BRIBERY AT ELECTIONS. (Hansard, 6 August 1832)

Mr. Hume
suggested an addition, to the effect, that in all boroughs, towns, or cities, where bribery was proved against certain individuals, they should be suspended from the exercise of the elective franchise, without affecting the rights of other electors.

Lord John Russell
said, that there was a clause in the Bill, providing that the Committee to whom any petition complaining of an undue return might be referred, should report the names of the persons guilty of bribery, and he had no objection to the suggestion of the hon. member for Middlesex.

An Hon. Member
said, that such a remedy would require a new Bill.

§ Colonel Sibthorp
observed, that when he had asked the noble Lord at what time he intended to bring on this Bill, he had received only a vague sort of answer, and then, having been absent from the House but three minutes, he had, on his return, found the Bill in the Committee. The noble Lord was persevering in his efforts, not by reason, but by numbers, to cut down the Constitution. He and the rest of his Majesty's Ministers were placing restrictions on some of the commonest acts of life. He had lately been canvassing for the city which he had the honour to represent, and which he hoped again to represent; and a most successful canvass it had proved: but it grieved him when, in the course of that canvass, he saw the wife or child of one of his own constituents lying on a sick bed, that he was prevented by the law from offering any assistance. Hon. 1158 Members might laugh; but it appeared to him to be a great grievance. How did the noble Lord define hospitality, and bow did he define bribery? For his (Colonel Sibthorp's) part, he thought the dinners given to Ministerial Members in Downing-street, and the feeding and fattening of them by his Majesty's Government, that they might have their votes, were indisputable specimens of corruption. Should the noble Lord persevere in endeavouring to carry his Bill through that night, by numbers, not by reason, if he (Colonel Sibthorp) sat there until the separation of the House, he would take every opportunity of flooring him. The hon. and gallant Member repeated his complaint, that he had been left in the dark by the noble Lord as to the period at which the Bill would be brought on, and that it had been brought on suddenly and unexpectedly.

Lord John Russell
was understood to say, that the occasion to which the hon. and gallant Gentleman had referred was on the evening of Friday last, when the Bill had been committed pro formâ, when, at twelve or one o'clock in the morning, in answer to the inquiry of the gallant Member, he had replied, that he should bring forward the measure on this evening, and as early as circumstances would admit. Having said so much, it did not appear to him that the hon. and gallant Gentleman had brought forward any argument against the Bill now before the House. With respect to the Bill, he must say, that the whole of the legislative enactments with reference to bribery ought necessarily to be consolidated, but the present period of the Session was too late to accomplish such an object. The present Bill was directed exclusively to prevent bribery in corrupt places returning Members to serve in Parliament.

Mr. Fane
was opposed to this clause, which involved a great constitutional question; for it seemed by it, that if the two Houses agreed on the question, any borough might, by an address to the Crown, be forthwith disfranchised.

Lord John Russell
said, he admitted this Bill to be a great constitutional question; at the same time he thought that where the majority of a place entitled to Representatives were proved to be corrupt, the minority of the electors of that place must suffer in the disfranchisement.

§ Mr. Dixon
begged to put a case—for instance, the city of Glasgow—where a certain party, say 7,000 out of 10,000, might be corrupt, would that be a ground for disfranchising the whole?

Lord John Russell
replied, that such had not been the case hitherto. The case of Liverpool was one in point; and in that case, though bribery had been clearly proved to exist, yet nobody had ever thought of proposing that the town of Liverpool should for ever be deprived of sending Representatives to Parliament.

§ Mr. Duncombe
said, he had risen to propose to the Committee three clauses, which would tend to render the declaration made at the beginning of each Session of Parliament, as to the impropriety and illegality of Peers interfering in the election of Members to serve in Parliament, not a mere shadow or a dead letter. There was nothing more notorious than that the Peerage did interfere, notwithstanding this declaration of Parliament at its assembling. He could, as an instance, state, that in the borough he represented (Hertford), the noble Marquess who lived in the neighbourhood, whose enmity to the Reform Bill was but too well known, had used his utmost influence at the late election; and, so far from his being deterred from pursuing the same course hereafter, he had lately compelled his tenantry, who were extremely numerous, to sign a bond, by which they who had votes for the borough of Hertford agreed to give up at quarter-day, upon receiving fourteen days' previous notice to quit, the possession of their tenements or holdings under that nobleman. The bond contained a clause of forfeiture in case the tenant refused to surrender, and the penalty for his refusal was 50l. In the case of persons who would be entitled to vote for the county, who were his tenants, he believed there was a longer notice required; but the bond was required in this instance also, and the penalty on refusal was the same. The first clause which he had drawn out inflicted a penalty of 500l. upon any Peer interfering, and proved to have interfered, in any election. The second clause pointed out the tribunal by which the penalty was to be inflicted. The third showed the mode in which the penalty was to be recovered. There was another Bill in progress in the other House of Parliament, to prevent corrupt prac- 1160 tices at elections—which was very kind and considerate of the noble Lords; and no one felt more grateful to the noble and learned Lord, the author of the Bill, for his good intentions, and the interest he appeared to take in the purity of elections, than he felt; but that Bill, like the Bill of his noble friend, entirely overlooked the impurity of which he complained, and in no way provided for the vindication of the sessional resolution. That the House of Commons, from the earliest period of our representative history, had ever been jealous of the influence and interference of Peers, was strongly proved by the fact that, until the reign of Edward 6th, the eldest sons of Peers were not allowed to approach this House, or considered eligible to sit in Parliament. The first instance of the sort was Sir Francis Russell's, member for Bucks, who succeeded his elder brother, Lord Russell, who died; and on Sir Francis Russell becoming Lord Russell, a long and angry debate took place, whether he should continue to represent the county of Buckingham, when, after much discussion, it was decided in the affirmative; from which time the encroachments of the Peerage had gone on, and, he was convinced, would continue and increase, unless the Commons adopted some legislative enactment to prevent them. The question, therefore, was simply this—whether the Reformed Parliament was in future to represent the Commons, and the Commons of England only, or whether Peers should with impunity interfere in elections? If the House was of opinion that they ought to interfere—which it would virtually establish if it negatived the principle upon which his Motion was founded—then let Peers be placed at once upon the same footing as all other electors, and let them, now and henceforward, if they thought proper, register and vote at elections, so that the people might know what they were about; but do not let a Reformed Parliament go through the farce of passing a resolution, which was an insult to the people of England, and a mockery on the understanding of the House. For his part, he thought, as it had been the pride and good fortune of this House of Commons to extend the rights and privileges of the people, so it ought to be its duty to see that the people were secure and protected in the undisturbed enjoyment of those rights, and that their votes could be freely and independ- 1161 ently given, for the promotion of those ends for which their votes were granted. All he asked was, that the sessional resolution should have the force of law, and thereby put an end, now and for ever, to that species of unconstitutional interference on the part of Peers—an interference frequently accompanied by acts of oppression—acts not less degrading to the Peerage itself, than subversive of the ancient and undoubted rights and privileges of the people of Great Britain. He moved that the clauses be brought up.
The Chairman called the attention of the Committee to the fact, that the clauses against the interference of Peers did not come within the scope of the title of the Bill, which was to prevent "bribery and corruption" at elections. He, therefore, thought that they could not be brought up.

Lord John Russell
agreed with the Chairman, that the clauses were inadmissible in point of form, but, nevertheless, he thought the present not an improper time to discuss the principle involved in the Resolutions. In his opinion, the Resolutions of the House against the interference of Peers at elections, only applied to cases of gross and open interference. He did not think that it could be the object of a Reformed Parliament to shut out all interference whatever on the part of Peers. There was a wide difference between the legitimate and illegitimate influence of rank and property: the former he hoped never to see abolished. He objected to the proposed clauses as inconsistent with the ordinary course of justice (this referred to the mode of imposing the penalty), and calculated to produce collisions between the two Houses of Parliament.

§ Mr. Currie
wished to know from the noble Paymaster of the Forces, whether it was legal or constitutional that a Peer should interfere in elections? To his own knowledge, the Marquess of Salisbury had indirectly, by bribes, and directly by threats, most illegally and unconstitutionally endeavoured to influence the electors of the borough (Hertford) which he (Mr. Currie) represented.

Lord John Russell
did not think it necessary to deprecate such conduct in either Peer or Commoner as highly illegal and unconstitutional. He, however, saw no reason why a Peer should not influence elections.