BRIBERY AT ELECTIONS. (Hansard, 10 May 1842)

Lord Brougham

craved their Lordships' attention to a subject of very great importance, to which he had already more than once alluded in the course of the Session,- he meant the 322 bribery and other corrupt practices which had taken place but too extensively at the last general election. He was induced the more particularly to call their Lordships' attention to the subject on the present occasion, from observing in the votes of the other House of Parliament that a select committee of that House had been appointed, for the purpose of inquiring into certain corrupt compromises alleged to have taken place in respect of charges of bribery brought before committees of that House and connected with the late election; and also, to inquire into the alleged bribery said to have been practised at that election. Now, the Bill which lay upon their Lordships' Table, having for its object the prevention of bribery at elections, would, if passed into a law, be of the most material assistance to the committee which the other House had appointed in the prosecution of its inquiries. It would also be of equal assistance to the committee which, he trusted, their Lordships would appoint, for the purpose of carrying on a similar investigation—though with a view different, of course, from that of the committee of the House of Commons—with a view merely legislative—with a view prospectively to amend the law for the purpose of preventing such wicked and scandalous practices for the future. He was, however, induced to call their Lordships' attention to the subject most especially upon this account, that he understood it had been charged against— he would not say himself individually, or his noble and learned Friend on the Woolsack, or the noble and learned Chief Baron (Lord Abinger) opposite—but against their Lordships' House generally, that they had been parties to the late scandalous proceedings, of which all men complained, and of which most men were now ashamed, by having rejected a bill, or the greater part of a bill, which had been sent up to them from the other House of Parliament, and of which, there being four clauses in the bill, their Lordships had certainly struck out three. It was quite impossible that any such charge as this could have been made in the other House of Parliament, because in that quarter it must be perfectly well known that such a charge was wholly without foundation; but the charge had been made, as he understood, out of doors, and very great umbrage had been taken at the proceedings of their Lordships' House in the month of June last, when their Lordships made those changes in the bill sent up from the Commons, the M 323 consequence of which changes, it was said, had been the encouragement of the bribery and corruption so rife at the last election. It was said, that if, instead of altering the measure as they did, their Lordships had allowed it to pass as it came up from the House of Commons, a more effectual check to bribery would have been afforded, and a material amendment of the law effected. Now it was at his suggestion, that their Lordships had struck out the three clauses of the bill which operation was said to have destroyed it; and he still maintained that it was utterly impossible for their Lordships to have passed such a bill as was sent up to them. Nay, he went further, and said that if their Lordships had passed it, beside giving their countenance, which thereby they would have given, to the absurdities and contradictions which appeared on the face of the bill, they would have taken the most effectual means that man's wit could devise, not to prevent, but to protect and even to encourage bribery at the late election. It was said, by way of aggravation of the charge made against their Lordships, that they were now entertaining a similar bill, namely, his bill which stood for a second reading, to which he could not anticipate any opposition whatever, from any quarter of their Lordships' House, and which in the course of a few days he hoped to see carried down to the other House, and shortly afterwards to find made the law of the land. Any two measures more different than the measure now upon their Lordships' Table, and the measure sent up from the House of Commons last year, it was difficult to conceive. That there were some few points of similarity in both was true. They were both indemnity bills. They both gave indemnity to witnesses; and that the words giving the indemnity might be nearly similar in both was probable, because they were taken from preceding acts, in which witnesses, under similar circumstances, had been indemnified, namely from the acts passed in 1 834 and 1835, to give indemnity to the witnesses in the cases of the Warwick, Stafford, and Liverpool elections; but in no other respect were the two measures in the slightest degree similar. They differed as to the persons to whom the indemnity was given, as to the party who was to give the indemnity, and as to the conditions on which the indemnity was to be given; in short, they differed in every one particular circumstance, both as regarded the party indemnified, the tribunal to indemnify, 324 and the conditions and circumstances on and in which the indemnity was to be extended. The bill of last year gave indemnity, not at the discretion of the committee, but universally and without exception to every witness called and examined before an election committee. Every witness so produced and examined was by force of law (according to the provisions of that bill) absolutely indemnified, not only against the penal consequences, but against the civil incapacities and disqualifications attendant upon the act of bribery. And indemnified how? and on what conditions? By the act of calling him as a witness and by that act alone. So that any party having committed bribery by himself through the means of others, any one conscious that he had been guilty of the most scandalous and wholesale bribery and corruption, and that he had employed a score or a cloud of agents to carry his bribery and corruption into effect, had only to put one after another of his agents — the instruments of his corruption—the accomplices of his crime— into the witness box of the committee, and to ask each of them one question, which if he answered truly he (the witness) was to be for ever after free and fully absolved from all the consequences of his crime. That was the bill sent up last year. Its operation, too, unlike that of the measure now upon their Lordships' Table, was not to be merely retrospective—was not merely to apply to offences that had been committed—but was to act prospectively, and thus on the eve of a general election it proclaimed to all mankind that they might bribe with absolute impunity, and shewed them in what manner that impunity might be effectually secured, such was the nature of the bill of last year. The measure now before their Lordships was limited to acts that had been already done: when the mischief, if any, was over —when the crime, if any had been perpetrated—when no impunity was held out prospectively—when no temptation was given for the future—when the effect of the indemnity afforded by the bill could only be to let those who had been guilty escape, upon condition of making a clean breast, and enabling Parliament to discover the legislative means for preventing prospectively and generally a repetition of such offences. Again, by the bill of last year, parties were called upon compulsorily to criminate themselves—no option, no choice was given. It did not say to the 325 party, as the present bill said, "If you make a clean breast you shall go harmless for what you have already done," but it said absolutely and peremptorily, "Whether you will or no, on pain of instant punishment by imprisonment, you are bound to disclose all you have done, and to give evidence to criminate yourself." So said the bill of last year. But that was not all. There were some, indeed, who maintained that this would be an expedient course of proceeding. He gave no opinion upon that point. He merely adverted to it to show how materially in that respect the bill of last year differed from the measure now before them. But there was this also in the last year's bill, that a party examined before an election committee was bound to tell all he knew, in whatever manner his knowledge had been acquired. The husband was bound to criminate the wife, the wife to accuse the husband, the agent to impeach his principal, the attorney or solicitor to betray his client, the counsel also to give up his client. Yes, the very counsel, he who had been confidentially instructed for the purpose of making a legal defence—he, the counsel, was called upon, whether he would or no, to disclose that which to him had been professionally, and therefore confidentially, intrusted, intrusted to him not as an accomplice, but after the alleged act had been done, and for the purpose of a legal defence in a court of justice. There was no such thing in the present bill. There was no compulsion upon parties so situated, no compulsion upon any party to do that which was contrary to the first principles of English justice, either to betray the confidence reposed in him, or to criminate himself. It was one thing to give no protection to a guilty party, or to the accomplice or agent of a guilty party. Their Lordships might or might not be advised so to proceed. But the bill of last year comprehended in its compulsory provisions the case of parties who were not agents, not accomplices in the commission of the bribery or corruption. It extended to the solicitor or counsel, wholly innocent of the bribery, but to whom, after the bribery had been committed, it had been confidentially, because professionally communicated, for the purpose of defence in a court of law, and that counsel or that solicitor was bound, by the bill of last year, to come and betray the confidence so professionally reposed in him. And, as if anything were wanting to complete the gross 326 absurdity of that measure (for its absurdities were even greater than its enormities), there was this further inconsistency, that, affecting to give a complete indemnity, it gave only this imperfect indemnity —it indemnified the witness from all legal proceedings, with a proviso that the witness in question should have spoken the truth before the committee, and suppressed no part of it in giving his evidence; so that there would have been that collateral and preliminary issue to try when the man was placed upon his trial. The last year's bill did not give the witness the absolute and certain indemnity by certificate of the committee as would he given by the present bill, and which in fact was the only rational mode of giving it, but merely gave him the power of setting up a defence upon his trial, and compelled the court to try this other issue, whether or not he had spoken the truth before the election committee, and whether he had told the whole truth, or kept any part of it back. He passed over the lesser grounds which had actuated their Lordships in the course they took last year, and confining himself to the points to which he had briefly adverted, he said, in the first place, that anything more unfit to receive the sanction of their Lordships' House than the bill of the last Session never came up to them from the other branch of the Legislature, or ever was laid upon their Table by any Member of their own body; and, secondly, he said that anything more diametrically opposite to the present bill, to which he entreated their Lordships' favourable consideration, could not be imagined. He therefore thought he had a good right to say, that no one had any title to complain of their Lordships for having thrown out the bill last year, when he recollected what then passed. When he took the objections to the bill, in which his noble and learned Friend upon the Woolsack and the noble and learned Lord (the Chief Baron) also concurred— when he took those objections his noble Friend (the Marquess of Nor-man by) behind him, who had moved the second reading and committal of the bill, made no kind of defence for. it—did not say one word in its favour. Neither did his noble and learned Friend then upon the Woolsack (Lord Cottenham) say anything for it. [Lord Cottenham: Nor against it.] That would have been superfluous. He and those who opposed the bill had saved his noble and learned Friend that trouble. There was no occasion for 327 his noble and learned Friend to say anything against it; but if he had really approved of it, there was a little more occasion for his saying something, if it were possible, in its favour. But his noble and learned Friend was silent—it was unnecessary for him to say anything against the bill, and he did not attempt to say anything in its defence. Under such circumstances he maintained that he, and those who thought and acted with him, were not to blame for the defeat of the bill. He believed that their Lordships, by their acquiescence in the course which he suggested, had all, as with one voice, testified their opinion that the measure, instead of preventing, would only have tended to encourage the bribery and the other corrupt practices which it was designed to abolish. If it were said, "Why did you not alter the bill more than by leaving out the three clauses? Why did you not mould and new model the other clauses, so as to obtain a more effectual measure than you allowed to receive the sanction of the House?"—his answer to such a question Was, he thought, wholly irrefragable. It was this—that the bill was sent up to their Lordships on the very eve of the dissolution of Parliament—that it came up to that House so as to be first discussed on the motion for going into committee, no earlier than on Thursday, the 17th of June—that the dissolution of Parliament was to take place on the 22d. the Tuesday following—that even to make the one change which was effected in it, namely, the striking out of the three clauses, it was necessary to make the alteration, not in the ordinary and usual course, in the committee, but upon bringing up of the report —that less regular course being resorted to in order to save a day—and finally, and in a word that it was absolutely and physically impossible for their Lordships to have made any other alterations in the bill, so as to have passed it through their Lordships' House and have sent it back to the Commons, and received it again from them, within the short period allowed for the continuation of the Session. These facts must, he thought, be held sufficient to exempt their Lordships wholly from the charge either of improperly rejecting the bill, or of not having substituted a better in its stead. And now, to show that they (the Members of the House of Lords) of all men, were the most averse to anything that looked like the remotest idea of defending or screening such practices, or of 328 throwing any, the least impediment in the way of having them thoroughly investigated, and if possible effectually prevented for the future, he urged their Lordships to lose no time, to take care that there should be no other charge made against them from any quarter of delay, procrastination, or obstruction, in connection with this important question; he urged them, he said, to lose no time, but to proceed at once to pass such a measure as should enable the committees of both Houses of Parliament to prosecute their inquiries in respect to the practices at elections, with a fair prospect of getting at the root of the evil. He had not appended to the bill upon their Lordships' Table any provisions in reference to what in the votes of the other House of Parliament were called "corrupt compromises" upon these questions. If the other House should be so advised, it would be for them to legislate upon that point. It was their affair rather than the affair of their Lordships; and if they were disposed to legislate upon it, it would be for them to add such provisions as they deemed expedient to this bill when it was sent down to them. But in alluding to this practice of compromise, he must be suffered to say, that, although he thought there might possibly be very grave offences—very grievous offences— committed against the law and privileges of Parliament by the parties corruptly returned, and who would afterwards be anxious to escape the exposure of their conduct, and the punishment that must await them upon the proof of their evil doing—whatever blame might be imputable to such parties, of that he would then say nothing—but he must be suffered to say, that he thought it would be the hardest, the most unfair, and indeed, upon the highest grounds of expediency as well as justice, the most impolitic course to take, to visit with any censure, not the parties who had been guilty of such offences, but those who were petitioners for seats, the occupants of which they charged with mal-practices, because they (the petitioners) withdrew their objections to the return upon the seats being abandoned. He held that a party petitioning for a seat petitioned in a private capacity, and not as a public accuser. If there were to be a protection to the public in these matters—if the Legislature could not allow the interests of Parliament and the purity of election to be intrusted to the hands of private parties—which clearly it could not —which clearly it ought not—then the 329 true course to take was to appoint officers to watch over the interests of the public, to guard the rights of Parliament, and preserve the purity of election. But as regarded the private individual who petitioned for a seat, it was quite enough for him if his adversary did not defend what he had improperly gotten; and the petitioner had a right to take the benefit of his antagonist's retreat. The private petitioner was not bound to go on with the inquiry — was not bound to incur the ruinous expense of prosecuting a case abandoned by his adversary—was not bound to expose himself to all the anxieties, as well as all the expenses, consequent upon the proceedings of an election committee; if he could obtain at once all that he petitioned for by the retreat of his adversary, it was clear that he had a right to avail himself of the advantage so afforded to him. When he said this, he trusted that no man would for one moment suppose that there existed in either House of Parliament, either in doors, or out of doors, any individual who regarded with greater abhorrence and disgust than he did the corrupt practices which were said to have lately prevailed; but their Lordships might depend upon it that the worst thing for the cause of morality itself was to take exaggerated views—to make strange, and far-fetched, and exaggerated charges; because their Lordships might always be well assured, that as the general opinion of mankind would refuse to go along with them, when they unjustly denounced an innocent party, so would the guilty be very likely to escape if accusations were made and entertained against parties who in reality had been guilty of no offence. Having thus called their attention to the subject, he now begged to move that their Lordships would proceed at once to give a second reading to the bill upon their Table, and if any opposition, which he could not possibly anticipate, should be raised to any part of it, he hoped that their Lordships would consent to take the discussion that must then necessarily arise upon the motion for going into committee, so as to demonstrate to the other House of Parliament, to their accusers, and to the country, first, that they were most anxious to throw no impediment in the way of these wholesome and necessary inquiries; and, secondly, that they had the strongest disposition to act hand in hand cordially and harmoniously with the other House of Parliament, in applying a remedy to this 330 great and crying evil. The noble and learned Lord concluded by moving that the Bribery at Elections Bill be now read a second time.