§ MR. COLLIER moved for leave to introduce a Bill to prohibit the payment of the expenses of conveying Voters to the Poll, and to facilitate polling at elections. Towards the close of the last Session, and when more than one-half of the Members were absent—driven away, he believed, by the stench of the river—when all the common-law lawyers were on circuit—an Act was passed, which he believed was one of the worst—and that was a bold word—one of the worst passed in modern times. It was an Act passed mainly for the purpose of getting rid of the effect of a decision of the House of Lords in the case of "Cooper v. Slade," which he believed was sound in law and wholesome in application. The effect of the Bill of last Session was to establish a new property qualification in the room of the one abolished, and a far more mischievous one, for the other was a sham, while this was a reality. Had he been in the House when the Bill was brought in he should certainly have opposed the measure; and, as it was, he lost no time in proposing to repeal it. He knew that he should be met by dilatory pleas. He should probably be told that the Act he asked to repeal was only a continuance Act, which would expire in July next, and he would probably be asked to postpone this matter until "the dog days," when no doubt the Government would produce some comprehensive measure on the subject. The Act of last Session was passed by a worn and jaded House, and he wished to take the opinion of the House when it was fresh. He did not believe that the Act of last Session represented the feelings of the Liberal majority of that House; for it was the fact, that although we had a Tory Government the majority of the House were Liberal, and if the Government wished to 717 remain in office they must do the bidding of that majority. He should probably be told that the Government were about to introduce a Reform Bill, which would include provisions on the subject; but he must beg to say that he had no confidence in that Bill or any other Reform Bill passing this Session. If it were a bad Bill it would probably be rejected by that House, and if it were a good Bill it would probably be rejected once or twice in "another place." In the meantime this matter was urgent, and he believed it would be a public misfortune if there should be a general election whilst the present Act remained in force. He believed that the effect of the Act would be to increase almost indefinitely the difficulty which poor men had in finding their way into that House. He must be acquitted of any discourtesy to the Government when he said that he must press this Bill on without reference to any Bill which they might intend to introduce. Let them for a moment consider this question. He apprehended that the Act of last Session had been passed on a misconception of the purpose of an election, and of the duties of the candidate and the constituency to each other. if a Member of Parliament were elected for his own benefit—if every vote conferred on him was a personal obligation enabling him to obtain a position of honour or profit for his own advantage—then the Act of last Session was right. But, as he maintained, and he believed the majority of the House held, that a constituency, in choosing a Member of Parliament chose a public servant to exercise a high trust; that the vote was a high constitutional privilege; and that the object of an election was to secure the best possible public servant, by the true and unbiassed vote of the constituency; then he maintained that the Act of last Session was fundamentally wrong. He maintained it was the business of the voter to exercise his franchise, and that if a man were so apathetic, or so idle, or indifferent, that he declined to exercise his vote—if he refused to take the trouble or to incur the expense of exercising his vote—it was far better that he should not exercise it, and should leave the election to those who were in earnest. He apprehended that there could be scarcely any better test of the fitness of an elector to exercise the franchise than the test whether he would take the trouble and bear the expense of doing so. It was said that there were some voters who resided so far 718 from the poll, or were so ill or so infirm, that they were unable to vote unless conveyance was provided for them; and that, without such conveyance, they would be practically disfranchised. Another way of stating the argument was, that if a voter could not exercise the franchise, the candidate was to enfranchise him. He denied that it was the duty of any candidate to enfranchise an elector. Let them see to what that principle led. A poor man might well say, "I cannot afford to vote unless I am paid for going to the poll;" and if the candidate was to enfranchise that voter he must pay him for his time lost in going to the poll. Another voter might say, "There is no use in providing me with conveyance to the poll unless you give me something to eat and drink," and if the candidate was to enfranchise that voter, the candidate must provide him with meat and drink, or, in other words, "treat" him. A sick man might say, "I cannot get there without medicine," and the candidate must provide him with medicine. Let them go a little further. A voter was too poor to pay his rates—was the candidate to pay those rates? He was too poor to rent a £10 house—was the candidate to provide him the means of renting a £10 house? Where was the system to stop? He recommended to the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Ayrton), who exercised his ingenuity in framing this clause. [Mr. AYRTON: No, no!] He understood that that was so; but, at all events, he recommended him to exercise his ingenuity in carrying out the principle of the candidate enfranchising the voter; let him provide that the candidate might pay the voter's rates for him, but not give him money to pay them himself. The candidate was to provide the conveyance, but not to give the voter the money to pay for his conveyance. These were the quibbles on which the Act was based. What was it but splitting hairs to say that a candidate might provide conveyance, but not give the voter the money to provide conveyance for himself? There was no difference between giving a voter 5s. to purchase a railway ticket, and giving him a 5s. railway ticket. He supposed hon. Gentlemen opposite would go to the extent of saying that all expenses might be paid; but it was enacted last year that that was illegal. It was unlawful to pay travelling expenses, or to give a voter money or valuable consideration—those were the words of the Act. He might be told that 719 the decision in "Cooper v. Slade" went only to this—that it was bribery to pay a voter's travelling expenses on the condition that he would vote for you. But the principle of the decision went beyond that. If the principle of the Bill of last Session was worth anything, it was the duty of the State, not of the candidate, to pay them. Let the Chancellor of the Exchequer come to the House with a Vote for the expense of carrying poor voters or idle voters to the poll, and do not carry out the thing, if it were right, by a side-wind. Or let the proposition of the hon. Member for Dover (Mr. Osborne) be adopted, and the expenses of the candidate be paid out of the county rate or Consolidated Fund; and then see how the country would like it. There were many who thought it was not desirable that persons should sit in that House unless they were able to pay a very considerable sum—£1,500 was a low figure—for his seat. He, however, thought that it was more important that the intelligence than the wealth of the country should be represented, and those who most accurately represented the intelligence of the country were not always those who represented its wealth. But if the views of those persons were correct, let them re-enact the property qualification; or let them enact that no man should sit in that House unless he could spend £2,000 to do so, or, as an hon. Friend suggested, unless he had actually spent it. If hon. Members thought that a property qualification was necessary, let them enact something like that. Those who thought a property qualification necessary would be perfectly consistent in doing so, but among those who thought it necessary there certainly would not be the Secretary of State for the Home Department, because he told them last Session that he had been during the whole or the greater part of his life opposed to a property qualification. [Mr. WALPOLE: No!] He had understood that it was so. He did not wish to misrepresent him; and he was quite sure that although he gave such cogent reasons why he had always entertained the view that property qualification was not necessary, he always found it his duty to vote in favour of it. The present Act made it absolutely necessary for a man who stood for a large borough or a county to have considerable funds available for the purposes of the election. It seemed to him a mockery to repeal the property qualification, and in the same Session to re-enact another pro- 720 perty qualification more stringent than the last. Under the Act of last Session voters would think that they had a vested right to be conveyed to the poll, and would deem it a slight if carriages were not sent for them. At every contested election there would be a rush to obtain all the hackney cabs, carriages, and omnibuses; and the omnibus and livery-stable interest would be in a state of great excitement. They would, of course, charge according to the demand. The whole of that interest would be bribed and bought. The corruption would not stop there. Many payments would be made, not really to obtain conveyances for voters, but as a cloak for illegal payments, and corruption would be carried to an extent which it was impossible to calculate. He ventured to think that the Act of last Session was at variance with the whole current of modern legislation, and that it was a retrograde step. In 1834 a Committee of that House made a Report which was one of the most valuable on their Journals, and which had been acted on by legislating in accordance with it for many years. That Committee reported on the best means of carrying on an election, and among other sentiments there was this, "Your Committee maintain the principle that a candidate should be elected and sent to Parliament free of expense." It was admitted by no less an authority than the Early of Derby that the Act of last Session would greatly increase the expense of elections—an admission, indeed, which was made on all sides; and the admission was a conclusive argument against the Act. Entertaining the views which he had detailed, he deemed it his duty to propose a Bill to repeal the Act of last Session, and inasmuch as he did not think it desirable that the law should remain at all uncertain, he proposed to enact that the payment of travelling expenses of all kinds by candidates should be illegal, and that the person doing so should be guilty of bribery. It had been said that it might be illegal for a candidate to take a voter to the poll in his own carriage; but that would be illegal under his Bill. He also proposed by his Bill to increase the power of the Government to establish polling places in counties and boroughs where necessary. That seemed to him the only legitimate way in which they could assist voters—by providing polling places in situations convenient for them. He proposed to give to the Government power of establishing polling places wherever they thought pro- 721 per. This was the outline of the measure which he proposed to submit to the House; and in conclusion he would only say that he believed that the public were deeply interested in this question, for there had been scarcely a political meeting during the vacation at which hon. Members had not been taken to task about the matter by their constituents, and at which great disapprobation of the Act had not been expressed. It was complained that they had passed an Act which had a direct tendency to vest the possession of seats in that House in those who had property, and an indirect tendency to encourage bribery and corruption; and if that Act were allowed to remain on the Statute-book it would be very difficult to persuade the people that the House was earnest in its desire to open the House to all classes of the community and to maintain the purity of elections. The hon. Member concluded by moving for leave to bring in a Bill to prohibit the payment of expenses of conveying Voters to the Poll, and to facilitate polling at Elections.
§ SIR WILLIAM FRASERsaid, the hon. and learned Member had informed the House that the measure of last year passed at a time when a considerable number of lawyers were absent in the discharge of their professional duties. He was not prepared to say whether that was an advantage or a disadvantage, but certainly there was no want of close reasoning on either side of the question, and if the hon. and learned Member had been in the House when this subject was discussed he would hardly have produced on this occasion arguments that had been refuted hundreds of times, and had been brought forward and repeated till the House was perfectly nauseated with them. He would not, therefore, follow the hon. and learned Gentleman in his arguments, but he would suggest, that as a Reform Bill was to be brought before them in a few days, it was hardly necessary, and would be premature, to discuss any part of the subject beforehand. The hon. Member for Birmingham and others were constantly telling them that it would be of the greatest advantage to the country that the labouring classes should have a voice in the election of Members of Parliament. Now, he (Sir W. Fraser) could not help thinking that it was a perfectly legitimate mode of enabling the poor man to exercise that privilege to convey him to the poll. It appeared to him something like mockery for a rich man 722 to go to a poor man and ask him to go and vote for him, and yet refuse to put his hand in his pocket to pay his expenses of going to the poll. He believed those classes would be led to take that view of the matter. There was one kind of sympathy and kindly feeling for others not uncommon, which had been described by the Rev. Sidney Smith, as A pitying B and earnestly wishing C would help him. That was about the character of the sentiment that generally came from the quarter of the House from which the hon. and learned Gentleman had spoken.
§ MR. WALPOLEsaid, before the Bill of the hon. and learned Gentleman was introduced he wished to say a few words upon the immediate subject alluded to. The hon. and learned Gentleman seemed to think that the House had been taken by surprise when the Bill of last year was passed at the end of the Session. The facts, however, were these. Early last summer attention was called to the uncertain and unsatisfactory state of the law in regard to the conveyance of voters to the poll, by an hon. and learned Gentleman sitting on the Opposition side of the house (Mr. Serjeant Deasy.) A decision given in the House of Lords was supposed to have left the question in a more uncertain state than before, and the Government were pressed from both sides of the House to introduce such a measure as would place the law on the subject upon a clear and intelligible footing. On referring to official records I find that the Bill was introduced early in June, and on the 2d July it was read a second time without a division. On the 16th July this question about the conveyance of voters was discussed, and a division was taken, when it appeared that the Ayes were 133, and the Noes only 58. Division after Division followed: and on the third reading, which took place on the 26th July, the tenth division on the Bill took place, when the third reading was carried by a majority of Ayes 93, against Noes 60. Now, lie was anxious to remind the House of those facts, because, in saying that the House was taken by surprise, it appeared to him that the hon. and learned Gentleman was inclined to rely too much on the draughts of oblivion generally supposed to be quaffed during the recess. The hon. and learned Gentleman seemed to imagine that his Bill would have the effect of settling the question, which at all times was one of great difficulty to deal with; and to think that his measure, if 723 carried, would prevent bribery and corrupt practices at elections. He (Mr. Walpole) however, thought the hon. and learned Gentleman would find, when he moved the second reading, that he had raised quite as difficult a question as the one he was attempting to settle. By the Bill he was about to bring in, he found fault with that provision of the last Act which declared that the bona fide expenses attending the conveyance of the voter to the poll might be paid for by the candidate, and he now proposed to repeal it; but he went further and said the very reverse of the Act of last Session, for he proposed to enact that the payment of any of the expenses of the conveyance of any voter to the poll was in future to be viewed as an act of bribery. He wished the hon. and learned Gentleman to consider whether he might not be running too fast in attempting to put down in the name of bribery an innocent instead of a guilty act. He (Mr. Walpole) would go as far as any man in his desire to put down everything that had a tendency to bribery or corruption; but the hon. and learned Gentleman must prove that the mere fact of simply paying the bona fide expenses of carrying a voter to the poll can have a corrupt influence upon the voter. But the hon. and learned Gentleman showed even by his own Bill that he had no faith in any such proposition, for he said, although he would not allow the conveyance of the voter to the poll to be paid for, he would nevertheless allow the candidate to convey the voter to the poll in his own carriage.
§ MR. COLLIERexplained. He merely said, that taking your friend for a drive in a carriage during the day should not be considered as illegal. He did not speak of driving a voter to the poll.
§ MR. WALPOLEsaid, he would give the hon. and learned Gentleman full credit for his explanation; but he would find difficulties in his Bill quite as great as those he proposed to remove. The hon. and learned Gentleman's objection to the Act of last Session were, first, that it tended to a species of bribery, and, secondly, that it gave a rich man an advantage over a poor man. But, had not the man who had his own carriage an advantage over the man who had none? And how, if he could carry a voter to the poll in his own carriage, could he prevent his friends carrying other voters in theirs? Would it not equally be bribery in either case? He should have wished to have abstained from any discus- 724 sion at the present moment upon this topic. If the hon. and learned Gentleman supposed that the Act of last Session had not had a fair discussion, by all means let the question be fairly discussed upon his Bill. He was not one who thought that even the solution of the question last Session was satisfactory; but he did say that to lay down the law as it was now proposed would, he believed, induce a far worse state of things than to declare that the expenses attending the conveyance of the voters to the poll should be permitted where no corrupt influence had been exercised. He did not think that the hon. and learned Gentleman's solution of the difficulty was satisfactory. What he (Mr. Walpole) contended for was, that the law should be laid down plainly in the Statute-book one way or other. He would beg to correct the hon. and learned Gentleman's statement of the law laid down upon this subject by the House of Lords last year. The highest tribunal of the land decided that it was not illegal to pay the expenses of conveying the voter to the poll; but that if a candidate gave a previous promise that be would pay the expenses of bringing a voter to the poll, and that promise was followed by the actual payment of those expenses, that act might have a corrupt influence on the voter's mind, and was therefore illegal. By the other portion of the hon. and learned Gentleman's Bill he proposed to facilitate the taking of the poll by allowing the Government to increase the number of polling places. Now, let the hon. and learned Gentleman consider well what he was doing. He was placing in the hands of the Government the power of saying what polling places should or should not be established. By the existing law they had guarded well against any impropriety in the selection of the polling places, inasmuch as no change of place or increase of number can be made except on the recommendation of the magistrates of the county-then only has the Executive Government the power to determine whether there should or should not be more polling places. Now he confessed he doubted the wisdom of transferring such a power from the magistrates to the Government. He should be glad to see the Bill introduced, and he honed he should not be again told that a fair opportunity had not been given for the discussion of its provisions. He also hoped, when they came to the discussion, that they might be able to settle the question in a clear, sensible, and definite 725 manner; but the difficulties of the question were very great, and he believed the settlement proposed by the hon. and learned Gentleman would make the matter worse than it was before.
MR. SERJEANT DEASYsaid, he could corroborate the statement that the attention of the House was called to this question early in the last Session. He had himself alluded to it; and he did also on account of the confusion into which the law had fallen. Committee after Committee of that House had decided that the payment of money to the voter for his traveling expenses, if bonâ fide, was perfectly legal; but the decision of the House of Lords in "Cooper v. Slade," reversing the judgment of the Exchequer Chamber, had since affirmed that the payment of a voter's travelling expenses in pursuance of a conditional promise previously made constituted bribery. It was his duty as Chairman of a Committee which had to consider the question, to call the Home Secretary's attention to the embarrassment in which candidates and their agents were placed by this decision; and it was therefore quite true, as the right hon. Gentleman had said, that the suggestion of the necessity of a remedy for this evil had emanated from that the Opposition side of the House. Whether the particular mode then adopted for supplying that remedy had been the right one was quite another question. The hon. and learned Member for Plymouth (Mr. Collier) seemed to underrate the difficulties resulting from his Motion. So far from his Bill facilitating the entrance of men of small means into that House, it would place the seats for the counties especially entirely in the hands of the great and wealthy, because it would leave it perfectly open for the landlords to bring their own tenants to the poll, while candidates who had not the support of the landlords, if they hired conveyances, would be exposed to all the penalties of bribery. As the right hon. Gentleman had said it would be most unwise to attach to an act, which everybody believed to be innocent, the stigma of corruption. It was to be hoped that all their constituents would profit by the hon. and learned Member's lecture as to the duties incident to the possession of the franchise—that they would no longer be apathetic, or require to be canvassed or conveyed, but would rush to the poll to elect the men of their conscientious choice. The Bill, however, of the hon. and learned Gentleman would practically disfranchise 726 some three-fifths of the entire constituency of the kingdom. Nor was that all. They must go a step further and prohibit canvassing, and the employment of paid canvassers. It might or might not be expedient to establish more polling places, but nothing could be more objectionable than to leave the whole polling arrangements of the country in the hands of the Executive Government for the time being. The Bill, as it now stood, was crude and imperfect, but he would give every assistance to improve it.
§ GENERAL THOMPSONwished to sift the question of morality propounded by the right hon. Gentleman opposite, by putting a case of his own. Suppose he were a candidate for Bradford, and a poorer man than himself were against him, might he not by the natural instinct of a candidate—presuming the present legal arrangements to be continued—send down some acute man to London, Edinburgh, Dublin, Manchester, and any other of the great emporia of manufactures and commerce, and tell him to find out how many Bradford men were there,—to go round to them and say, "Does any man want to settle a little business that he has left undone, and which he would be the better for doing at my expense,—or does he want to go and kiss his cousins?" Nothing must be said about their voting for me; that should be left to their honour. A reputable man would not take his money, and do nothing for him in return. He would trust that to the agent, observing to him, "You know how to do things of this kind; do it well, and you shall be paid for your trouble." Would or would not all that, be gross bribery? What was bribery but the holding forth to a voter a pecuniary or other inducement to vote for a particular candidate? Some men looked for money, others looked for those pleasant exhibitions of family amity at which he had hinted. Every candidate who, by dint of his purse, gave this pleasure, whatever it might be, to the voter, with the result of having his vote in return, was within the whiff and wind of bribery. The importance of providing for the poor voters getting to the poll had been urged. His remedy for that was this,—turn all paupers ruthlessly out of the Reform Bill. If a man was not rich enough to carry himself to the poll, let them not make the candidate convey him. Let anybody pay for it except the candidate. The Bill of last Session passed, as the hon. Mover had stated, at rather an unfavourable period. It pasted at the 727 time of the bad smell, when there was a considerable inattention to legislative duties. Another unhappy circumstance of that time was, that those on that (the Opposition) side laboured under the misfortune of finding one of their own friends and companions miraculously taking part against them. In conclusion, he must express his wonder that a Government which had acquired a considerable hold upon popular opinion, and which, if the reports circulated in Parliament Street were true, might any day in the week be called upon to exhibit its Strength, should, after gaining credit by removing the Qualification of Members, have fallen into the snare which had been, whether designedly or not he knew not, laid for them. £1,500 a year it had been said in that House,—he heard it,—was the proper sum for a candidate to expend. Was not that creating a worse property qualification than the old one? He wondered much at the conduct of the Government, because he thanked them for the good things they had done, his gratitude not being without that component part which looked for benefits to come.
§ MR. AYRTONsaid, the clause which he had proposed in the Bill of last Session had been so much altered by hon. Gentlemen introducing a word here and a word there, that when it passed out of Committee it expressed a different idea from the one he had intended. It was an entire mistake to suppose that they had not gone further into that question than the discussion of any mere abstract proposition. The House got a step beyond that. They discussed it in a practical point of view, and then it was that the difficulties of the subject presented themselves. If his hon. and learned Friend should succeed in passing this Bill, and it should have the effect of putting an end to all bribery of the kind contemplated, no one would be more gratified than he (Mr. Ayrton) should be; but he was bound to say there had been a great deal of talk about this question in the recess, and he was induced to think he had rendered great service to some hon. Members whose votes in that House did not seem popular with their constituents. He could not but say, in reference to a point which had been mooted during the Debate, that to place in the hands of the Executive Government the management of elections, instead of leaving it with some local authority, would be to violate a principle of the constitution, and to embark in a career more dangerous to the enjoyment 728 of political liberty in this country than any course which could possibly be conceived.
§ MR. COXsaid, the main question was whether the House did or did not desire to put an end to corrupt practices. He saw no difficulty whatever in the matter. The objection of the hon. and learned Member (Mr. Ayrton) against the Government appointing additional polling places was wholly absurd. What more easy than to enact that there should be one or more polling places in every parish throughout the kingdom? He was glad the Government had consented to the introduction of the Bill. It would be discussed at every stage, for there was a feeling abroad since the passing of the hon. and learned Gentleman's insidious clause that the House was not sincere in its efforts to prevent corruption. That Bill had passed last July, when they were "stunk out" by the Thames; it was not a fair expression of the opinions of the House; the votes on the third reading being only ninety-three to sixty, not a quarter of the House.
§ LORD HOTHAMsaid he did not rise to speak in opposition to the Bill, but in consequence of an observation that had fallen from the hon. and learned Member for Plymouth (Mr. Collier). If he (Lord Hotham) were allowed to assimilate the proceedings of this place to the proceedings of a certain place of which he (Mr. Collier) was a distinguished ornament, he would say that the hon. and learned Gentleman, availing himself of the opening of the Parliamentary Term, had that evening moved for a rule to show cause why a new trial should not be granted of a cause heard and determined last Session. The hon. and learned Member had laid three grounds for his Motion. One, that the House had been taken by surprise; another, that the Bill of last Session had not been sufficiently discussed. He (Lord Hotham) thought his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department had shown that there was no ground for these allegations. That the House was not taken by surprise had been shown by the hon. and learned Serjeant (Mr. Serjeant Deasy) also. The division list gave evidence of the same fact, and there was as much discussion on the Bill as could possibly be expected at the time of year when it was passing through the House. The hon. Member for Finsbury (Mr. Cox) had alluded to the paucity of the Members who took part in the discussion; but when that hon. Gentleman had more experience of that House he would find that 729 no business whatever would secure a large attendance at that season of the year. He (Lord Hotham) had, however, no desire to refuse the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Collier) his "rule" on the ground that he had failed to make out a case of surprise or of insufficient discussion; but the hon. and learned Member had brought forward a third ground—namely, the absence of members of the common-law bar on circuit. Now, the principle involved on that ground was one against which he (Lord Hotham) thought the House was bound to set its face. He was sure the members of the learned profession would not forget the great indulgence shown to them when it is necessary for the fulfilment of their professional duties. An hon. and learned Gentleman never failed to receive leave of absence to enable him to go on circuit. Members of the learned profession were almost entirely excused from those laborious duties on Committees which other Members of the House had to discharge. The House did not complain of that, because it felt that the maintenance of the high feeling and education and standard of the Bar was a matter of importance to the country; but he hoped the members of the profession to which the hon. and learned Member belonged would not make so bad a return for the indulgence which they always received from the House as to expect, in addition to that indulgence, that the exertions of the House should be paralysed while they were attending to the duties of their profession, or that Parliament would reverse any decision come to whilst they were absent attending to their private avocations. He had his own opinion on the question at issue; but into that question he would not at present enter. He had, as one of the oldest Members of that House, felt it necessary, as no other hon. Member had done so, to protest against the principle which the hon. and learned Member had laid down in respect of the absence of lawyers—one which he hoped would not receive the sanction of the other hon. and learned Members in that House.
§ MR. D. NICOLLsaid, the second division on the Bill of last Session was taken after one o'clock in the morning—an hour at which, according to his experience, there never was a large attendance of Members.
§ MR. MELLORsaid, that Lord Hotham had mistaken his hon. and learned Friend's remark's respecting the absence of lawyers. There undoubtedly were occasions when 730 their presence was felt to be an advantage; and he thought that too much had been made about the indulgence shown to them; which was nothing more than this: they were asked, the same as other Members, when it would be convenient to them to attend on Committees, and therefore were not put on Committees when they were about to proceed on circuit. When the Bill of last Session was introduced, he certainly understood from some one on the Government side that it would not be pressed if serious opposition was offered. Finding it in the paper he came up from circuit to oppose it; but it was postponed for the convenience of Government to another day; and when he came up again he found the clause had been passed. He strongly disapproved of it, as opening a wide door to fraud. The practice of paying travelling, expenses had been condemned on this ground by Lord Mansfield, and other authorities. The real remedy was to bring the polling places to the voters; for if they were too poor or apathetic to go to the poll the House could not legislate for them. It had been well said by Mr. Justice Willes, in the trial of "Cooper v. Slade," that,
Whatever may be the better opinion as to the justice of payments between candidate and voter, it may well have been the intention of the Legislature to prohibit them as very likely to engender corrupt practices which would be the more dangerous from being plausible.He sincerely hoped that the Act would be repealed before a dissolution took place. The expense that had been incurred already at isolated elections was enormous—much more titan equal, in the case of each candidate, to a property qualification.
§ VISCOUNT PALMERSTONsaid, he thought it right to bear his testimony to the fact that the Bill of last Session was very fully and fairly discussed, and that the attendance of Members at the time was what, under the fluctuating circumstances which governed attendances from day to day, might be considered a very fair average attendance. At the same time, he would suggest to his hon. and learned Friend, the introducer of this Bill, that he had gone out of his way to lay a ground which was quite unnecessary for the purpose he had in view. He might have admitted that the Bill had had the fullest and fairest discussion last year; but that was no reason why any Member who was of a different opinion should not call upon the House to reconsider its decision. It was not necessary, in order to bring an im- 731 portant matter under the consideration of the House in one Session, to show that the thing had not been fully discussed before; on the contrary, they all knew that the most important questions which had come from time to time before the House had been fully and fairly discussed in one Session, had been brought under consideration also in the succeeding one, and that many had only been carried after repeated discussions. He was one who had supported the Bill as it stood; and he owned he had not heard in the course of the discussion anything that very much shook his belief that, on the whole, the course pursued by Parliament last year was the best. He could not bring his mind to conceive that paying the expense of conveying a voter to the poll was an act of bribery. He really could not bring himself to believe that a voter would give his vote merely for the sake of a five minutes' ride in a cab, especially when he knew that whoever he voted for would give him the same advantage. The hon. and learned Gentleman says, it is a quibble to attempt to draw a distinction between paying a voter's expenses and giving him the money to pay it himself. But it seemed to him that there was a very real and practical distinction between the two; and that was the subject of the many discussions on the Bill last year. If it were permitted to give money to the voter, that would open the door to any amount of bribery; because if, under the guise of giving him money to pay his travelling expenses, any money passed between the candidate and the voter, it was impossible to prevent any amount of bribery. And the reason why he thought the law a good one as it stood was, that it prohibited money from passing between the voter and the candidate, and only permitted the latter to pay the expenses attendant on the conveyance of the voter to the poll. It would be very difficult indeed to frame a measure which would completely carry out the views of those who supported this proposition. Not only must the candidate, but also his friends and supporters, be prohibited from providing the means of conveyance; in short, they must enact that every voter should find for himself the means of going to the poll. How far that would be acceptable to constituents he could not take upon himself to say; but the result would be, that a great many poor electors, who lived at a distance from the places of polling, would be pre- 732 cluded from exercising their franchise. He quite agreed that they ought to multiply polling places as far as possible both in counties and in boroughs, so that no man should be able to say that he could not get to the pull to give his vote. But on all those matters there was much to be said both ways; and hon. Members must recollect that the creation of additional polling places would throw additional expense on candidates for extra clerks and the erection of booths. He feared that they would mislead themselves if they supposed it possible to make a contested election an enjoyment free of all expense. Like every other luxury it must be paid for. He wished it to be as cheap as possible. He had enjoyed it himself several times, but not so cheaply as he could wish. He thought that they would not promote the public service by stigmatizing as bribery and corruption acts which in themselves were innocent and blameless. He was quite disposed to give this Bill every consideration when it was brought in; but he should be rather apprehensive of their falling into one error in endeavouring to avoid another. Of this, however, he was perfectly sure, that every Member of the House would be anxious to do his utmost in support of any measure which would really tend to the prevention of bribery and corruption.
§ MR. COLLIER, in reply, said that in remarking on the absence of lawyers, he had merely meant to excuse himself for not opposing the Bill of last Session. This Bill would reduce the expenses of elections, and on that ground he claimed the support of the learned Serjeant (Mr. Serjeant Deasy). As to polling places, he would merely give the Government the power to ascertain whether additional polling places were necessary, and if so, to make the requisite Order in Council.
§ Motion agreed to.
§ Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. COLLIER and Mr. MELLOR.
§ Bill presented, and read 1o.