SOUTH NOTTINGHAM ELECTION. (Hansard, 12 May 1846)

§ MR. HILDYARD

said: Sir, I am sorry to trespass upon the time of the House with a matter relating to myself; but I appeal to it to grant me its indulgence, while I take the first opportunity to answer a charge made against me in my absence by the noble Lord the Member for Falkirk (the Earl of Lincoln). For the particulars of it I am indebted entirely to newspaper reports; for since Thursday last I have been engaged in attending my duties in the yeomanry corps in the country; but, according to the reports, the noble Lord is stated to have said that I made an attack upon him on the hustings during the late election for South Notts, and imputed bribery to him. Now, in the strongest possible way in which the rules of the House will admit of its being done, I deny that I ever did so. I am aware it will be said, that this is only the assertion of one man against the assertion of another; but I think, when I read from the county paper, published at the time, the report of the proceedings at the election, the House will see that it bears out the assertion which I now make. I will not trouble the House with reading my speech, which I am quite certain could in no part be construed as hostile to the noble Lord, or imputing bribery to him, or making any charge against him; I will begin with the part of his speech which has reference to myself:— Ask Mr. Hildyard, whether he did not at Sutton, the day before yesterday, while addressing a number of electors, say the victory would be his (Mr. Hildyard's) in spite of the lavish expenditure of the other party, and add that the latter had offered 30l. a vote? Now if we did not deny with much greater force than usual charges like these, very little credence would be given to our repudiation of them; he therefore begged to say, that if such a statement really were made, it was a wilful and deliberate falsehood. Of course, he did not mean to apply that to Mr. Hildyard, who of course must have stated it on the authority of some one else; but he did not think that, as a gentleman and a Member for the county, Mr. Hildyard ought to tell them from whom he received that statement. Then follows my reply to the noble Lord:— That I was perfectly ready to answer him; that, at Sutton, I did state that bribery was practised on the opposite side, and I maintain that still; that I did not believe that it was by the noble Lord, but by the Free Trade Committee at Nottingham; and I believe that still. Sir R. Bromley, a principal supporter of the noble Lord, then said, "You do not impute it to his Lordship, then?" and my answer was, "No." Sir R. Bromley also said, "Nor to the gentleman who supported 418 him?" and I answered, "No." Now, really, I cannot conceive how the noble Lord could state, as the result of this, that I made an attack upon him, and imputed bribery to him. In reference to the Free Trade Committee at Nottingham, I did state my belief that bribery was practised by that committee, and I will now say why I did so. At one of the polling places, during the election, two men were pointed out to me by respectable people of the place, as being reported to have received 2l. each; I went up to those men, and they themselves stated that the fact was so. I went to another polling place, and there a man came up to me, and said he had been offered 23l., and he pointed out another man to me who had been offered the same sum. In the heat of the contest I went to another polling place, and stated publicly what I had heard. I am perfectly willing to admit, young and inexperienced as I am (as the noble Lord is always throwing in my teeth), that I ought not to have done so. My private opinion remains just the same now, as it was then; but I am quite ready to admit that I ought not to have charged that body with bribery; and I am perfectly willing now to retract the charge. But the noble Lord has said, that the county was canvassed before he vacated his seat. Now, I can assure the noble Lord that he is strangely misinformed upon that subject; and I will state why I say so. The first intimation I had of an election at all taking place, was by a letter from the noble Lord himself, asking my support, and begging me to lose no time in commencing a canvass for him, that I might anticipate any parties who should oppose him. As that was the first intimation I had of the proceeding, I cannot conceive that the county could have been previously canvassed for me. I have been in the county within the last few days, and have spoken to gentlemen who voted for him, and who have told me that no such canvass took place; and that if they had been so canvassed for me, they would have voted for me, and not for the noble Lord. Now, I hope I have refuted the assertions of the noble Lord to the satisfaction of the House. I must say I think the statement and the charge most uncalled for, and most ungenerous on the part of the noble Lord the other night; I say most ungenerous, for he must have known, that through the whole election I did not allow a single word to escape from me, as far as I could 419 tell, that could be construed into any personal hostility to the noble Lord; I did not even retaliate when he chose to indulge in those personalities, which were, I must say, regretted by his friends, and pitied by his opponents. I did not think he would have cherished this ill feeling towards me during the last three months, and then vented it when I was absent. I have only to add, that I trust my fate, which he seems so much to pity, may be the fate of many of my friends at the next general election. I trust then to see them with majorities of 500 or 600 over many of the 112 Conservative supporters of the Government—over many who are now sitting on the Treasury benches against the will of their constituents.

The EARL of LINCOLN

Sir, I am extremely unwilling to prolong even for a few minutes any discussion of a mere personal nature in this House; but I feel, that after what has been addressed to the House by the hon. Gentleman, it would not be right for me to remain perfectly silent on the subject. I can assure the hon. Member that his movements were not so well known to me, as that I was aware of his absence from London, or even from the House when I addressed it on Friday last; in fact, I was not aware of that circumstance till he mentioned it just now. But when he complains of my making an ungenerous attack upon him, in imputing to him that he made a charge of bribery against me, I would beg the House to remember what I did say on that occasion, and compare it with the newspaper extracts which the hon. Gentleman has just read. The noble Lord the Member for Lynn (Lord G. Bentinck) charged me with a lavish expenditure of money at the South Notts election, and said that the tenant farmers had defeated me in the contest in spite of that lavish expenditure; and those very words, "a lavish expenditure of money," occur in the speech which the hon. Member himself read from a report in a local paper. So far as I recollect, I did not say last Friday that the hon. Member had charged me directly with bribery, though I have now no hesitation in asserting that he did so charge me; but I do not see a very broad distinction between charging bribery upon an individual, and charging it upon the party by whom he is supported, because, practically, the hon. Member will find, before he has been much longer a Member of the House, that, generally speaking, friends are not so very 420 willing to expend lavish sums in a contest, unless there is some one in the back ground, commonly the candidate himself, to "pay the piper," as it is termed. However, what the noble Lord charged me with was a lavish expenditure of money, of course meaning an illegal expenditure—["No, no!"]—certainly I should never think of understanding, after such a charge, that the expenses were strictly confined to those which were legal. I then said to the noble Lord, that I was surprised he should think it dignified, in his position, to revive against me in this House charges which had been brought forward on the hustings by my opponent and successor—charges which I had refuted then, and which those who supported me had refuted since—charges which the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Hildyard) was again taxed in this House by the hon. Member for Nottingham (Mr. Gisborne) with having made, without foundation, and which he refused either to avow or to deny. The hon. Gentleman has now withdrawn the charge; and if he had said then what he has said now, he would never have heard from me one word further upon the subject. I can assure him I cherish no ill feeling whatever against him, or against any individual engaged in that contest, who conducted it upon fair and honourable terms; and by far the great majority of those who were engaged in it did so conduct it. But the hon. Gentleman did not give that answer then. He has now stated that he entirely withdraws his charge. As he has so done, I feel that it is unnecessary for me to say another word; and it would be perfectly unbecoming in me to do so. This is the only material point in the hon. Member's observations which I rose to notice; but as every Gentleman is always unwilling to labour under the imputation of having uttered what is not strictly and literally correct; and as the hon. Member has touched upon another point, I may perhaps he allowed to explain upon that point also. The hon. Gentleman states that the assertion I made the other night was not true, that the county was canvassed throughout by my opponents before my seat was vacated; and as a proof of his statement, he says that he was not aware of my intention to vacate it until I addressed a letter to him. Now, I not only believe, but I know, that this was the case. I know that the hon. Gentleman did not start until the Monday following the Saturday, when I issued my address; 421 but, nevertheless, my statement is perfectly true: the county was canvassed throughout, parish by parish, and man by man, two months previously to my vacating my seat; and I was informed of it, both before I vacated my seat, and repeatedly afterwards on my canvass. This canvassing in many places was for an unknown person, but more frequently for the individual who, the hon. Member is well aware, was intended originally to be my opponent, but was obliged to give way to his own higher claims. Now, that is the whole case. I can assure the hon. Gentleman, that so accurate was the information in the camp on his side that though I accepted the office I now hold only on a Saturday, and issued my address that day, and proceeded down to Nottingham by the mail train on Sunday night, arriving on Monday morning, I found on my arrival at Newark in the afternoon of that day, that the whole district in that neighbourhood had been canvassed at six o'clock that morning, with the information of my being Secretary for Ireland, that information being sent down by express on the Saturday night; and the whole machinery, which had been very elaborately and carefully prepared, was set in motion before any step had been taken on my part. This I explained the other night as the reason why it was necessary for me to incur the expense of retaining more professional agents than under other circumstances I should have been inclined to do; and I stated to the noble Lord that that was the only expense of an unusual nature incurred by me. Having explained these two points, I beg to repeat to the hon. Member, that he is perfectly mistaken if he supposes I entertain towards him any ill feeling whatever; and, if I had done so, his complete retractation to-day of the charge he has made would have completely removed any such feeling from my mind.