§ The LORD CHANCELLOR moved the Second Reading of this Bill. His Lordship was understood to say, that the measure was intended to carry out the objects sought to be effected by the Bill for the suppression of bribery and other corrupt practices at elections, which passed through the House of Commons last year, but which had reached their Lordships' House at too late a period of the Session to admit of its passing through all its stages and becoming law. By the Act of the 5th and 6th Victoria, it was provided that when charges of bribery and corrupt practices were withdrawn from the consideration of the Committee to which the petitions against the election were referred by an arrangement between the parties, 850 as was often the case, the House might reappoint the Committee, in order to investigate the question of bribery anew. The object of the present Bill was to give additional facilities for inquiry in such cases, so as to apply an adequate remedy to the evils which were found to arise under the operation of that law. It provided, that in all cases where a charge of bribery or corruption was made, or where the Committee saw evidence of bribery and corruption, they should have power to inquire and report to the House the facts which appeared before it; and it would then be for the House to decide whether upon the whole of the facts the case was one which called for further investigation. There would then be two courses open for the House to pursue. They might reappoint the Committee, not with a view of invalidating the return, but merely for the purpose of pursuing an inquiry into the bribery and corrupt practices that were alleged to have taken place, with a view of ascertaining by what means a repetition of such practices might be prevented. As, however, an investigation before a Committee might, in some cases, be attended with considerable expense, from the necessity of bringing up a great number of witnesses, it was provided that, if the House should so think fit, they might appoint Commissioners to investigate the matter on the spot where the election had taken place. The House would therefore have to decide on each particular case as it arose. It was not proposed to expose parties to penalties. It was merely desired that Parliament should be placed in a situation to ascertain how each case should be dealt with. The noble and learned Lord concluded by moving the second reading of the Bill.
§ LORD DENMANsaid, he did not wish to throw any obstacle in the way of providing a remedy for the evil which existed, and be would not therefore oppose the second reading of the Bill, though he believed it was open to the same objections as the Bill of last year. The latter Bill came before their Lordships towards the close of the Session, and when it was too late to proceed with it. He had been anxious to give it his support; but on making a digest of the Bill, he found that every one of its provisions was actually an argument against the Bill itself. The provision with regard to the appointment of a Commissioner was, in his mind, peculiarly objectionable. The Commissioner was to be armed with powers such as were pos- 851 sessed by scarcely any tribunal in the country at the present time; and such a person ought to be removed from all influence from the parties concerned. He believed it would be extremely difficult to select proper persons for such an office. The Bill did not provide for any ultimate proceedings, but appeared to him to empower Parliament to do merely what Parliament had full power to do already. It was his intention not to oppose the second reading, but to move that the Bill be referred to a Committee upstairs.
LORD BROUGHAMsaid, he felt a strong desire to avoid throwing any impediment in the way of putting an end to the detestable, demoralising, and criminal course now pursued, of sowing broad-cast perjury as well as corruption through the country. He was anxious to let the Bill proceed, in order to try whether, at a future stage, the objections which he had to it might not be remedied. He intended moving, either in a Committee upstairs, or during the progress of the Bill through the House, some amendments, which he hoped would conduce to a better state of political morality on the part of the constituencies. He hoped and trusted that the Bill of his hon. Friend Sir John Pakington, the outline of which he had himself suggested two years ago, as well as again last year, would have better success than its predecessors of a similar character. They ought to leave no effort untried to get rid of the disgraceful crime of bribery. They had, within the last week, an instance in one of the courts where a witness, who represented himself to be an Irish barrister, admitted that he was to get 10l. for his evidence, and 30l. if that evidence succeeded in getting a verdict for one of the parties. Surely, where such acts as that were perpetrated, some alteration in the law ought to be made by which adequate punishment would be awarded.
LORD STANLEYsaid, that he quite concurred in the observations which had fallen from the noble and learned Lords (Denman and Brougham). The Lord Chancellor had correctly stated, that a measure upon this subject was introduced in the other House of Parliament last year, and passed that House, and that it was then brought up to this House, but was afterwards laid aside, without having undergone any discussion. But that was not the measure which was now submitted to the consideration of their Lordships; and he regretted that it should have been re- 852 presented as the same. The Bill which passed the House of Commons last year was of a very different character. In the course of last year, during the proceedings before the Election Committee, there were brought to light several gross cases of corruption and malversation, some of them on the part of high legal functionaries connected with Her Majesty's Government, which excited great sensation at the time, but which were never investigated before Committees of the House of Commons, and in reference to which Bills were introduced in the House of Commons by private Members of Parliament, for the purpose of enabling the allegations to be investigated before a Committee. But for one reason or another Her Majesty's Government objected to the Bills that were brought in from time to time by those private Members, and stated, that in the course of the Session they would take upon themselves to bring forward a mea sure upon the subject. It was not, however, until the 13th of July that a measure was introduced on the part of the Government, enabling an investigation to take place into the alleged corrupt practices that had occurred, as well as providing for future cases; and that Bill was not read a second time until the latter end of that month, and consequently it could not be passed that Session. The measure now under consideration was not the same, but a measure which, passing by all the circumstances and allegations out of which the measure of last year arose, provided a prospective remedy for all imaginary and possible abuses and grievances with respect to bribery and corruption. The present Bill went upon the principle of fishing for grievances, and instituting investigations for the purpose of founding criminal proceedings upon them—investigations not upon an indictment or a positive charge laid, but in the search for materials upon which to found a charge. As the law now stood, if a Committee of the House of Commons should be of opinion that there had been before them a case of bribery or of corrupt practices, which had been insufficiently investigated, and into which they thought further inquiry should be made, it was perfectly competent for that Committee to recommend, and for the House to sanction, some further investigation before that Committee. But this Bill would leave no option whatever to the Committee. If at any time hereafter a Committee should be nominated to try 853 an election, and a charge of corrupt practices should be made or stated before them, whether in support of the petition or by way of recrimination, what were the Committee to do under the provisions of the Bill? If any such charge were made as stated in the Committee, the Bill provided that it should be obligatory upon them forthwith to investigate the circumstances relating to the allegations or the hints so dropped before them. And how were they to investigate them? Their Lordships would observe that, whether it was a charge made on the part of the petitioners, or casually dropped in the way of recrimination, the Committee would have no alternative but a ruinous expense to both parties to proceed with the inquiry and investigate the charges submitted to them. Now this, he thought, was carrying the principle of investigating merely possible corrupt practices to an extent which might lead to the greatest abuse. Then when the investigation had proceeded to a certain extent, the Committee were to report whether further inquiry was desirable, and if so, whether it should be referred to themselves or to a Commissioner. He (Lord Stanley) felt that a Committee of the House of Commons having this option, and after sitting perhaps fifteen or sixteen days on an election petition, would most probably report, if it were a case in which they believed further inquiry should be instituted, that it should be referred to a Commissioner and not to themselves, and then would follow the necessary consequence of appointing Commissioners to be sent down into the borough or place in which the investigation was to take place. Now, what was this Commissioner? Legal rules he had none to guide him. The charge he had to investigate he had not before him—evidence to apply there was none. He was sent on a fishing inquiry to some borough or county—to inquire what? If there was a charge that some one person had been guilty of bribery, or that bribery or corrupt practices had been committed by a number of individuals; and if evidence could be taken more conveniently upon the spot than in a Committee of the House of Commons, then he (Lord Stanley) could understand the reason for delegating to a single Commissioner the authority of the House of Commons. But here it was provided that the Commissioner should inquire generally into the manner in which the election mentioned in the report had been conducted—whether 854 any corrupt practices were committed at such election; and, if so, ascertain the nature and particulars of such practices, and then report to Her Majesty the evidence so taken. The Commissioner was also, he believed, further to report whether, upon the evidence he was able to collect, bribery or corruption had been usually practised in that borough or county at former elections; and a provision of that nature must, of course, very largely extend the Commissioner's inquiries. Well, the Commissioner having reported, what followed next? Why, the result must be no other than what ensued now. The House of Commons was, upon the report of the Commissioner, to take such steps as it might think proper to bring the parties to justice. Let their Lordships, then, mark the mode in which the Commissioner was to proceed in his inquiry. First, he was to investigate, by any means that might be suggested to him, whether anonymously or otherwise, if any bribery had taken place at the previous or any other election in the borough, by any persons whomsoever; and in support of this charge, and to carry on this fishing inquiry, he was to call before him all such persons as he might think fit, and require the production, at their hands, of all such papers and documents as he might think fit. He (Lord Stanley) must say that this provision, too, would lay the foundation for endless abuse, and for converting the purposes of the inquiry to the private injury of parties, without any relation whatever to the administration of justice. For his part he conceived that this was a most dangerous principle to adopt. There had been cases whore, for securing the ends of justice, Parliament had thought proper to grant an indemnity to persons who had come forward to give evidence in the investigation of some very gross or crying abuse; and the Bill under consideration laid it down, not as an exception, but as a rule of law, that where a Commissioner should be appointed to investigate, not whether any particular individual had been guilty of bribery, but whether there had been any bribery committed at all, he should have power to call persons before him as witnesses, and demand the production of their papers, which the persons so summoned should under all circumstances be compelled to produce, as well as to answer all inquiries, although they might be liable to criminate themselves thereby. The Lord Chancellor had truly stated that the object of the Bill was to lay the ground 855 for future proceedings; but he was at a loss to understand another provision of the Bill, which not only indemnified all parties who might appear as witnesses from any proceedings against themselves, but prevented what they might disclose being made use of against other parties and themselves from being at any time brought forward as witnesses in any subsequent proceedings, provided they had been examined before the Commissioner. Now, suppose the Commissioner having heard the evidence of twenty persons, reported the case, and the House of Commons directed the Attorney General to prosecute: when the Attorney General instituted the prosecution under the House of Commons, and as the next step to the inquiry before the Commissioner, in came this provision of the Bill, which enacted that no person who should have been examined before a Committee or a Commissioner should be brought forward as a witness for the plain-tiff upon any information or indictment for the corrupt practices in relation to which he should have been examined before such Committee or Commissioner. Why, what was this but extinguishing the whole of the evidence upon which alone in any subsequent prosecution they could proceed? The case was reported by the Commissioner, and the House of Commons directed a prosecution by the Attorney General; but when the witnesses were called in, the Attorney General would be told that they might refuse to be examined, that the law prohibited the calling of witnesses to substantiate the charge, without whose evidence the charge could not be sustained. [The LORD CHANCELLOR was understood to express his dissent from the noble Lord.] He (Lord Stanley) was glad to hear from the noble and learned Lord that he had misunderstood the provisions of the Bill. It appeared to him, however, that the measure threw insuperable obstacles in the way of the very purpose which it was designed to effect—namely, the punishment of parties who were guilty of bribery or corrupt practices at elections. He would not oppose the second reading of the Bill, but he thought it ought to be referred to a Select Committee; and he was of opinion that if their Lordships consented to the second reading, it should not be understood that they were, therefore, to be precluded from rejecting it on the third reading if the evidence to be taken before the Select Committee should fail to show the necessity for the measure.
The LORD CHANCELLORfelt bound to vindicate the Bill from the attack which had been made upon it by the noble Lord. Their Lordships were aware that all the attempts hitherto made to prevent bribery at elections for Members of the House of Commons, had proved unsuccessful. It was only necessary to advert to what took place in the House of Commons last Session, to show that the laws were not operative to prevent bribery and corruption. To some extent it prevailed at every general election: it was for their Lordships to judge whether they would endeavour to apply a remedy. No one could wish to allow the law to remain as it was. The question then arose, why was the law inadequate for the purpose of repressing bribery? First, it was to be observed that there was an understanding between the parties themselves: those who were the candidates elected, and those who were the candidates rejected, when they came before a Committee of the House of Commons, very often found it to be for their interest not to go deeply into the manner in which the election had been conducted. Another ground which protected persons engaged in this description of offence was, that the law affected them indirectly, and opened the door to vexatious actions against the individuals with whom they were connected. It was not merely because they were not protected from the consequences of their acts that witnesses could not give their evidence—they had another motive, namely, the effect which their evidence might have on others. It was, therefore, indispensably necessary that the investigation proposed, which was only for the purpose of obtaining proofs, should be guarded by Bill, and that care should be taken that no one should profit by the evidence produced at it. The object of the Bill was not to lay a foundation for prosecution, but to take measures to prevent a repetition of the acts disclosed on the inquiry. As matters now stood, though every one might be satisfied that a case of bribery and corruption existed, yet they had not the materials before them to pronounce as to its existence in fact; and to procure those materials the Bill was necessary There were no means at present of obtaining the information requisite to lay a foundation for Parliamentary proceedings; this measure would enable them to ascertain the facts, and thereby to form such a foundation.
§ Bill read 2a.