The Press.
London, England, 1857-06-06 00:00:00

VOTING AT ELECTIONS.

Lord R. CECIL moved for the appointment of a
select committee to inquire into the expediency of
taking the votes at elections for counties and univer-
sities by way of voting-papers. The plan would, he
maintained, possess many practical advantages, in
diminishing the cost and trouble attending the elec-
tions in question, and in a political point of view

THE PRESS.

would accomplish many of the objects proposed by
the advocates of parliamentary reform, inasmuch as
it would enable multitudes to exercise the franchise
who were now prevented from voting by distance,
infirmity, or business avocations. The voting paper
system had been adopted in the election for poor-law
guardians, and had in his belief worked well.
Mr. SPOONF:R seconded the motion.

Mr. 'l'. M‘CuLLAdit objected to increase the
number of select committees at a period when there
was no time or opportunity for any satisfactory com-
pletion of the inquiry, and opposed the motion on
principle.
Lord STANLEY objected to mixing up the cases of
universities and counties. If the proposal had been
limited to the universities—the academical consti-
tuency differing from all others insomuch as it was
non-resident—he did not know that he should have
opposed the motion ; but by extending it to counties,
the noble lord had either gone too far or not far
enough :
He could easily understand why his noble friend dis-
tinguished the case of university from other elections, but
he did not understand why a distinction was drawn between
the case of counties and of boroughs. Granting that the
area of counties was far more extensive and the population
more scattered. this was an evil which might be remedied
by an increase in the number of polling places ; and if the
principle were once laid down that every person to whom
it was not convenient to attend personally at the place of
voting should be enabled to vote, he did not see on what
principle of justice or expediency you could exclude that
large number of non-resident voters who were always to be
found in the case of seaport and mercantile towns. But
what were the abuses mainly existing in the case of elec-
tions? They were, as he conceived,lthe risk of rioting, of
intimidation, of bribery, and of impersonation. As
regarded rioting, he admitted that, to a certain extent, his
noble friend had some plea for his measure. Voting by
papers would tend to diminish the number of persons
gathered together in one place, and would consequently
lesson the danger of disturbance. That danger, however,
might be equally diminished by increasing the number of
polling places: and,after all, wherever there were nomina-
tions, wherever there were hustings, wherever candidates
came to address the constituencies, there masses of men
would be gathered together, often in a state of excitement,
so that though you might diminish the temptation to riot
you could not altogether remove it. When he passed from
this part of the question to the danger of intimidation, he
confessed it appeared to him that this abuse would be
infinitely aggravated by the proposition of his noble friend.
What could be easier, under any system that could be
devised of voting by papers, than for the agent or any
person who had power over another to go to the voter and
to insist upon his signing the voting litter in his presence ?
Supposing it to be admitted, then, that intimidation
might exist under any system of open voting, it seemed to
him that the proposition of his nale friend was calculated
not to ttimir.ish, but to increase that practice. But when
he came to look at the area of the proposition upon
bribery, he thought that the evil of that practice would be
increased in a still greater degree. At present, whenever
bribery took place, one party or the other ran some risk of
being deceived. If the bribe were given before the voting-
paper was signed there was a risk that the voter who had
received it might not fulfil his part of the contract, while, if
the bribe were promised to be given after the vote, the
voter was exposed to the risk of losing that by the promise
of which he had been bribed. But the proposition of his
noble friend made the thing quite sate—the voter received
his money when he handed over the signed voting-paper,
and the agent for the candidate obtained, therefore, not
security for the vote, but the vote itself. Next as to per.
sonation :—At present it was a difficult and a dangerous
thing for a non•elector to personate an elector; he could
not do it except by appearing in person at the poll, and h
put himself thereby in peril of the law. It was evidently
much easier to sign a paper than to personate a voter. It
might be said that a person signing a paper in the name of
a voter would be liable to be charged with forgery ; but the
forgery would be committed by a person unknown, Limn
would be no clue to the guilty person, and, practically, he
believed that it had been found, in elections under the Poor
Law, that personation had gone on to a very great extent.
But even if it had been shown, as it bad not, that in Poor.
Law elections the system of voting by papers had worked
satisfactorily, he should still refuse to admit that that
afforded any guarantee that it would work satisfactorily in
the case of parliamentary elections. There was an
immense difference between the amount of temptation in
the one case and the other; and the difficulties of detail
moreover were such as to make elections carried on in the
manner proposed almost impossible. With respect to the
particular motion for a select committee, he thought that
there would be great practical difficulty in the way of
carrying out such an inquiry.
Sir F. KELLY observed that Lord R. Cecil asked
only for the committee to inquire into a question of
general importance in relation to the election of
members to Parliament. He pointed out the ad-
vantages attending a system of voting by papers—
the saving of expense, the protection against in-
timidation, and the putting an end to treating ;
and lie considered that the frauds and forgeries
committed under the defective machinery of the
Poor Law offered no valid objection to the system of
voting-papers under a more perfect machinery.
Sir G. GREY said, the reason urged by Sir F.
Kelly for consenting to the motion—that it was not
for leave to bring in a bill, but for inquiry—chiefly
weighed with him in resisting it. He thought
that this question, not limited to the machinery of

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the system, was one which the house ought to decide
far itself, and not delegate to a committee upstairs.
'lo the proposal to abolish the system of open toting
he, at present at least, entertained great objections.
Lord R. CECIL, then withdrew his motion.
BOARD OF TRADE.

Mr. HORSFAI.L moved for a select committee to
inquire into the origin, the past and present consti-
tution, and the powers and duties of the Board of
Trade, with the view to its better adaptation to the
requirements of the country. The hon. member
described in much detail the various duties which
were ripw assigned to the Board of Trade, contend-
ing that the nature of these functions was hetero-
genous to an extent far beyond its competence to
execute :

It had been truly said by Mr. Thomas, of the Record-
office, that the duties of the Board of Trade were of the
most miscellaneous character. A part of the duty of that
board was to advise the Colonial Secretary on questions
affecting the commerce of the colonies. Another part of
its duty was to advise the Lords of the Treasury on matters
affecting the customs and excise ; and a third part of its
duty was to communicate with the Foreign Secretary upon
commercial treaties. He should have imagined that these
three duties were almost sufficient for one board. But
beyond those duties the Board of Trade had to supervise
every order in council, to report upon every local bill, every
dock bill, and every railway bill. The board also had a
sort of general superintendence of agriculture, of corn
statistics, of manufactures, of commerce, of navigation, of
railways, of the departments of science and art, of Marl-
borough•house, of the Mining Record-office, of the Geologi-
cal Survey of the United Kingdom, of the Museum, of
Irish Industry, of the registration of science, of the registra-
tion of designs, of joint stock companies registration, of the
metropclitan supply of water, of the Coalwhippers'•office,
and, to make its duties comple'e, he did not see why it
should not have the control of the medical department, of
the industrial school department, and the aggravated
assaults on women.

The hon. member mentioned instances of what he con-
sidered to be the injurious exercise of legal powers by
the board, and their grasping at power which they did
not possess, under the Merchant Shipping Act, cha-
racterising some of these as inquisitorial proceedings
and an interference with local self-government. He
strongly censured the board's mode of action with
reference co local bills—to the obstruction to com-
merce at Liverpool—to their corn statistics, which
were "worthless "—to their neglect of the interests
of trade in maintaining the monopolies of guano—
and to railways, complaining that the board inter-
fered sometimes too much and sometimes too little,
and declaring that it was the feeling of the commer-
cial community that a peer and a lawyer were not fit
persons to be placed at its head.
Mr. BASS seconded the motion.

Mr. LABOUCHERE submitted that no charge of
magnitude had been substantiated against the Board
of Trade. That department had fulfilled very im•
portant functions, and had aided in accomplishing
the great changes in our commercial system by
which the prosperity of the country had been so
vastly enhanced. The only foundation for the pre-
sent complaint consisted of local grievances and
trifling controversies with the board, chiefly urged by
persons connected with trade in Liverpool.

Sir J. GRAHAM was surprised that an attack upon
the Board of Trade should emanate from a repre-
sentative for Liverpool, which was so deeply
indebted to the services of a former member and
president of the department, Mr. Huskisson. He
bore testimony to the admirable organisation of the
board, and to the talents displayed by successive
functionaries, including the distinguished names of
Huskisson and Ashburton, to whose administration
it had been intrusted. Sir James then detailed the
principal steps accomplished during the past thirty
years to carry out the principle of free trade, in all
of which the Board of Trade had taken a prominent
part. . .

Mr. BENTINCK believed that some change in the
constitution of the Board of Trade was desirable.
He censured the practice, which seemed to have
become habitual, of appointing to the department
Ministers who had no acquaintance with trading
affairs.

sir G. PECHELL commented upon the recent
blunders and negligences committed by the Board
of Trade in continuing the existing restrictions
upon the oyster fisheries. He strongly supported
the motion.

Mr. LowE remarked that the attack on the board
in no way implicated its constitution, but consisted
merely of a mass of minute complaints, all of which
it was impossible to answer without previous notice.
All the functions which the hoard exercised were
assigned to it by Acts of Parliament, and the fre-
quency with which new duties were allotted to the
department showed the confidence its administration
had inspired in the Legislature. That confidence,
he urged, was well earned and judiciously bestowed.
The only argument used by Mr. Horsfall for the re-
construction of the board was that it had too much
to do; if so, the remedy was a very simple one—to
relieve it, of some of its duties. But the board itself
was endeavouring to cure this defect, and had

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already got rid of a vast quantity of business by
establishing principles that would work themselves.
He then proceeded to vindicate the Board of Trade
as to various charges which had been brought for-
ward by the member for Liverpool.
Mr. HORSFALL briefly replied, and a division was
called, but none took place, the motion being nega-
tived by consent.