§ MR. STANLEY LEIGHTONasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether the Government have any intention in the Corrupt Practices Bill of providing against interference with the freedom of constituencies by declaring that the recommendation of candidates through political agencies or persons unconnected with a constituency shall be considered an attempt to exercise undue influence?
MR. GLADSTONESir, in this Question, I have no doubt the hon. Member has in view officious, and what may be called impertinent, interference; what the constituency might resent as dictation—and if he can discover any means of defining that kind of operation by words suited to an Act of Parliament, and will propose them and put them on the Paper, in all probability my hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General will be glad to give them his best consideration. But I am bound to say I think his words, as they stand in the Question, are a great deal too wide, because he proposes to enact that any recommendation of a candidate to a constituency by a person not belonging to the constituency shall be considered an exercise of undue influence. It appears to me that that would be a distinct prohibition to every constituency to seek any information whatever outside that constituency about any person whom they might think of making a candidate which it might be very desirable that the constituency should have.