The Sun.
London, England, 1839-02-15 00:00:00

Bill had come into operation that all these difficulties
had arisen. Now, he would take leave to contradict
that— (Cheers)—because he was old enough to remember
(for he had been twenty years in that House) that long
before the Reform Bill bad been introduced the same
complaints existed, and the same doubts were thrown out as
to the integrity of Members on political questions. He re-
' membered that Mr. Tierney got up in that House, and
made a motion on the proceedings of the very first Com-
mittee lie had witnessed. It was a ease in which costs
were voted for vexation and friVoliyi and, the decision of
the Committee was thought so extraoreliraty diat Mr.
Tierney departed from his usual cautkn, and btotlght it 1;,3
fore the House. So long as Members who were partiatis
constituted those Committees, so long they would have cause
of complaint. He was not called upon to argue in favour of
the proposition of the Noble Lord, or to oppose or support
the plan of the Right Hon. Baronet ; but he was called
upon to pronounce his opinion that the present system did
not work well—( No, no)—and secondly, that it would not
work well so long as the selection was confined to Nlern-
bees of that House. He feared they were beginning at the
wrong end.—( Hear, hear.) They should first reform the
statute-book.—( Cheers.) There were in it so many loop-
holes to creep out of, that there could be no uniformity
in their decisions.—( Hear, hear.) He would say that
the statutes relating to bribery were so undefined,
that they were mere traps to catch the un-
wary—the guilty party too frequently found the means
of escaping, while they were in many instances so
formed es to entrap and implicate the innocent.—( Hear,
hear.) Their decisions were not entitled to respect so
long as these statutes remained unreformed. He would
ask any lawyer to define what " treating" meant—and
whether the allowance to electors could be legally given
or withheld for coming a certain distance. When he con-
sidered all this he would say that eleven of the best lawyers
in the House could not prevent their comitg to vaccillating
decisions and contradictory judgments. He would there-
fore repeat that they were beginning at the wrong end.—
( Hear, hear.) lie would be contented to evade the pro-
position of his Noble Friend if he saw any thing like a dis-
position on the part of the House to remove this stain upon
its character. Ile knew, however, that what was every
body's business was nobody's business—(Laughter)—
and no one was ready to leap into such a gulph of legis-
lation. The prospect, however, was not utterly hope-
less, and a Committee of legal men might be appointed,
who, after an attentive review of the Statute Book, might
recommend a digest of the laws relating to elections,
including one definitive law as to treating, instead of the
500 interpretations at present existing—some report might
emanate from a Committee thus properly chosen and con-
stituted to cure those manifold evils. When that was
effected, they would probably have wiped away a great
many of the blots and stains upon their present decisions.
He hoped the Right Hon. Baronet agreed with him in this
suggestion.
Sir R. PE EL—I proposed that last year.
Mr. BE RNA L hoped as he had done so last year, that
he would again take it into consideration this year.
Sir ROBERT PEEL.—It is a question for the Go-
vernment. _ .

Mr. BE RNA Is—The Right Hon. Baronet said it was a
question for the Government, but so many questions were
pressing on them that he did not wonder at their blinking
it. The House ought to interfere seriously in the matter,
and if it set its nits and hands to work, he had no doubt
the evil would be effects's:lly cured.—( Hear.) So long
as this halo of indignation was spread around the
present system, it was his firm opinion that whether the
Committees consisted of six or eleven Members the same
objections would exist. The Right Hon. Baronet asked
would they pronounce sentence upon their integrity and
honour, but they had done so already, and the country had
pronounced it. He would ask the Right Hon. Baronet
did he not remember how, in the Session previously to the
last dissolution, the columns of the Daily and Evening
Press teemed, ad nauseant, with perpetual comments, im-
pugning their decisions, and assailing individual Mem-
bers, and generally the Committees, either on the
Tory or Government side of the house?—(Hear, hear.)
He would say that the taint of corruption was already
spread around them, and if they went to the House of
Lords with such a preamble to their Bill he for one would
not be ashamed of it.—( Laughter and cheers.) By their
own acts they showed that they were not sensible of the
moral or religious obligations of an oath : then let them
confess it. He would ask the Right Hon. Bart. what
was an oath ? And because they were not Chancery, or
Election, or Queen's Bench lawyers, must they therefore
receive a dispensation, and suffer no penalties in the eyes
of God or man for any violation of it? He asked the
Right Hon. Baronet to show how an oath could be bind-
ing on the consciences of six which was not binding on the
consciences of eleven? Ile would ask him whether he
meant to continue the oath, or to do away with it
altogether? He was not aware of any Divine or moral
obligation of an oath which was not binding on eleven, which
could sway the minds, the hearts or consciences of six,
either by striking names off or out, or in any way he
pleased. Was not the House aware that Committees fre-
quently had the benefit of lawyers sitting with them ; and
if professional gentlemen had seats, was not the House
entitled to their services? He (Mr. Bernal) was not pre-
pared to chalk out any plan with respect to lunatic asses-
sors, nor did he know whether it would be necessary to
look out for briefless barrist,:rs to clothe them with the robe
of a little judicial authority. He believed, however, that
two or more judicial officers presiding over these Commit-
tees would entitle their decisions to the respect of the com-
munity. Without saying anything against the honour of
any Member of that House, he did maintain that in the
Session immediately following the dissolution, there was not
that respect paid to them in the public capacity which
attached to them individually in private life. No Hon.
Member, on the right or left hand side of the House,
could contradict him in that statement. He saw no way
out of the dilemma, except by the constitution of a new
law, correcting the errors of the Statute Book ; and after
having defined whet constituted treating and bribery, and
what constituted the right of the franchise, they might
have some hopes of arriving at a definite and satisfactory
conclusion, and till that was done, the matter could never
be satisfactorily adjustecl.—(Cheers.)
Mr. WYNNE entirely concurred with the Honourable
Gentleman who had last spoken, that they were beginning
at the wrong end. The first duty of the House would be
to improve the manner of deciding contested elections, to
lock to the state of the law, and to remove the disputed
points.—( Hear, hear. ) His Noble Friend, the Member
for Devonshire, had last Session given notice of a motion
for that purpose, stating at the same time that lie was satis-
fied it would receive the sanction of both sides of the House.
During the period of the Reform Bill, he (Mr. Wynne)
had proposed to Lord Althorp to divide the Bill into two
separate portions, one relating to the elective part of the
question, the other to the legislative, which in the then
agitated state of public feeling, might better have been
referred to a Committee up stairs. Ile regretted that this
course had not been pursued. He had also suggested a
declaratory Bill to settle those points of detail, which were
the subject of so much dispute. Ile had likewise urged
the propriety of appointing a Court of Appeal from the
decisions of the Revising Barrister!, in order to secure, if
possible, some degree of uniformity. llis opinion was the
first step should now he to appoint a Committee, to consider
the disputed points of election law—( Hear, hear)—though
he did not encourage those sanguine expectations of the
great advantages of such a measure, which the lion.
Member ( Mr. Bernal) appeared to entertain, of all courses,
that of adopting an abstract resolution, of resolving that
the jurisdiction should be transfered, without deciding to
whom—or in what manner—was the most injudicious.—
( Hear, hear, hear.) If that popositicn which the Noble
Lord (Mahon) was recommending, were embodied in a Bill,
he ( Mr. Wynn) would be prepared to give to it his best
consideration. But against expressing an opinion in an
abstract form, he must protest.—( Hear, hear.) In the
reigns of Elizabeth and James, the House had repeatedly
resolved that it was the proper judge of controverted elec-
tions of its Members. In 1624, it came to the resolution,
" that it is the natural privilege of this House to examine
into the validity of election returns and decide thereupon."
Now, as to some of the authorities which had
been quoted—the extracts of Parliamentary speeches du-
ring the last century—it should be recollected that in the
petiod between the middle of the reign of George 11. and
1774 particularly, Parliamentary speeches were most in-
correctly, if at all, reported ; and as, except in rare instan-
ces, Members did not amend the reports of their
speeches, the most jejune compositions were published
and on the Parliamentary reports, as they were
called, of that time small reliance could be placed. The
Noble Lord (Mahon) had referred to extracts from the
Journals of the House of Lords, from which it appeared
that certain officers *were appointed to be " triers," or
"criers," of petitions. But that did not refer to elec-
tion petitions ; for the same officers were appointed at
present every year, and they were but vestiges of the an-
cient jurisdiction of the Crown, which anciently took cog-
nizance of all petitions from the subject. The Hon.
Gentleman opposite says, with reference to the proposal of
my Right Hon. Friend, that if an oath will not bind a
Committee of eleven, he cannot imagine that it would bind
a Committee of six ; but he (Mr. Wynn) would go further,
and ask, if an oath was without effect upon the Members
of this House, what reason was there to imagine
that it would produce any effect upon a Jury, or upon any
other tribunal ? Those around him could not be supposed
more capable of disregarding the sanctity of an oath than
any other men. They would not be objected to as persons
wanting either in honour or honesty, to serve on Special
Juries ; nay, the probability is, that they would be chosen
out of the panel for the purpose of discharging the func-
tions of this office. The fact is, that party differences pro-
duce an unconscious bias on the minds of all; and there is
to be found as great a bias among members of the legal
professions, on political questions, as among any other body,
of men. The questions which time members of that pro-
fession were in the habit of deciding were not political
ones ; and consequently, when political questions oc-
casionally come before them, they decide impartially
on them front habit. But let them once be erected
into political Judges, according to the motion of
my Noble Friend, and they will bring
with
them to the judgment-seat the strongest pOss?l?ales
political bias; and long after the existence of suc
shall have become manifest, and they shall consequisiiibtlye
have lost all credit for impartiality, it will be
to lay the finger on any particular case, so astothe-io
pinion
inl!irg the
charge home to them. He believed, contrary to
of his Noble Friend, much- seater
that when a party in that House con-
stituted only a very small minority, there was la
g
tendency to impartiality to in the decisions of Committees,
than when parties were more nearly balanced.—( Hear. )
He recollected many years ago that it was a very frequent
case that a Committee would be struck, the majority of the
members of which, although belonging to one side of the
House, would yet frequently decide in favour of the other.
He admitted that it was required that satisfaction should
be given upon the subject, but the plan proposed was far
from meeting with his sanction ; its principle was one of
uncertainty. Yet, whatever tribunal might be formed, the
party against whom a decision passed would not be content
with that decision, nor was such a thing to be expected.
Would every case give satisfaction, even if juries were
allowed to be judges both of law and fact ? He was glad
his Noble Friend (Lord Mahon) would move for the re-
ception of his plan ; but he wished others would also bring
forward plans, and from them all some eligible proposition
might be selected for trying contested elections- From a