The Express.
London, England, 1857-04-16 00:00:00

PUILIIIIIT.
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r—T9lll 0000 roe Mr. IN=
intrear.—Aoll TKO DOND SATOVADD AND KW KONIKIIY.
Kamen. Maar. Aurk.l.—Dmes lelf.poolll

HIGH WATI& AT LONDON BRIDOIL
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LONDON. THURSDAY, APRIL 16.

TO OUR

A DOUBLE NUMBER of the EXPRESS will
le published ON SATURDAYS ea uro•l, daring
the Parliamentary rearm

IT it a pleasant thing enough to win an election--
hardly so pleasant to have to pay for it. The fate
of those who contrive both to lose and pay le what
the humane mind does not love to dwell upon. Let
m confine ourselves to the successful candidate.
Brought in a fortnight ago at the bead of the poll, he
has by this time acquired some rough notion of the
'probable extent of his agent's bill. That well-
intentioned statute, the Corrupt Practices Preven-
tion Act, has, no doubt, done something towards
diminishing the costliness of a seat in Par-
liament. Something, bat, after all, not so
very much. Bribery and treating in their
grosser forma are luxuries too dangevo lo
be any longer promiscuously indulged in. /tune
are no more cockades, ribanda, or bands of music;
but still the electioneering agent maws, some-
how or other, to make out a plausible iittis bill.
Take the metropolitan elections, for instexas. Think
of those flying, or rather creeping, squedrens of
heck abs--" Cox for Finsbury," "Motu for
Southwark," or " ROI:WELL for Lambeth ;" think of
all the Red Lions, Black Bulls, and White Harts,
each with its committee-room; think of each men-

mittee-room, populous with a host of busy,
important, and übiquitous gentlemen, who; at
the all of their country, are ready to un-
dergo a week or two of sandwiches, sherry, owl
scramble, for the modest consideration of so sway
shillings or guineas a-day. In many mem we doubt
if the Corrupt Practices Prevention Act has deem
much more than change the direction in which each
flows from the pockets of the expectant senator.
The great electioneering agency interest is ae strung,
or stronger, than ever. We doubt whether the powers
of this mysterious order of functionaries me ever
rightly apprehended by the uninitiated portion of
the public Strange tales are gill told of the seem-'
oily of conciliating, the danger of provoking, them.
Wehave not the slightest intentional insinuating that
MT. *o=o U 0 11, the late ineenber for 13ridpert,didnot
power every requisite accomplishment for shining
os a British senator ; but anima we as ins* mis-
informed, he owed his seat lees to a spontaneous
recognition of his ability on the part of the " free
and independent" who returned him to Parliament,

than to apiece of management on the part of the
electioneering agents of a former representative,
who obstinately declined to settle the little outstand-
ing bills of his last election. In the same way we

have no more reason to doubt, than we have to be-
lieve, that Mr. H. B. Bimunsts, the new member
for Dudley, will become a conspicuous ensmanat
of the new House of Commons. But, union =arm
is mare than usually mendacious, his return is
hardly so much due to the confidence of the dankest
body in their new candidate as to the dismatishation
d the electioneering agents with their old member.
He is, in a word, quite as much a monument of wrath
ass vessel of honour. Bo 'gain at Greenwich, we
are told that if Mr. MONTAGU Cusionxas had been
willing to satisfy to the utmost all the demands
made upon his purse in respect of liabilities incurred
In his two prior contests, he might have been sue-
ceedul in a third. As be persevered in his resistance,
a local gentleman was found to undertake at sheet
notice the task of decently performing the final cere-
mony of consigning the contumacious candidate to
Parliamentary extinction.
Now, all this, no doubt, is very bad, and exceed-
i•ily immoral. It utterly shocks all the constitu-
tional proprieties, and moves all those who have
unlimited faith in Acts of Parliament to clamour
•ahemently for still move stringent laws in order to
a pat it down." But the question is, can it be put
down by any severity of penal legislation P We mach '
dela* it. Consider the thing a moment. On one
ode thank the prize—a six-hundred and fiftplintrth
gm in the privilege depending four days and nights
oat of every seven (not including morning sittings)
in making laws for the greatest and most powerful
aspire the world has ever seen. On the other side

an men possessed by ambition, sal pimedig
money or talent, oe both. Does any am loarerfai
what human nature has been in all ages, are at all

events, in all ages of wealth and civilization, believe
fog a moment that the money power will not arks
iteelf felt in this straggle for social position, in.
(incur, and command ? All that can be attempted—
and this undoubtedly ought to be attempted—
is to reduce the direct influence of the money
power in such a contest u this to the
smallest possible proportions. But is direct
penal legislation the beet way of accomplishing
this? We think not. A far better way would be
to diminish the value of money in elections, by
diminishing the certainty of what money would
buy ; in other words, by shrouding the vote—which,
put it how you will, is, directly or indirectly, the
thing ultimately bought—under the protection of
eunney. A few proofs that the result of elections
conducted by ballot could not be reduced to any-
thing like a certainty by the utmost exertions of the