§ Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
§ THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (Earl SPENCER), in rising to move that the Bill be now read a second time, said, that the measure was not originally a Government measure. It was introduced in "another place" by some Irish Members, and it had re- 8 ceived various changes since. The principle of the Bill, however, as it came up to their Lordships' House, was one which contained sufficient importance, in his judgment, to justify the Government in accepting it; and therefore it was that he had undertaken to move the second reading of the measure. In further corroboration of that statement, he had to point to the Bill of his noble Friend the Secretary for Scotland (the Earl of Dalhousie), who would move the second reading of the Bill relating to Scotland when the present one had been disposed of by their Lordships. That Bill was the same as this in its general principles. He need not enter into the history of the measure in "another place." Originally there were two Bills introduced dealing with this subject; one shortly after the other. One of the Bills, however, was withdrawn, and the Bill which was now before their Lordships received a second reading in the other House. As originally introduced in the House of Commons, it was a measure to enable the making of appeals to the Taxing Officer of a Higher Court, in matters relating to charges connected with the Returning Officer's expenses. That was a very important matter, especially with regard to Ireland. Subsequently, a clause was introduced reducing the maximum charges which a Returning Officer could make on various matters. This provision was thought necessary, as a great many changes had taken plane since the Act of 1875, when the costs of ballot boxes, &c. were first charged for. Those charges had now been considerably reduced, and a clause had, therefore, been introduced in the Schedule reducing the charges. Lastly, there was the introduction of a clause to throw the cost of these charges on the public rates.
§ THE EARL OF SELBORNEIn the counties only.
§ EARL SPENCERsaid, all those clauses had one important bearing on elections. They tended to the reduction of the cost of elections. He believed that to be a most important principle, and especially important now, when the recent changes in the representation had, to a considerable extent, enabled particular classes to have Members of their own class returned to Parliament. He attached great importance to that principle, and cordially supported it, for he thought it 9 was desirable that no unnecessary check should be placed by the expenditure of elections on the return of those Members. There would always be a considerable personal expense connected with elections, quite independent of the necessary and unavoidable expenses which were connected with Returning Officers' charges; and he thought it was important and good policy to make these latter expenses as moderate as possible. He also cordially approved of the principle of throwing the charges on the rates, and hoped that the provision would he passed into law, just as much as the other part of the Bill dealing with the reduction of the maximum charges. The principle was no new one. At the elections of various Municipal Bodies, such as Sanitary Boards, Municipal Councils, and at those of School Boards, the expenses of the Returning Officers were charged on the public rates. He did not see why, if the principle was right in the elections of Municipal Bodies, it should not be applied to Parliamentary Elections. He, therefore, thought it was equally just and desirable to maintain the principle in this case too. He trusted that their Lordships would see fit to affirm the principle of the Bill. In regard to the portion of the Bill reducing the maximum charges of the Returning Officers, there was very little difference of opinion, and it was not a Party question. Members of the Front Opposition Bench in the other House took part in the discussion, and the clauses were amended by general consent. There was, however, he must say, some difference of opinion as to the clause he had referred to which threw the Returning Officer's expenses on to the rates, and likewise to the Schedule reducing that officer's charges for printing. The noble Marquess opposite (the Marquess of Salisbury) had given Notice that he would move the rejection of the measure. He (Earl Spencer) did not know whether the noble Marquess was desirous of throwing out the whole measure, or whether he wished to take the opinion of their Lordships only on that part of the Bill which referred to the charges being thrown on the rates. He hoped, if their Lordships wished to express an opinion upon that matter only, they would do so, and not contest the whole subject-matter of the Bill. It seemed to him that their Lordships would be placed in a very false 10 position indeed if they showed themselves disposed to encourage unnecessary expenditure on the part of Returning Officers; for all expenditure of that sort must tend indirect to bribery and corruption at elections, as to which Parliament had, of late years, taken great pains to put down. He considered this measure to be one of very considerable importance, and one which excited very general interest in the country; and he should regret extremely if their Lordships put themselves in the false position of appearing to increase the expenditure of elections at the present time. Therefore, he sincerely trusted their Lordships would pass the Bill, the second reading of which he would now move.
§ Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a."—(The Lord President of the Council, Earl Spencer.)
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYsaid, the noble Earl opposite (Earl Spencer) had justly told the House that the Bill was not, in the other House, a Government measure. That was a very interesting statement, because it pointed out to them the extremely delicate and artificial character of the promises that were made by Her Majesty's Government. On Thursday, the 10th of this month, the Prime Minister announced that no contentious Business in the hands of any Member of the Government would be proceeded with; but he did not say that contentious Business not then in their hands, but which would be put into their hands a few days afterwards, would not be proceeded with; and, no doubt, that constituted in the mind of the Prime Minister an enormous distinction. What the Government had done was this—they had promised that the contentious Business in their own hands should be dropped, and this they had done; but other Business in other people's hands had not been dropped, and this they were now pushing on; and that was their idea of keeping a Parliamentary promise. The Bill consisted of three parts. As it was introduced, as it passed the second reading, as it was passed through, the Committee of the House of Commons, it was an unobjectionable Bill, seeing that it was a Bill for the purpose of providing an appeal for the more accurate taxation of costs of Returning Officers. If the 11 Bill had remained in that form, he (the Marquess of Salisbury) did not suppose that a single noble Lord would have raised any objection to it, or any discussion about it. That part of the Bill was, to his mind, purely unobjectionable; and if Her Majesty's Government were willing—as he judged from some words of the noble Earl—to accept the proposal to reduce the Bill to its original dimensions as it left the first Committee in the House of Commons, and were willing to make it their own in that sense, he would willingly withdraw all opposition to the Bill. But subsequently to that stage additions had been made to the Bill. It was re-committed, and there were two additions made to it. The first was the addition of the Schedule reducing the prices to which the Returning Officers were entitled—and which had been settled after much consultation—by the Act of 1875, to charge for certain duties which they did at the election. He thought that the Act of 1875 was introduced by Sir Henry James. It was carefully considered, and he believed it was thought satisfactory. He was not at all saying that that Act was incapable of revision, and it was possible that the prices charged might be examined with advantage. But they had not been examined. There was no Committee appointed to consider them; there was no evidence before their Lordships to show the grounds on which the arbitrary figures now inserted in the Schedule were substituted for those existing at present by law. The operation had been performed at the beginning of June of putting the Schedule into the Bill, and naturally the Returning Officers—especially imagining it to be an Irish Bill—the English Returning Officers did not bestir themselves very much about it till the discussions had taken place recently, and then they awoke to what was going on. He had received a large number of representations from Returning Officers in every part of the country, complaining that this new Schedule of prices had been inserted in the Bill apparently without any examination or evidence as to their justness, and that some of them were utterly absurd. He would give some instances of the objections which they took. In the first place, the deposit which had to be made by candidates was very largely reduced. Now, their Lordships would 12 see that these deposits were a very important matter; because they did not always know that when a candidate had passed through his election he was a person from whom they might get anything. They might or they might not; and, therefore, it was only reasonable that some land of security should be given to the Returning Officer that he should be enabled to recover those charges, and so that he should not be put to the difficult processes of law in order to recover. Under the present law, the deposit required in a county of average size was from £550 to £700. Under the law as it was to be, the deposit was reduced to £200. The fall was, therefore, very great. If the fall was too great, the loss fell entirely on the Returning Officer—that was to say, on the Sheriffs. It was but reasonable, therefore, that they should take precautions to ascertain, before they allowed this great change, that it had not been made unjustly. Then, again, by the law as it stood at present, £7 7s. were allowed to the Returning Officer for fitting up a polling booth; the Bill reduced the sum to £2. There were other matters of much smaller degree; for instance, the charge for a ballot box was to be 10s., whereas, under the law as it at present stood, it was £1 1s.; 10s. was allowed for a stamping instrument under the Act of 1875, but it was now proposed to reduce that sum to 2s. 6d.; and he was informed that no good stamping instrument could be bought for less than 7s. 6d. The result of all this was hard, indeed, on the Returning Officers. He had communications from Returning Officers in Essex, Kent, Sussex, Surrey, Middlesex, some Irish Returning Officers, and from the Town Clerk of Flint, who acted as Returning Officer in neighbouring Welsh counties, and they all stated that these reductions had been made without any facts to base them on, and would be eminently unjust. A Returning Officer for the county of Middlesex said that, under the Bill as it now stood, it was perfectly clear that the next Election would cost the Sheriffs and Under Sheriffs a considerable sum under the present scale, and that the present Bill would be properly called "A Bill for fining the Sheriffs £500 a-piece." He did not think anyone would desire that those expenses should be greater than they need be; but they ought to pause 13 before they passed a scale on such an utter want of evidence as had been displayed in regard to this. Then, as to the part which dealt with the transfer of these charges to the rates. On the 11th of June, the day after the Prime Minister had announced that no more contentious Business would be taken, at 3 o'clock in the morning, in a thin House, Mr. Labouchere moved the recommittal of the Bill with respect to this clause, and carried by, he believed, a majority of 93 to 67, a clause throwing the expenses of the Returning Officer on the rates in counties only. Why counties only had been selected solely for that privilege he could not conceive, but so it was. Let their Lordships observe the peculiarities of this piece of legislation. In the first place, at the time the Motion was brought forward in the House of Commons the securities given by the half-past 12 Rule were evaded by recommitment, a stage later than that to which the half-past 12 Rule applied. Therefore, there was no security for the attendance of Members. But not only was that the case, but it was brought on at a time when the House was paralyzed by the announcement of a Dissolution, for, with no disrespect to the House of Commons, he might say that he had always found that it was not at such times in possession of all its Constitutional faculties. Half the Members or more were away in the country looking after their seats, all Governmental discipline was relaxed, and probably more than one Member of the Government was stumping in one part or another of the country. There was no sufficient supervision of any kind. He did not think, at any time, a measure of this kind should be passed on the responsibility of a private Member, for it ought to be on the sole responsibility of the Government; but it seemed to him that to pass, at 3 o'clock in the morning, at a stage of the Bill when further reconsideration was almost impossible, and to pass it in spite of the promise of the Government that no contentious Business should be taken, a measure which would save the Members of the House of Commons who might take a part in the coming Election an expenditure of some £200 or £300 savoured somewhat of self-interest, and was not a proceeding which their Lordships ought to approve. He did not wish it to be supposed that such a 14 motive was present to their minds—such a contention would be absurd; but when the House of Commons sought to put such charges on the public purse there ought to be some amount of decorum observed in such proceedings, and they had the right to ask that they should be taken only when they could be fully considered and discussed. He did not wish to go into the policy of this proposal; but he was afraid the danger of this sort of legislation would, of course, be the encouragement of vexatious contests. If they removed from the candidates the absolutely obligatory expenses of the Returning Officer, a man might eater into a contest with practically no fear of a monetary penalty to himself, and yet he might put his opponent to £1,200 or £1,500 costs. It must be obvious that such a measure as that would not only not diminish the cost of elections, but, on the contrary, largely increase them. He must say also a word for the poor ratepayer. Why was this charge to be put upon him? Why not the taxpayer? Why should not the expense be paid out of the taxes, for surely, if anything, it was an Imperial, not a local, concern? The noble Earl had told them that that was no new principle, since the cost of electing School Boards, Sanitary Boards, and Municipal Bodies was placed upon the rates. But those were all local Bodies levying local rates. But why should this charge go upon the rates; why was it to fall upon real property alone? He could conceive of no reason why that should be so. But the proposal was objectionable on another ground. Mr. Labouchere could not, by the Rules of the House of Commons, have made this fall on the taxation of the country, because of the Rule which provided that a Minister of the Crown alone could move for fresh taxation; and that alone made it objectionable. He (the Marquess of Salisbury) did not venture to forecast whether that proposal, in its substance, would ever be accepted by Parliament, because, if it was, he said with all confidence that the money ought to be provided on the responsibility of a Minister of the Crown, and voted in the face of the country. He did not suppose their Lordships in that case would interfere; but, if they did, it would submit the matter to the judgment of the country, and, at any rate, the burden would be put on the proper 15 persons. That piece of legislation was exceedingly unhappy. He believed the precedent would, be an exceedingly bad one, and he felt that they ought to insist on a full consideration of such measures; and though he was perfectly willing to accept an arrangement by which they would return to the original Bill as it passed through the Committee in the House of Commons, if the Government would not accept that arrangement he must ask their Lordships to pronounce whether the Bill should be read a second time or not.
§ Amendment moved, to leave out ("now") and add at the end of the Motion ("this day six months.")—(The Marquess of Salisbury.)
§ THE EARL OF SELBORNEsaid, he wished to point out to noble Lords opposite that it was an error of the noble Marquess opposite (the Marquess of Salisbury) that the Bill was not limited to counties. In the second Schedule it would be found that in the case of boroughs the borough rate was to bear the expense. He was, however, convinced by the arguments of the noble Marquess that the matters of detail of the expenses of Returning Officers might require more consideration than they seemed to have received, while the very important question of the payment of the expenses out of the rates ought not to have been introduced in the manner which had been stated into a Bill for a different purpose, and on the eve of a Dissolution.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (The Earl of KIMBERLEY)said, he was of opinion that there was a great deal to be said in favour of the principle of payment of expenses from the rates. There were, however, objection, which he was not able entirely to remove, seeing that the noble Marquess did not rest his objection to the Bill chiefly on policy, but rather on the manner in which the Bill had been brought before their Lordships. He (the Earl of Kimberley) wished the noble Marquess had said a little more with regard to the policy of the Bill. He (the Earl of Kimberley) defended that policy, having always considered it a hardship that comparatively poor men should have to pay a heavy fine for the privilege of entering Parliament and serving the public. He was quite cer- 16 tain that was not the best way to secure good candidates. With regard to the observations of the noble Marquess as to a Bill of this character being forced through Parliament on the eve of a Dissolution, if precedents were needed they had been furnished by noble Lords opposite themselves. Notwithstanding the strong protests of himself and other noble Lords on that side of the House, in 1880, a Bill with regard to election law, the conveyance of voters to the poll in boroughs, was actually brought into the House and forced through in the last few days before a Dissolution, and after that Dissolution had been announced. If, therefore, they relied on precedents, noble Lords opposite had themselves set one in favour of the manner in which this Bill was presented. He urged their Lordships not to reject the Bill on the ground that the matter was one which specially concerned the other House of Parliament, and did not specially affect this House; and as to the Commons not having given sufficient discussion to it, that was clearly a matter of which the Commons were the best judges. He was, however, informed, on the contrary, that a great deal of consideration was given to it. However, Her Majesty's Government would not press the Bill in its present shape. They were willing to omit that part of the Bill which threw the cost of elections on the ratepayers; and he trusted, on that understanding, the noble Marquess would withdraw his opposition. He hoped that the noble Marquess would make some concession, and would not press his opposition to that part of the Schedule which related to the Returning Officers' charges. [The Marquess of SALISBURY dissented.] The noble Marquess shook his head; but he did not see why noble Lords should be so exceedingly anxious to protect the pockets of the Sheriff. Still, he thought the House should not reject a Bill which effected a very necessary reform, merely because noble Lords opposite would not accept the proposals of the measure on those two points. Although he should be extremely glad if the noble Marquess would not press his opposition to the Returning Officers' charges, still, if he insisted, he would rather the Bill should pass without the provisions in that behalf than be lost altogether.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYsaid, he thought the noble Earl had mot them in a very handsome spirit; but he wished to know whether the other House would accept this arrangement, because he did not want the question to be fought out again within two hours of the Prorogation.
THE EARL OF KIMBERLEYsaid, he could only speak for themselves—he could not answer for the other House.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYsaid, he did not expect that; but what he wanted to understand was, that if the Bill came back with these clauses reinserted their Lordships would reject them.
THE EARL OF KIMBERLEYsaid, that after the engagement entered into the Government would certainly resist the clauses.
§ Amendment (by leave of the House) withdrawn.
§ Motion agreed to; Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House To-morrow.