(NO. 87.) COMMITTEE. (Hansard, 31 May 1870)

§ LORD COLCHESTER
said, he must beg leave to say a few words before going into Committee. The Government had thought right to press the second reading of this measure at a late hour when the House was nearly empty. There seemed to be a false impression that it was intended to attack the Judges as to this matter. On the contrary, the proceedings of the Commissioners which were complained of had been considered by Her Majesty's Judges, and an unfavourable opinion had been pronounced with regard to them by no less an authority than the Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench. What he desired, however, to bring under their Lordships' notice was—not the wit or sarcasm of the Commissioners, for that had met with sufficient reprobation in public estimation—but the cruel and undeserved attack which was made in the Report 1695 itself on a large and innocent body of men. There was a wide distinction between the old constituency of Bridgwater, which was undoubtedly corrupt, and the 800 voters added by the late Reform Act. The Commissioners stated that a witness (Mr. Barham) had described the new voters as standing about to be bought like cattle at a fair. He had really said nothing as to new voters. Of these only 12 were proved to have been bribed; and yet they were all involved in one common censure. The total number of persons bribed at the last election was 57 out of a constituency of 1,500. Undoubtedly, the past experience of Bridgwater was unfavourable, and, therefore, he did not ask the House to reject this Bill; but in common justice they ought not to confound the innocent with the guilty. He had no personal interest to serve in bringing forward this question; and, looking to the antecedents of Bridgwater, the course which he was taking could not be said to have any party purpose in view. It might be remembered also that he had refused to join in opposing the issue of the Commission to inquire as to the Dublin freemen; but, certainly, if that Commission had been conducted in the same spirit and manner as the kindred inquiry at Bridgwater it was hardly probable that it would be attended with beneficial results in a public point of view.

§ THE EARL OF FEVERSHAM
said, there was one result of these Disfranchisement Bills which occasionally was lost sight of, and that was that, by throwing the voters of the disfranchised borough into the county constituencies the relative strength of parties was altogether disturbed. There was a very strong feeling in Yorkshire that the seats which were taken from Beverley ought not to be lost to the county, and he begged accordingly to ask the noble Earl opposite whether he could give any intimation to the House as to the probable destination of the seats which were to be taken away under this Bill?

§ EARL GRANVILLE
was very sorry—but he was not in a position to give any answer to the question.

§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY
said, he thought the time had arrived when he might fairly make a suggestion to the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack. There could be no doubt that these Election Commissioners had carried out the powers with which they were intrusted with a very high hand, and that in one instance they had been censured by a legal authority whose rank only yielded to that of the noble and learned Lord himself. He was sorry, therefore, to hear the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack speak in terms of approval of the manner in which these Commissioners conducted their inquiries. Considering that theirs was a strictly penal investigation, upon which future legislation was intended to be founded, he must say that their inquiries had been conducted in a spirit alien not only to the practice of English Courts of Justice, but, as far as he knew, to the practice of Courts of Justice anywhere. No doubt, cross-examination to the point of torture was applied by juges d'instruction to prisoners accused of crime; but that was with the object of obtaining information for the purpose of the particular criminal proceeding, not with a view of eliciting answers upon which penal legislation could afterwards be founded. It was the peculiarity of these Election Commissioners that the witnesses had been tortured by bullying and browbeating in a way that no Law Officers since the days of Chief Justice Jeffreys had ever attempted; and upon the evidence so obtained they were asked to proceed by legislation. He confessed that, for his own part—and he doubted not the case was so with others—he had been slow to speak upon this subject, knowing that the crime of bribery had grown to a very great height, and that it was most desirable it should be repressed. But, in connection with the present Bill, he certainly should have expected from the highest legal authority something like a repudiation of a mode of investigation that was utterly alien from all previous practice. If there was anything that would turn the sympathies of Englishmen—which at present were strongly in favour of purity of election—in favour of persons who were guilty of bribery it would be the manner and spirit in which these election inquiries had been conducted.

§ LORD LYVEDEN
thought the fault lay in the manner in which these Commissioners were selected; and he could not help observing that, in the case of Bridgwater, one of the Commissioners was evidently a person that ought never to have been appointed. His proceedings in every stage had been of a most intemperate character—intemperate at Hong Kong, and in the Court at Bridgwater as now in Bombay. There never was a man more manifestly unfit for the duty which had been assigned to him. He had conducted the inquiry in a most unbecoming and indecorous manner. The Commissioners were appointed at so much—£5 5s.—a day; and it was perhaps after all not surprising that the inquiry should have been so protracted, as the Commissioners having little practice in the Courts, were only too glad to be employed during the whole of the long vacation. That was not the manner in which these inquiries should be conducted; they ought to be conducted with something like solemnity, so as to carry with them the influence of authority, instead of in such a manner as to excite the ridicule of the Bar and of the public.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR
said, he was quite unconscious of having spoken in terms of high approval of the way in which these Commissioners had conducted their examinations. What he did say was, that having entrusted a certain investigation to Commissioners, they must be prepared to repose some degree of confidence in them. For himself, he was unwilling to go behind this Report in order to consider the conduct of gentlemen who had been entrusted with judicial functions; and nothing but a very strong case could have justified the noble Marquess in asking him to express an opinion condemnatory of their proceedings. He was not disposed to give any such opinion. He was too much occupied by his usual judicial business to have been able to inform himself minutely on these matters; and he could not take on himself to pronounce any opinion on the conduct of one set of Commissioners or another; and to pass a general censure on all Commissioners would certainly be far from becoming in one holding the position which he did in a profession me members of which he had always honoured and esteemed. Whenever there 1698 had been any particular delinquency brought before their Lordships, or in any other quarter, he had endeavoured to discharge his duty; but he would not volunteer to perform so invidious a task as had been assigned to him by the noble Marquess.

§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY
said, he had not asked the noble and learned Lord to perform any such invidious task as he supposed: what he complained of was, that the noble and learned Lord should have expressed approbation of the procedure before these Commissioners, although he had at hand the means of knowing how high-handed these proceedings sometimes were. No doubt, in some cases these inquiries were carried out in a more odious manner than in others; but in the case of Beverley, as the noble and learned Lord must have been aware, they had been occasion of public scandal. He thought that a system of procedure which admitted of such things without reproof was likely to produce an injurious effect on the public mind.