LORD BROUGHAMsaid, that he was under the necessity of setting himself right with their Lordships respecting what he found some of them had misunderstood in his observations last night upon the extension of the suffrage. One of his noble Friends supposed that he had expressed his opinion against all extension. Most 218 probably he had made his statement indistinctly. He had, as his noble and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor was aware, been fatigued by attending a very important meeting respecting the commercial laws, and had come to the House thence. His noble Friend, not now present, who misunderstood him (being of a different opinion) expressed his satisfaction. But he (Lord Brougham) had said the very reverse of what he was supposed to have said. He had said that he was for an extension of the suffrage by all safe and expedient means, but that his reason for it was not because it would prevent bribery and corruption. He held that it could have no such effect, because, however numerous the constituents of any place were, there would be found among them a certain number capable of taking bribes when the contest ran near, which bribery supposed it to do—a number sufficient to turn the election, and so there would be bribery. As to the ballot, he had still an opinion against it on other grounds; but on one ground, usually given in its favour—its tendency to prevent bribery—he saw no benefit whatever that could result from it. It would prevent prosecution for bribery; but it would lead to bribery in another form— namely, promises to pay on the event of the election, and thus convert each person bribed into an agent of bribery. He wished to add, respecting one of the Bills presented by him last night—the only one entirely new, that on Evidence and Procedure—that he should, before he went abroad, leave not only an abstract of it carefully prepared, but also a full note of all the cases at law referring to the matter of each clause, which would be found convenient in the examination of the various proposed alterations of the law.