of Parliament to which the him. Gentleman on the other side of the House had referred, proved that the Association was justified in taking that proceeding. Having said thus much, he would not detain the House further than was necessary to point out the absurdity of which the petitioners were guilty in this their petition. Because they felt that public attention was at last awake to their proceedings,—that popular opinion was at last rising superior to popular clamour,—that numbers would no longer be able to swamp the influence of those who had a right to exercise it, they now turned round upon the House and said—"Give, oh, give us the protection of the Ballot."
§ Mr. Ormsby Goresaid, that as he had the honour of being a member of this libelled association, he hoped that the House would bear with him for a few minutes. In the first place, this association was not properly designated in being styled a Conservative Association. Its proper title was exclusive of all party—it was styled "The Loyal and Constitutional Association of Marylebone." It contained in its ranks members of all parties, except the extreme Radical party. The members of it had assembled together to hinder indolence, or apathy, or neglect, from preventing those individuals who had a right to exercise the elective franchise from being swamped by the activity of the Radicals. He would defend this Association from accusation if he could only make out what accusation was brought against it. The first semblance of accusation was, that they had sent their clerks to the court-house to take a list of the rate-payers. Individually the Members of the association, being themselves rate-payers, had a right to do this, and it mattered little whether they took their extracts from the rate-books with their own hands or with the hands of their amanuenses. He believed the fact to be, that three of the rate-payers had sent for these extracts for themselves. The second accusation, if he must give it that name, had reference to the schedule and its different columns. That schedule was framed in that manner to enable the association to protect the electors in the proper exercise of their elective franchise. He denied that it deserved the epithets of "inquisitorial," and "oppressive," and "vexatious," which the hon. Member had applied to it. He wished the House to look at the names signed to this petition—thirteen of them formed part of the notorious forty-two who had contrived to get their names put surreptitiously on the list of voters for the county of Middlesex. Now, what degree of credit was there due to a petition which bore such signatures? The prayer of the petition, too—what was ii for? For the Ballot. Now, how had these very parties exercised this mode of secret voting in their own parish? He would inform the House in a very few words. In the parish of St. Pancras, where the vestry was elected by Ballot, the Radicals had blue lists which they published every night declaring the state of the poll, although the poll could not be known and declared by law till three days after the Ballot was terminated. So much for the secrecy of voting established 265 by the Ballot. Moreover, when the votes were cast up after the Ballot, it was discovered more than once that more votes had been given than had been checked by the clerk. So much for the certainty of the ballot. Besides these blue lists there were also white lists; but the blue list and the white list were as distinct from each other, and were as well known to be distinct from each other, as Harley- street and Portland-place. If nothing more could be said in favour of the Ballot than what was urged by these petitioners, the Ballot might be left in future to go and lake care of itself.
§ Mr. Wakleysaid, that the hon. Gentleman who had just spoken was most egregiously mistaken both as to the practice, and as to the results of the practice, which he had described as existing in the parish of St. Pancras. It was true that the Radical party had a blue list. The opposite party finding that the popular feeling was almost all in favour of the blue list, contrived to have a blue list as well as a white list, in the hope of deluding some ignorant persons to vote for their candidates. Then the Radicals in their turn determined to have a white list as well as a blue list. Substituting their white list in the place of their blue list, they went to the poll, and by turning their artifices against the inventors of them, again defeated their opponents. The fact, however, was, that the mode of voting in St. Pancras was not entirely secret. Still it was so far secret as to neutralize the power of intimidation. Would the hon. Member consent to give the people of England the same degree of secrecy in voting for Members of Parliament? If the people could only get the Ballot they would not care what associations existed—whether they were Conservative, or were nicknamed loyal and constitutional associations.
§ Petition to lie on the Table.