§ LORD ROBERT CECILsaid, he wished to know whether the Government intended to issue Commissions to inquire into the election proceedings of those constituencies among whom the Election Committees reported that extensive bribery had prevailed. With regard to the Gloucester eleciton, bribery was proved to a considerable extent before the Election Committee, and through that Committee, of which he was a member, reported unanimously that it was not proved that the sitting Members had any cognizance of the same, he hardly felt his conscience discharged by that decision, for the report of that Committee fell far short of the truth. What happened at Gloucester was this:—One of those low party agents, the necessity and disgrace of every party, went down from London with a large sum of money and bribed from one end of the city of Gloucester to the other, employing for that purpose a great number of local agents. The sitting Members were perfectly ignorant of this, and the first knowledge they had of the system of bribery was from the evidence of the witnesses called before the Election Committee. He was told that the same was the case with regard to the Norwich election, and he must say that the hardship inflicted upon the candidates by these agents was enormous. Let the candidates take all the precautions which human ingenuity could devise, and yet they were not secure, on account of party agents from London being sent down to the different constituencies. Those agents did not care one straw what happened afterwards to the Member. All they wanted was his vote on the first party division after the House met. He trusted the Government would issue Commissions of inquiry in such cases as he had alluded to, and that their attention would be particularly directed to the organized system of bribery which emanated from associations and clubs in London. [A cry of "The 751 Carlton Club."]He claimed no especial purity for any club, but he thought that this was a matter that should be inquired into.
SIR GEORGE LEWISsaid, that the Government had, as a Government, no peculiar function in the matter to which the noble Lord referred. There was a provision in an Act of Parliament to which the language of the Report of the Committee on the Gloucester election had express reference. The report stated that "the Committee have reason to believe that corrupt practices extensively prevailed at the last election for the city of Gloucester." Such were the words of the Act of Parliament in reference to Commissions of Inquiry, and the practice hitherto followed, when a report like that was made, was first of all to place the evidence on the table and to have it printed, and then for the Chairman of the Committee, from whom the Report proceeded, to move an Address to the Crown for a Commission of inquiry. Upon a similar Address being agreed to by the other House, a Commission of inquiry issued. The Government, as such, had no special function in the matter.
§ SIR JOHN SHELLEYsaid, he intended to give notice of a Motion, that in the case of Members unseated for bribery no new writ should issue until the House had an opportunity of considering the evidence upon which the election had been declared void.
§ Motion agreed to.
§ House in Committee.