NEW WRIT (BOROUGH OF WORCESTER). (Hansard, 31 January 1908)

§ SIR A. ACLAND-HOOD (Somersetshire, Wellington)

moved for the issue of the Writ for Worcester in the room of Mr. G. H. Williamson, whose election has been declared to be void. The right hon. Gentleman reminded the House that the late Attorney-General, whose loss both on public and personal grounds they all so sincerely regretted, had on the last occasion when this Motion was made, at the commencement of the last session, declared that, after looking at all the circumstances of the case and the time during which the issue of the Writ had been already suspended, he saw no reason for further withholding the Writ. The Motion to issue it was, however, rejected by a majority of two. He reminded the House further that the Commissioners, whose inquiry lasted nineteen days and before whom a multitude of witnesses was examined, had found that there was no general corruption. A very small amount of money had changed hands. Only four persons were implicated in the charges, and of those one was acquitted. 374 He submitted to the House that there was no longer any valid reason why 8,549 electors of Worcester should be deprived of their right of sending a Member to the House.

§ THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL (Sir W. ROBSON,), South Shields

said that when this Motion was first made, a few days after the presentation of the Report of the Election Commissioners, it was resisted on the ground that there had not been time to consider the Report; but when the Motion was renewed at the beginning of 1907 the Government thought it was no longer desirable to resist it. The House took a different view. Now the Government considered that, a period of suspension having elapsed, there was, in accordance with all the precedents or in accordance with principle, no valid reason why the Writ should not now issue. In adopting this Motion the Government, of course, did not condone—the House would not think they condoned—the offence charged against the corrupt element in the electorate of Worcester. Nor did they think that the punishment, such as it was, of disfranchisement was in any way adequate to such offences so far as the offenders were concerned. But the House would, he was sure, bear in mind that this was a punishment of a somewhat illogical character. It fell upon the innocent and upon all the innocent as well as upon the guilty, and, unfortunately, it was perhaps the innocent who felt it most acutely. Those who were guilty of the offences charged were the last and the least to suffer any pain from the discredit attaching to this form of punishment. The right hon. Baronet had pointed out with perfect accuracy that the corruption actually discovered and punished was not, perhaps, very extensive in area. It was found, he thought, to the credit of Worcester in some measure, that a very small amount of money changed hands. He did not wish for a moment to imply that the discredit of corruption was lessened by 375 lowering the price, but it pointed to one very gratifying feature, that there was no competition among the corrupters. In the Report there was a finding of a somewhat unusual and very hopeful character. He was not, of course, going into the Report in any party spirit, which would be very improper. But upon the facts the Commission did find that one of the political Parties concerned had by resolution resolved that they would have no part or lot in the corruption in that city, and they had acted on that resolve. There had been a genuine and strenuous effort after political purity in Worcester at the last election, a hopeful circumstance which entitled the electors, on whose behalf he put forward this plea, to say that there had been a meritorious effort to lessen corruption in that ancient city. There was no principle which would enable him to say how many electorally righteous men ought to save a city from electoral extinction; but, at all events, there were in Worcester a very considerable number who were not only innocent in the negative sense, but were earnestly desirous of improving the repute and character of their city, and it was in their interest that the Government now acquiesced in this step.