The Express.
London, England, 1852-11-03 00:00:00

TO CORks.sri)NuasTs.

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LONDON, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 3.

PARLIAMENT meets to-morrow; and one of its
early duties will be to appoint Committees for In-
quiry into cases of Electoral Corruption. The result
of these investigations cannot fail to supply new
arguments in favour of some plan for purifying our
system of Elections; and secret voting will be once
more pressed forward by its many advocates as the
only remedy. In full view of the discussion that must
thereupon take place, an organ of The less-advanced
Whigs puts forth an elaborate manifesto on the subject.
People ask for the Ballot, and the Edinburgh
Reriew, with solemn face, proposes that wo should
nave a ballot-box with a ohm' lid.
We arc too much amused to be angry with the
transparent attempt at delusion on the part of our
Buff and Blue contemporary. It betrays in even
page the conscienuness that "something is confine'
in the shape of substantial reform; and with a sim-
plicity of desire to cheat that almost reminds one of
dotage. it coolly proposes that the people should shut
one eye iu order that it may quietly substitute
"nothing" instead of the something real of which
it appears to be inordinately afraid. All that we have
fur years complained of in the shape of brutality,
bribery, and bullying at elections is freely admitted to
be true. The Edinburgh Rrrirw plainly and openly
coufesacs that under the present miserable Election
system, wholesale corruption and organised menace
are every year including larger sections of the en-
franchised community within their expanding circle.
Tho Whigs begin at length to be convinced that in
the great game of political fraud thee are certain
eventually to lose. Every Tory thinks in his
heart that resort to what is termed undue
tufluence, is quite legitimate and fair. Many
Whigs and a still larger proportion of Radicals are
conscientiously convinced of its intrinsic and inhe-
rent immorality, which no temptation or example
will induce them to palter with. Against these odds
there is therefore no reasonable chance of permanent
victory. Indeed, the only wonder is how an equi-
poise in the representation has been maintained so
long. In 1841, the Carlton Club by a somewhat
greater exertion than usual, succeeded in utterly
swamping the House of Commons; and it is suffi-
ciently notorious that it was the out-of-door influence
of the Anti-Corn Law League, together with the
sudden approach of famine, that broke up
a Conservative phalanx which otherwise seemed
to be irresistible. Organically considered, the 101.
franchise was completely baffled and defeated in the
parliament which sat from 1841 to 1847. And the
same means which had successfully been resorted to
then were relied upon by the same Church and State
cabal three months ago see similar end : with what
result still remains to be seen. But this is clear,
that if in the present Parliament the Tories should
lad that they do not possess sufficient numbers to
nuke their reign secure, they are ready and eager to
repeat the dose of last July, and to persevere with a
prescription until the country shall have been
drenched with the poison in whose efficacy
they have naturally but too well-founded conti•
deuce. That the country would ultimately awake
to a sense of its degradation, and energetically right
itself again, we have not a doubt. But the praxes
would be a painful and a perilous one.
A certain sense of these truths has obviously in-
spired the Whig reviewer to lift up his parable at
the present eventful hoar. He struggles hard to
avoid confessing that even for its professed purpose
—that of securing a full and free representation of '
the upper and middle classes in Parliament—the
Reform Bill of 1832 has failed. Yet every
page of his elaborate panegyric of that once
'•perfect settlement" of the question betrays
the truth, and the writer's latent wish that
he could convince every stiff-necked Whig of it,
provided in doing so he could only escape being
laughed at openly by the listening Tories the while.
Tho common-sense reader, however, will gather from
its not very crafty or dexterous paragraphs that the
thinking portion of the Whig party feel that some
additional strength must be infused into the elec-
toral body, and some improved species of defensive
armour adopted in future conflicts, if the Tories as a
party are to be effectually held in check, or the pro-
vocations to subversive changes in the state pre-
vented from accumulating. And it equally admits
that no extension like that which Lord JOAN Itcs-
aeLt, brought forward in February last would in
itself avail, unless some method fie devised and
adopted for protecting the individual voter against
the influences of bribery and intimidation in the
exercise of his franchise.

These see *plonk and significant admissions,
and not the bee se bemuse they are timidly and
awkwardly made. That respecting the Ballot is
peculiarly odd in the mode both of its introduction
and nee. The general notion of any resort to secret
voting is pooh-poohed in the 04 approved style; but
immediately after there follows the description of a
patent machine for collecting votes quietly, speedily,
and correctly,whick the inventor assures us presentsall
the advantages of the Ballot, without the expense and
seerillos of—ioAat, the reviewer forgets to say. A
public officer is to call at every elector's house within
me many hours after the nomination at the hustings.
He is to leave a paper there with the names of the
candidata' printed thereon. He is then to return
next day with a box under his arm, into which the
elector is to put his voting paper, folded up ills,
chooses, so that the officer may not see, but signed
with his name in full, whether he chooses or not, so
that every landlord, employer, customer, friend, and
foe, may ascertain the fact in due season. And
this is put gravely forth es an alternative ashen&
to the Ballot! The unfortunate man who sow
is often fain to escape the humiliation and shame of
voting against his known opinions by feigning illness
or business which prevents his attendance at the
polling-booth, would then be a helpless victim. He
would have no pretence for avoiding the infamous
act of compliance. By his sad fire-side be would be
left to consider at leisure whether he could afford
deliberately to disregard the threatening notice re-
ceived from the landlord's steward, the banker's
clerk. or the jobbing employer. His flagging spirit
would not even have the encouraging cheer of com-
rades or associates by whom he is now surrounded ea
he goes up to record his vote; and thus the defects of
both open and secret voting would be combined; for
popular sympathy would be withdrawn as an induce-
meet, and personal loss would in no way be lessened
as an element of fear. Of the three systems we
have no hesitation, therefore, in saying that the
Edinburgh Reviewer's is infinitely the worst.
Nevertheless we are. far from sorry to find some
change of the kind—however bunglingly—proposed.
It is a sign of progress, and as such we hail it.
Coming events cast their shadows before. The first
symptom of free Undo in corn was the Whig pro-
posal of an eight shilling duty. What should we
think of the Whig who would whisper a hint of '
inch a proposition now? And so it will be with
free voting. The old organ of whiggery proposes a
%allotting box that will let every man's vote be
known within twenty-four hours after it is gives.
The day is at hand when the same organ will as-
Kindly amend its proposal for one that will secure
the humble but honest voter alike against present or
future persecution. We want Extension of the
Suffrage and the Ballot, and we shall assuredly it
both before long—to the fiat the best section of
Whigs and all the Radicals arc pledged—to the late
they will be driven by the forthcoming esposi of
Electoral Corruption.

AT last the LORD CUANCILLOR has completed the
publication of General Orders for the regulation of the
the Cuurt of Chancery,
issued since the series of
which the proceedings in
e regulated, and these
henceforth to be taken
and in I moo limited
dlubstitut:i,n Inc the tree
information of professional

readers these orders, Ira the ierreral schedules of
fees abolished, and the DOW fete henceforth to be
taken, were published at length in *az columns on
Monday. One set of orders is made under the Act
Ile abolish the office of Master, and provide for the
sore speedy and efficient despatch of business, and,
though ,the fees now to le levied on suitors
I. respect of business conducted is Judger`-.
Chambers will be considerably less than
have hitherto been paid in the Masters' Offices,
the beneficial change te due rather to the shortening
of proceedings—such as reports and certificates—
than to the moderation of the fees now payable.
Fur instance, Als. will be payable for every report or
certificate, for adverleetnents, and for a considerable
proportion of the orders drawn up by the Judge's
chief clerk. Still the change of system will be
very beneficial ; there will no longer be such eases as
one of very recent occurrence, in which 1301. was
,aid for the Master's report. As all the fees now
levied on suitors go to the Fee Fund, the necessity
for keeping the scale so high as it is kept, arises
from the enormous As—involving nolittle
burdened.

jobbery—by white tiiifee fund is . Thus
it is that present and hture suitors of the court must
pay for the sins perpetrated on their predecessors,
under the system which has yielded so slowly and
partially to the assaults of reason and the dictates of
common sense.
The last soles of orders is made under the Suitors'
&lief Act, and involves more of complexity than the
weeding batch. The general effect of these orders
is this: with certain exceptions, to be presently
Mentioned, any party to a suit requiring copies of
*Wings, proceedings, end documents, is to make a
written application to the party by whom the copy is
In be furnished,undertaking to pay the proper charge,
which is fixed at 4d. per folio. The party on whom such
I a written requisition for copies is made must furnish
1 them within forty-eight hours alter the receipt of
the request and the undertaking for payment of proper
charges. The excepted copies are proceedings filed
in the Report-office; answers, pleas, and demurrers;
depositions of witnesses, and examination of parties,
and certain affidavits. 'fhe party delivering copies
in compliance with such requisition, or his solicitor,
is to be answerable for the same being true copies.'
In cues of er parte applications: for injunctions or 1
writs of se e.reat repea—for which, of course, special
circumstances of urgency or hazard must be shown,—
the
party making the application is to deliver to his
opponent copies of the affidavits on which he has
obtained his order immediately they are applied for.
One order distinctly specifies that all such copies
"shall be written on paper of a convenient size, with
a sufficient margin, and in a neat and
legible manner, similar to that which is usually
adopted by law stationers " and unless so
written, the parties furnishing them are
not to be entitled to be paid for them. This is
to provide against the delivery of such slovenly, and
often illegible, copies as were often delivered as
" office copies " from the various offices of the court.
Should the party applied to for copies neglect to
furnish them, the applicant may then procure a copy
from the office in which the original has been filed,
and any time so lost is not to prijudice the
party in
taking a step in the proceedings. Then there is a
schedule of fees abolished, and another of fees hence-
forth to be taken in the different offices ; all future
fees being paid not in money but by means of stamps
denoting the amounts affixed to the parchment or
paper on which the proceedings are written or
pnnted. Provisions are then made for keeping
accounts of fees thus taken.

-The remade we applied to the schedules of fees I
to the first set of orders apply more strongly to
these. Much good will be effected by the abolition
of numerous and often vexatious fees • but the sums
to be henceforth taken in lieu of the old fees are by
no means on so reasonable • scale as justice to
suitors fairly demands.
As the annuitants on the fee fund die off there will
be a further reduction of fees, and then the suitors
will only have to pay for the services rendered to
them by their legal advisers, their solicitors, and
counsel, and the costs of a Chancery suit will no
longer be multiplied by the useless formalities and
technical observances by which the proceedings of
the court have been so long hampered.
This will be the case most especially in simple
matters, where a single point or a few questions only
have to be determined, and then all the consequential
proceedings may be easily disposed of. But it must
not be forgotten that no small portion of the matters
in litigation in the Court of Chancery in-
volve much complexity, extending over long
periods of time, and are often rendered intricate by
the confidence or the fraud, the negligence or the
subtlety of the parties concerned in the transactions
to which the proceedings relate. Wo fear that with
all our reforms we shall find many Chancery suits
still involving protracted, and to the pv 'es con-
creed anxious and expensive, proceedings. The
chief benefits to be anticipated om the new system
may be thus briefly enumerated :
That in plain cases short methods of procedure are
open to the suitor, and the real questions in dispute
may be brought to a speedy and prompt adjudica-
tion. That in more complicated cases the %hole
course of the suit will be ender the immediate con-
trol of the Judge before whom it is de-
pending, and the tedious and often imper-
fect references to another and subordinate
Judge to work oat the decree will be altogether
avoided. That short statements of results with
simple references to accounts and documents will
take the place of voluminous reports and endless
schedules. That the pleadings and proceedings in
general have been shortened, and mainly by adopt-
ing the same system of references to existing docu-
ments or former gs, instead of setting them
out at length. proceedings in Chancery will
require lees outlay by solicitors conducting them,
which will tend greatly to the benefit of suitors, who
neenearily, in some or other, must have paid
for the heavy advances hitherto made by their soli-
citors ; and perhaps, more than all, that a decisive
change has been effected which may lead to still
further improvements in Chancery procedure, and
will prepay the way for a thorough and complete
reformation of those -13 g evils,—our law of real
property and of the Ecclesiastical Courts. We may
thus watch the progress of the new Chancery system,
, not merely for its own sake, but also for the pro-
mise it a&rds of making a further inroad on legal
1 superstitions.

, AT last the LORD CUANCELLU
publication of General Orders fm
sew gram of procedure in tht
Two new batches hare been Wu
ths ldth of October last, by wbil
. Judges Chambers are to be 1
• relnui exclusively to the fees he
by the officers of the court. al
LH... t degree by so:ic...o:s in subst
hitherto payable. For the inforo