§ Order for Committee read.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."
1807§ MR. BERESFORD HOPE, in rising to oppose the Motion, said, it was hardly consistent to go on with a Bill as to which the promise had been definitely and repeatedly given that it should be only taken at an hour admitting of substantive debate. No doubt, there was a kind of religious compact between the Government and their supporters that this Continuance Bill should be passed; and with regard to the Act itself, he (Mr. Beresford Hope) would confess that it was somewhat sweetened by the abolition of the hustings. Still, his objection to the ballot in itself was unmitigated; and he would not submit to the tyranny which strove to press this thing upon the House as an immemorial inheritance for some ten years. At least, the matter now stood in the advantageous position of not being a Party question. In 1874 it gave an impulsive and casual majority to the Tories, and in 1880 to the Liberals; so that in this connection the pot could not call the kettle black on either side. He was free, as a question of simple fact, to proclaim from the house-tops that the ballot had proved itself to be a delusion and a failure. Lord Palmerston used to be laughed at for opposing it with the assertion that it was un-English; but the wisdom of that suggestion could be tested by examining: the legislative condition of so-called free countries elsewhere, where a legislative system existed which was founded on the ballot. In justification of his estimate of the ballot, he would quote the authority of Mr. Justice Manisty against its general tendency. That eminent Judge, at the trial of the Oxford Election Petition, declared that a careful consideration of the evidence which had been adduced led him to the conclusion that, whilst the Ballot Act had, to a great extent, done away with what might be called the simple evil of undue influence, it had created a compound evil of a worse kind; for while, under the old system of open voting, a man who had been bribed could scarcely avoid voting according to his promise, now there were many cases of persons who promised to vote for a candidate, who, in the end, broke their promise. Were they sinners at Oxford above all the boroughs of England? If such things could take place at Oxford under the influence of the Home Secretary, what must happen in boroughs 1808 that returned Conservative Members? If the Government really did believe in their own Bill, let them give the House a night to discuss it, so that the subject might be thoroughly thrashed out, and, if possible, made to disprove the criticisms of the Election Judges. In his opinion, the Corrupt Practices Bill ought first to become the law of the land, so that the electors might really know their duty, and then the Ballot Act might take its place as an appendix to it. He was always very loth to take advantage of the Forms of the House for the purpose of preventing legislation being proceeded with; but he could not help, in this instance, appealing to the right hon. Baronet the President of the Local Government Board to postpone the measure, and give a Morning Sitting for its discussion. The Bill was anomalous, if it dealt with two distinct things—namely, the hours of polling and the form of voting. Those two things had no natural connection with each other.
§ It being ten minutes before Seven of the clock, the Debate stood adjourned till this day.