The Sun.
London, England, 1852-10-25 00:00:00

0.77/./7
Arild
411114 a" II IV
ELECTION PETITi
(From the Daily Ne 5•
Just after the Elections there wa 41443ktiiker.
petitions, but as the time 'Zia wa on for their present
Lion, those best informed upon the suleject begin to let
out that after all there will be but a few. It is to be the
old story over again, " Great cry and little wool." Par-
liamentary agents have found out that the corruption
was, after all, below an average. Some even go so far as
to assert that so pure a general election never came
under their notice. It would serve a good purpose, if
those gentlemen were every one of them summoned
before a specially appointed committee of the Ilouse, and
required to produce the statements and notes of evi-
dence as to every case that had been laid before them,
and to declare the several considerations upon which they
had decided on not proceeding with each particular
petition. Some, no doubt, would be found to have been
abandoned as a matter of compromise, come because ex-
posure iu this particular instance would really for the
future place the representatives in the hands of the
honest, and deprive the agent of his long-held power to
put up some one to be plucked at every election; others,
becaue it had suddenly become more advantageous to
atop the petition than to go on with it ; and a goodly
number would be found to have been abandoned because
there was no petitioner in the field able to afford such
expense as would content a parliamentary agent. It is
utterly in vain to say that on investigation the cor-
ruption turns out to have been small. We may safely
appeal from any such assertion to all who took an
active part in the contests. It was not the mere excite-
ment of the moment that spread the report of unex-
ampled corruption. It was the rare exception that
wherever there was a contest unfair means were used,
and in those places there are plenty of people to be found
who make no secret as to how the election was lost
or won. There were rumours on the polling days in
several places which have not since died away, but have
become corroborated and confirmed; and we are not with-
out instances in proof, that if the whole number of pe-
titions he few, tke smallness of the member is not the
result of the rareness of corruption, or of any insuper-
able difficulty as to getting at the facts, but is in many,
if not in moat instances, owing to the enormous cost of
petitions. As elections are at -present eondueted, a ean-
didate—even where, in a moderately large constituency,
he fights a fair battle—must make up his mind to pay
heavily his way to Parliament. It is a road to be passed
in any case only by a considerable scattering of gold and
silver. A man may have ambition or love of some cause
enough at heart to spend the money iu an open contest;
but when he is beaten by bought votes, it is another
matter to spend as much more as the election cost him
in a patriotic effort to unseat the buyer of the seat. The
bribery-beaten candidate may reasonably enough consi-
der that it is the duty of the Parliament to weed itself
of its corrupt members, and that the nation or the con-
stituency, and not the individual, should pay the cost.
It is in vain to cry out against corruption, so long as its
punishment is guarded against by an enormous fine upon
the prosecutor. No petitioner need look to spend less
than five hundred pounds, and he may be plucked to the
extent of one or two thousand, and then have the satis-
faction of knowing that the corrupt electors are still in
full force, and that ho has no better, if not a worse,
chance, of being returned than before.
As elections now stand—even in the most flagrant in-
stances—members are left in the full enjoyment of their
purchased honours, and constituencies in undisturbed
possession of a national trust, which they systematically
betray. Those acquainted, for instance, with the myste-
ries of the management of the franchise at Maidstone,
know that when an election is on foot a certain club of
voters meet in a private parlcur in a public house to
talk over the merits of the candidates—and pipes are
smoked, and the weather gone over, and crops discussed,
and beer and gin and water tippled—and by and bye,
through, it may be, some mysterious 'hole iu the wall,
there appears a 5 in chalk on a little black board over
the tire-place; the eyes of the company find their way
in that direction one after another, heads are sleeken iu
dissent, and on goes the drinking, and the smoke
thickens, and the conversation becomes political, rind in-
stead of the 5 appears a 7. No one notes the change;
the chances of the candidates are gone into with some
zeal; the nominee at the club is no favourite yet; if he
be an old member there are no end of complaints against
him; he has been a member so many years, and still
there's a malt tax, and the hop duty is neither abolished
nor changed to an acreage. If a new candidate, he is
unknown, and they must be cautious how they take new
men. AlO comes out upon the board; faces brighten;
there's a long pull at the pipes; every glass•is filled as
if by some common impulse, and the chairman gives the
health of the candidate, and then, old or new, there are
speeches and cheers, his committee named, and his
election is safe.

The mysterious ten has done it all. It is notorious
that at the last election positive evidencst of bribery in
the shape of cheques fell into the hands of the opposing
party, and led to a compromise, by which one of the
Derbyite candidates was withdrawn, and a section of the
Liberals and the Tories agreed to a walk over. At the
last moment, however, an independent portion of the
constituency resolved to resist the compromise—brought
forward a man of their own, Mr. Lee, and polled for
him, but without success. At the close of the election a
petition was very urgently spoken of, but after a time
the zeal cooled down. The question began to be asked,
what good could come of it ? Mr. Lee might unseat his
opponent, but his supporters would, by no fair means,
win in the face of the figures over the mantel-piece, and
the instructions to shopkeepers and others from the
county round. The honest few could not afford amongst
themselves to faces a petition.
The cost of the petition protects alike the bribers and
the bribed. Those who have the money have nothing
to gain by its expenditure, and those who have not,
though they feel the disgrace of such a representation,
have no remedy. Tradesmen in the rootropelis combine
to prosecute swindlers, who would escape in numbers, if
the charges were to be borne in each instance by an
individual. Surely the public are deeply enough inter-
ested in having an honourably chosen Parliament to
raise a fund for the unseating of those who by corrupt
influences deprive the honest electors of their voice in
the state. Maidstone is far from being a single instance.
Colchester, at the last election, went, there is little doubt,
knee-deep into its old practices. There is no lack of
proof of bribery, and open-housekeeping. Mr. Hard-
castle was defeated by these practices, and would, in all
probability, have petitioned, but the vacancy at Bury St.
Edmunds gives him a chance of getting a seat at less cost
than by petition at Colchester, and so no one means to pay
for exposing the doings of the Chief of the Woods and
Forests and his colleague, and their allies of the Eastern
Counties Railway.
At Bury St, Edmunds a petition was determined upon,
and Stuart must have lost his seat. The appointment to
the vice-chancellorship, however, leaves the seat open,
and no one with sufficient funds has any longer en
interest in the exposure of the member. But surely, it
a general fund had been subscribed for the purpose, the
Vice-Chancellor would have found a petition between
him and the Chiltern Hundreds ;
and the public would
have had an opportunity of ascertaining how far his
appointment might be considered in the light of a pre-
ventive to detection.
At Rochester enough is known of monies paid,
loose votes picked up early on the polling-day, and
grumbling over unfulfilled promises of places and
payments to unseat both the present members ; but
it is so well known that the same corrupt means would
be used again, and would return any other men
of the same politics, whilst the present Ministry continue
in office, that probably the late members would consider
it a mere idle waste of money to petition. But other
constituencies, earnest and honest, and whose votes are
neutralized by those bought and coerced seats for Ro-
chester should surely be ready to contribute to throwing
the borough open to another contest, and so again and
again, until it become an ascerteined fact that it is mere
money thrown away to attempt to bribe in Rochester.
Then there is Ipswich. from which Mr. Adair's vote,
for the ballot and reform, is to be neutralised by Mr.
Cobbold's thick and thin suppert of Lord Derby, be-
cause Mr• Hobhouse does not see his way through the
expenses, first of a petition, and then of another con-
tested election. And yet no one in Ipswich pretends
that Cobbold gained his coat by fair means ; unless the
power of some thirty publinhouses, morclor less belong-
ing to his brewery, and the forces of his bank be fair
means. It would be absurd for an individual to pay the
double costs of the seat, or chances of the seat for Ips-
wich ; and it is scarcely to be looked for that the few
most active of the Liberals, and on whom falls all the
labour of the elections, should tax themselves to so
vote
ittt f. Thbeybefoerul
heavy an amount. The country generally has no less
bank-bought
the matter
ea
seat
tn Ipswich a
ts gaineds
means against the great mass of the peolm), and it is
their
mashneonipsetnordest subscribe for interest and their duty, for theof
tphuer
wrongging of d
oPnaer ltihae-
honestyarmpoaurtthof the
is
a constituencycase (
,f anothoef riPkd, ainieitoking at the
return—and with such knowledge as any
investigated the matter, may hay© of the one who has
occasion--there practices plied
on the lute is no doubt that Mr.
M'Cullagh might
gain the
o es
of
eat by a scrutiny of the votes;
but a scrutiny is of all
13:trenlasZe: they Counsel
procedure against a sit-
ting member the most expe
willuns speleexnedrt
atheir
ingenuity in contriving delays;
r day,
or perhaps more, over the cross-examination of a single
witness; they will make long speeches upon a class of
points seemingly raised for the purpose, and ending in
nothing; and all these days the petitioner is at the cost
of keeping witnesses in town, and tending for fresh testi-
mony.
The present system of elections is altogether vicious.
The candidate, even where the election is to bo pure,
comes forward to pay expenses himself, or else, as in
some few instances, his party subscribes, and pays, and
so on the face of it he occupies the position of one seek-
ing a direct advantage for himself, and not the advantage
of the electors and the country. If expense be essential
to the choice of a representative, it assuredly should be
borne not by the candidate, but by the constituency. It
is one of the public constitutional acts of the borough or
county to chose members of Parliament, and if booths
committee-rooms engaged, poll clerks,
are to be erected.
messengers, 8,4-employed, the charges should be met
by the borough or county, and not by the returned mem-
bers and beaten, candidates, and so also in the ease of
petitions against the return. If there be bribable elec-
tors in a constituency, it is the interest of the constitu-
ency to be rid of them, just as it is their interest to be
rid of pickpockets or burglars; and the member or c 44,r
dictate should no more be called upon to pay for the seso,ll°
posure and prosecution of beibers and receivers of bri
than a person who has had his pocket picked to be called I
upon to pay the cost of transporting the pickpocket. If
bribery is to be put an end to, there must be an end of
levying the cost upon the petitioner.