BRIBERY, &c., BILL. (Hansard, 22 July 1854)

§ LORD JOHN RUSSELL
moved the insertion of the following clause— And whereas doubts have arisen as to whether the payment of the expenses of conveying Voters to and from the poll be or be not according to law; and it is expedient that such doubts should be removed, and that the law should be settled in these particulars, be it Declared and Enacted that, from and after the passing of this Act, it shall be lawful for any candidate or other person, subject always to the provisions of this Act as to the payment of election expenses, to pay or cause to be paid the actual and reasonable expense of bringing any Voters to the poll. Clause brought up, and read 1^o, 2^o.

§ MR. CRAUFURD
proposed an Amendment, to insert the word "not" after the word "shall."

§ LORD ROBERT GROSVENOR
said, that the clause would render the payment of what were called "actual and reasonable" expenses, not only legal, but imperative, on the part of candidates. The effect of the clause would be that in future it would be necessary for candidates to provide carriages for the conveyance of voters to the poll in many places where no expenditure for such a purpose had hitherto been requisite. He wished to know what construction was to be put upon the term "actual and reasonable expenses?"

§ MR. HEYWORTH
said, he objected to the clause, considering that its tendency would be to degrade the electors.

MR. VERNON SMITH
said, he thought it would be very difficult to put a satisfactory construction upon the term "reasonable expenses." Would the provision of refreshments for voters on their way to the poll, or payment for the board and lodging of electors who could not go to the poll and return to their homes on the same day, be regarded as "reasonable expenses?" He thought the effect of the Bill as it stood, 529 and of some of the clauses which it was proposed to introduce, would be to legalise wholesale bribery, and to punish retail bribery with great severity. He considered that under this clause most exorbitant sums might be charged to candidates for the hire of carriages and cabs at elections.

MR. HEADLAM
said, he had given notice of a clause on this subject which he thought would operate more satisfactorily than the clause under discussion. His objection to the present clause was, that it would render, not only legal, but compulsory, a great deal of expenditure which he considered entirely useless. A legislative enactment legalising all travelling expenses at elections would lead a large proportion of the voters in large towns to think that they were entitled to be taken up to the poll in hackney carriages. The effect of this idea would be that the owners of hackney carriages in such towns would charge enormous sums for the hire of their vehicles, and thus a system of indirect bribery would be established with regard to the coach-owners.

§ SIR GEORGE GREY
said, he believed that the words of the clause were in strict conformity with the legal decision of Lord Lyndhurst on the subject of election expenses, and he was not aware that any practical inconvenience had resulted from the existing law. If the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Ayr (Mr. Craufurd) were adopted, any man who sent up his tenants or friends to the poll in his private carriage would be liable to very heavy penalties.

§ MR. W. J. FOX
said, he wished to know whether the noble Lord would object to introduce words into the clause, making payments for bringing up voters to the poll contingent upon the previous consent of the candidates? He had known elections at which all the cabs in a town had been engaged by the friends of one candidate, and the consequence was, that the opposite party were put to an enormous expenditure in bringing vehicles from a distance. As under this clause every voter would expect to be taken to the poll in a carriage, he thought that its effect would be very considerably to extend such a system of vexatious opposition. In the exercise of the franchise there was a privilege to be enjoyed and a duty to be discharged, and he thought it would be just as reasonable to send out carriages on a Sunday to convey persons to their parish churches, where there was a privilege to be enjoyed and a duty to be discharged, as to provide ve- 530 hicles for the conveyance of voters to the poll. He would support the Amendment, believing that the clause would open a very wide door to bribery and corruption.

§ MR. MASSEY
said, he would suggest the substitution of the word "necessary" for the word "reasonable."

§ VISCOUNT MONCK
said, at one election he stood for, not a shilling was spent corruptly, but all the vehicles in the county were engaged at an enormous expense. He voted against the noble Lord the Member for Middlesex (Lord R. Grosvenor) the other night, but he was now convinced that he was wrong.

§ MR. HILDYARD
said, he considered that if this clause did not pass they would practically disfranchise the small freeholders, who were the most independent voters.

§ MR. CRAUFURD
said, if he succeeded in carrying his Amendment, he should propose further to amend the clause by striking out the word "reasonable." If this clause was carried as it was, he should certainly vote against the declaration.

§ MR. ELLIOT
said, he should be glad to know, if this Amendment were carried, how the electors in the northern parts of Scotland were to get to the poll?

MR. J. D. FITZGERALD
said, there was now no doubt whatever that a candidate might pay the reasonable expenses of bringing voters to the poll. Doubts, however, often arose whether the payment of expenses had been made a cover for bribery; and they would not be lessened by this clause. Considering, therefore, that the clause was quite unnecessary, he should vote against it, because he believed that it would make the carriage of voters to the poll a general instead of an exceptional practice, as electors would then insist on it as a right. He should also oppose the Amendment, because he thought it would disfranchise a large portion of the poorer voters in counties.

§ SIR CHARLES BURRELL
said, the proper way of meeting the difficulty would be to take the votes of the electors at their own houses.

§ MR. CAYLEY
said, he had considerable doubts with respect to the proposed clause. He feared it would lead to increased expenditure.

§ LORD JOHN RUSSELL
said, he had proposed this clause on the understanding that it was the wish of the House that the expenses of travelling should be allowed. If the House said they wished the law to be left as it was, and that this clause should 531 not be inserted, he could well understand that wish; but if they decided on having a determination of the law one way or the other, it was plain they must incur a chance of one of two evils. The one evil was, that if they declared positively to be the law that which was now avowedly the law, they gave more positive sanction to it, and it might happen, though he did not think it would to a great extent, that some persons who had hitherto not asked to be carried to the poll might, in future, ask to be carried to the voting place. But if they decided, in the other direction, that they would not allow any of these expenses to be incurred, he thought that would lead at once to a great number of the voters, more especially the forty-shilling freeholders, not being able to give their votes. He considered that to be a far greater evil than the chance there would be that some persons somewhere or other might be carried to the poll who had not been carried hitherto. But, with regard to the evil of conveying voters to the poll, he owned he did not consider it a great one. An hon. Gentleman had said that a voter felt degraded if he was carried to the poll. No doubt in many towns the great majority of voters thought they were exercising their franchise more freely and independently if they walked to the voting place without putting the candidate to any expense. But those men would have the same privilege still. He did not see that a man's independence of mind was destroyed by being told there was a clause in an Act of Parliament which declared that to be legal which everybody knew to be legal before. With regard to the proposition for amending the clause, he did not think there was any advantage in it. The Committee might change its mind in wishing to have a decision on the subject at all, but unless that was their opinion he hoped they would decide one way or the other, either decide in favour of the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Ayr, and thereby disfranchise a great portion of the voters, or vote for the clause as it stood.

§ SIR JOSHUA WALMSLEY
said, that it had been much insisted upon that if they did not allow certain expenses for conveyance, they would prevent many voters from voting, and there might be some show of reason for that as regarded the counties, but that argument could not apply to boroughs. If this Bill was for any purpose at all it was to prevent bribery, but this clause would legalise one form of bribery; it would legalise that which had 532 been hitherto very doubtful. If they were to legalise this mode of corruption in the counties, he hoped at least that it would not be extended to the boroughs.

§ MR. BONHAM-CARTER
said, he saw no objection to allow the actual reasonable expenses to voters, as proposed by the noble Lord, but he should prefer the suggestion of the hon. and learned Member for Newcastle-on-Tyne (Mr. Headlam).

§ LORD ROBERT GROSVENOR
said, he wished to know whether tavern expenses to electors who were travelling to the election would be allowed under the Act?

§ LORD JOHN RUSSELL
said, that reasonable travelling expenses would be allowed, but that refreshment expenses would not be allowed. [Lord R. GROSVENOR: But hotel expenses?] It would be impossible to answer every question that might arise.
Question put, "That the word 'not' be there inserted."
The Committee divided:—Ayes 49; Noes 110: Majority 61.

MR. HEADLAM
said, he would now bring forward the Amendment of which he had given notice.

MR. SAWLE
said, he would remind the hon. and learned Member that some boroughs were as large as small counties.

§ MR. FREWEN
said, that around Leicester, for instance, there were many villages in which a great number of poor freemen resided, and the clause would virtually disfranchise them. In some straggling boroughs voters might virtually reside as far as fifteen miles from the voting place.

LORD SEYMOUR
would ask the hon. and learned Member for Newcastle how he could justify the application of one rule to boroughs and another to counties?

§ MR. HILDYARD
said, he would read the proviso which the hon. and learned Member proposed next to move, namely— Provided always that, in case any candidate shall, bonâ fide, endeavour and exercise reasonable care to limit the expenses for travelling and refreshment in accordance with the provisions of this clause, he shall not be personally liable, nor shall his seat be avoided for any accidental payment for travelling or refreshment, not strictly authorised by the rules hereinbefore laid down. 533 How would it be possible to convict any person after that proviso?

MR. HEADLAM
said, that the qualification in boroughs was a residential, and that in counties a property, one. That, he thought, was a very good reason why a difference should be made.

§ MR. W. WILLIAMS
said, it was a sufficiently suggestive circumstance, that these objections should come from a party who had shown such a disposition to cling to the last rag of corruption. The voters in the neighbourhood of Leicester were in the habit of walking several times every week with their work, and might do so to exercise one of the proudest rights of Englishmen.
Question put, "That those words be there added."
The Committee divided:—Ayes 51; Noes 95: Majority 44.
Question put, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
The Committee divided:—Ayes 88; Noes 47; Majority 41.
Clause added to the Bill.

§ LORD JOHN RUSSELL
then proposed the following clause— The giving, or causing to be given, to any Voter on the day of nomination or day of polling, on account of such voter having polled, or being about to poll, any meat, drink, or entertainment by way of refreshment, or any money or ticket to enable such Voter to obtain refreshment, shall be held and be taken to amount to bribery or treating, as the case may be, within the meaning of this Act.

§ MR. WALPOLE
said, he must warn the Committee that if they made the Bill repugnant to the feelings of the people of this country, it would fail of its object.

§ MR. HILDYARD
said, he apprehended that the lunch which it was usual to give at elections for the University of Cambridge to every Voter without reference to the party he had polled for, would, if the clause were agreed to, render even dignitaries of the Church liable to be tried for misdemeanor. He therefore appealed to the noble Lord not to proceed further with a clause that would only render them ridiculous.

MR. HEADLAM
said, that the refreshment question ought to be settled, or otherwise the Bill would be construed to sanction unlimited "reasonable" expenses.

§ MR. HENLEY
said, the effect of the clause would render penal the hospitality of one friend who invited another to breakfast with him on the way of election.

§ LORD JOHN RUSSELL
said, he ne- 534 vertheless thought that the clause ought to form part of the Bill. He would, however, propose the clause on the report, in order that its wording might be reconsidered.

§ MR. WALPOLE
(in the absence of Sir F. Kelly) moved to insert the following clause in the place of Clause 28 of the original Bill— The election officer shall keep all accounts which shall come to his hands in some fit and convenient place, and shall, at all reasonable and convenient times, submit the same to the inspection of the candidates and their agents, and permit them to take copies of the same upon request; and when such general account as aforesaid shall be so made out and signed by him, he shall keep the same in some fit and convenient place, and such general account shall be open to the inspection of any voter, and copies thereof shall be furnished to any voter at all reasonable and convenient times upon request, such voter paying a fee at the rate of one shilling for every 200 words for the same; and when the election officer shall have concluded the business of an election, he shall deliver over all the accounts in his hands to the clerk of the peace in counties, and to the town clerk or other officer performing any of the duties of town clerk in cities and boroughs, and to the sheriff clerk in counties in Scotland, and shall deliver over to the candidates respectively the balance of all moneys, if any, and all vouchers in his hands, and shall allow them to be inspected by any person on payment of one shilling, and shall furnish copies of the same, or any part thereof, on the payment of a fee at the rate of one shilling for every 200 words, except any vouchers appertaining personally to himself.