LORD MONKSWELL, in rising to call attention to the wholesale forgery of signatures to voting papers alleged to have taken place at Chatham at the recent election to the Local Board of Health; and to ask, Whether the Local Government Board will inquire into the conduct of that election, said, that on this Board, previous to the recent election, all the members had been Conservatives, and he thought he would be able to show that the Party had been determined to maintain their monopoly. So fully, in fact, did the authorities at Chatham act on the American principle of "the spoils to the victor" that there was not in connection with the Chatham Board of Health a single officer, official, or clerk belonging to the Liberal Party. Suspicion being aroused, owing to hundreds of the voting papers being signed in the same handwriting, and to the fact that the votes taken from "the Chairman's bag" were, and had been at previous elections, mostly cast for the whole Conservative ticket, the names of 30 persons were, taken down during the counting of the votes who were alleged to have voted, but could not possibly have done so, some of them being dead, while others whoso names appeared on the paper were not able to write. On the voting papers being examined, 220 were found to be signed in the same handwriting, but purporting to be signed by different ratepayers, many of whom had left Chatham and could not be found, while the others declared that they had had no voting papers left at their houses. The Conservatives had obtained the sig- 1251 natures of two or three of those alleged to have signed to papers acknowledging their signatures, but the handwriting on the acknowledgment was quite different from that on the voting papers. These 220 papers must have been forged at the Office of the Local Board of Health, as papers which could not be left at houses, owing to there being no one to receive them, were taken back to the Office. Votes recorded at the Office were put into what was known as "the Chairman's bag," and it was found that the great majority of the votes in it had been cast for the Conservative Party. With regard to a remedy for this state of things, he thought that the Report of the Select Committee of 1878 had been right in suggesting that the present system of voting by voting papers was bad, and ought to be amended. In the second place, it was desirable that some sort of provision should be made for the representation of large minorities, such as some modification of the system of cumulative voting. What they wanted in this case, was not to prosecute some clerk who had been used as a catspaw, but to get hold of those who were pulling the strings. The matter was something more than of mere local importance, and he hoped that the noble Lord who represented the Local Government Board would see his way to granting the inquiry which was asked for. In doing so, he (Lord Monkswell) could assure him he would be acting in accordance with the wishes of a large body of the ratepayers of Chatham.
LORD BALFOUR (A LORD in WAITING), in reply, said, that in putting that Question, the noble Lord had travelled over a wide field of subjects, from the election of Representative Peers in Scotland down through cumulative voting to the discharge of employés from Chatham Dockyard, and into those matters he would not attempt to follow him. With regard to the point as to whether the Local Government Board would institute an inquiry into this case, he had to say that the Board had no power or jurisdiction to make such an inquiry as the noble Lord had suggested. They were confined, under Section 293 of the Public Health Act, to making inquiries concerning the public health, and there was no statutory power whatever to make any other inquiry. He would remind the noble Lord, however, 1252 that any of the parties aggrieved had a remedy which he (Lord Balfour) thought even the Liberals of Chatham, in the present state of feeling there, would think highly satisfactory—a remedy which left no reason whatever for an appeal to the Local Government Board. Schedule 2 of the Act provided that anyone guilty of the offence of fabricating, in whole or in part, any voting paper, could be proceeded against by anyone who was aggrieved, when fines of not exceeding £20, or, in default, three months' imprisonment, could be inflicted upon the offenders.
LORD BALFOURsaid, he understood that the noble Lord charged someone with fabricating the voting papers, and under another Act the penalty was oven more substantial, for the fine was £100, with a disability from taking part in any election for five years. He could not help thinking that, if the facts wore so well known to the Liberals of Chatham, as the noble Lord had appeared to indicate, no time ought to be lost by them in enforcing the statutory powers. If these practices had really occurred, the proper course was for those who alleged them to put the law in force, and not to appeal to the Local Government Board, who had no power in the matter. Such an inquiry as the noble Lord asked for could only take place with the witnesses on oath, whereas even if the Local Government Board were to institute the inquiry asked for they could not treat witnesses on oath. With regard to the stigma which the noble Lord had cast upon the clerks in the Office of the Local Board of Chatham, he thought the charge was one which ought not to have been put forward unless he had very clear and distinct evidence as to its truth. The statement of these alleged practices throw a certain amount of suspicion on some officials, and cast an unfair reflection upon them, unless they were afforded an opportunity of cross- examining those who brought forward these allegations. The noble Lord would not expect him to enter upon the subject of cumulative voting. There was no desire on the part of the Local Government Board to throw a screen over any persons guilty of the practices alleged, and the refusal of the Local Government Board 1253 to hold the inquiry suggested was based on the fact that the Statute provided the proper remedy, and it was beyond their power to enter upon it.