The Sun.
London, England, 1865-06-13 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TlMES.—Greatly to its credit, the House of Lords
has declined to support the policy of that less rea-
sonable section of the Conservative party which
opposes the Union Chargeability Bill. 'The motion
of the Duke of Rutland to refer the bill to a Select
Committee was rejected last night by a very large
majority ; the bill was read a second time, and, we
may presume, will now shortly become law. So
many and conclusive have been the arguments urged
in favour of this useful measure that it is difficult
to imagine how any party could believe that it was
doing the country service by delaying and hindering
it. But there is hardly any feeling stronger than
that of local jealousy and rivalry, the spirit which
arms one petty district to resist the supposed aggres-
sion of another, and fills the heart of the suburban
parishioner with indignation at the idea of being
overreached by the vulgar and domineering town
in his neighbourhood. To the inevitable hostility
of borderers more than to any pecuniary self-seeking
we must ascribe the fact that so large a number of
English gentlemen have been found to oppose the
measure. Happily, the resistance spent itself in the
House of Commons. Before the bill came to its
third reading the opposition to it had almost ceased,
and it ultimately passed without a division. The
neutrality, if we may so call it, of the Conservative
chiefs has been imitated in -the House of Lords.
Last night the Duke of Rutland found only Lord
Redesdale to speak on his side and 24 peers to sup-
port him. Neither Lord Derby nor any other
leading politician of the Conservative party chose
to make himself conspicuous by advising the virtual
rejection of the bill. Indeed, it is hard to conceive
that any enlightened politician should desire to place
his party in the position of having defeated such a
measure. Such a victory would be more dangerous
than any defeat. To go to the hustings as the
advocates of a system which has been condemned
by a whole generation of economists, and the evils
of which have been dwelt upon by practical observers
in every part of the country, would be an excess
of boldness. Their own sagacity and good feeling,
however, as well as their political prudence induced
the Conservative leaders in the Lords to offer no
opposition to the measure, which will, we trust, be
one of the principal achievements of the Session of
1865. The course taken by the Duke of Rutland
in moving that the bill be referred to a Select Com-
mittee had, indeed, nothing to recommend it. If
ever there was a measure before Parliament simple
in its provisions and thoroughly understood in all
its details, it is the Union Chargeability Bill: It
consists of only a few clauses, intended to carry out
a large but well known and long canvassed change.
All the information which Parliament can expect to
have it has already. First, as to the opinions of
those most conversant with the poor law and its
working, it has been explained again and again, and
was repeated by Lord Granville. last night, that at
the time of the introduction of the New Poor Law
the Commissioners were unanimous in recommend-
ing that the settlement and chargeability should be
extended from the parishes to the unions. Lord
Brougham was in his place to testify to this of his
own memory, and to declare to the house that the
Government of that day was only deterred from
proposing such a change in the law by the fear that
the interests arrayed against it would be too power-
ful to admit of its success. Five years after the
Commissioners returned to the subject, and expressed
their regret that the principle of union rating had
not been embodied in the poor law. But what the
Whigs could not accomplish in 1834 they certainly
would have failed to do in 1839, and so the question
slept for a time. The evils of the existing practice,
however, were too much for the Government which
followed. Sir J. Graham felt the necessity of abolish-
ing a system which was depressing and demoralising
the labourer. But he failed. Two years in success-
sion he brought in a bill, but each time was obliged
to drop it. .From that time to the present there
has hardly been a year that the principle of Union
rating has not received the tribute of some
able and thinking man's approval. Indeed, their
lordships are aware from their own knowledge
that the reports which have been made on this
subject are no mere idle fictions. They under-
stand the grievance complained of, and the way
that is proposed to remedy it, and if a Select Com-
mittee were to sit for a whole session through they
could add little to the information of the house.
The Duke of Rutland seems to have felt this,
for his speech was really a speech against the bill,
and not for inquiry into the subject. The argu-
ments he used are those with which we have been
familiar from the beginning of the discussion, and
we cannot say that they are entirely without weight.
The imposition on suburban agricultural parishes of
a payment for the support of the poor of a town is
no doubt, at first sight, a legitimate grievance, and
it may in some cases operate unjustly. But when it
is considered how often the poor of agricultural
parishes are driven into the neighbouring towns,
there is not much reason to suppose that any great
wrong will be done, and, if there be any, it may
easily be remedied by well-considered changes in the
limits of the Unions. It will be, perhaps, a more un-
pleasant effect of the bill that a clergyman's rates
will be doubled in such a case as the Duke mentions,
where the parish has but 30 inhabitants and not a
single pauper, or that a gentleman who has only five
labourers on his property will have to pay £l3O a
year. But these unhappy exceptions have, for the
most part; gained their immunity by the extra bur-
dens that have been thrown on their less fortunate
neighbours, and it is now time they should bear
their fair part in relieving the general poverty of the
country. With respect to the inequalities of the
system of rating, and the injustice of forcinga farmer
whose gains are small to pay as much as a tradesman
who is making thousands but who is only rated on
his house, they are very proper questions to engage
the attention of the Legislature, but have nothing
to do with the present bill. This deals only with one
very pressing evil, which it will, we hope, tend to
eradicate. If any subsequent measure be necessary
for the improvement of the Poor-law and the esta-
blishment of just relations between the several orders
of ratepayers, an appeal to Parliament will doubtless
not be made in vain. In the meantime justice and
humanity demand the passing of the present mea-
sure.
POST.—It is but too true, as Lord Brougham has
opportunely observed, that the corrupt practices
which obtain in a general election tend to lower the
character and the constitution of this country in the
eyes of foreign nations. There are boroughsin which
the state of the poll is determined by the purchase
of a certain number of marketable votes. It is an
immemorial custom, illicit and immemorial, no
doubt, an offence in law, and a sin against society,
but still an ancient usage, a tradition, a thing which
everybody understands, and which nobody likes to
put down. Lord Brougham would, indeed, make
bribery a felony, punishable by the treadmill, but
although the felonious intention might be legally
inferred, all penal enactments depend a good deal
on their social interpretation. There are innumer-
able objections to almost every remedial suggestion,
and the one which is perhaps the most feasible has
met with the least favourable reception. It may be
all very proper to say that those who offer bribes,
and those who supply the money, are primarily the.
guilty parties. We are not quite sure that this con-
tention will bear a close examination ; but, admit-
ting for the argument that it is so, it is next to im-
possible to procure the conviction of the chief offen-
ders. On the other hand, there is commonly no such
difficulty with respect to the persons who take
bribes ; and if, on conviction, they were to be per-
manently disqualified from voting in any borough
or county in the kingdom, the registers might be
gradually weeded. Soon after the new House of
Commons meets, the taverns in the neighbourhood
of the Houses of Parliament will be filled with men
v7ho come prepared to state on oath that they were
bribed by the agents of certain sitting members, and
by their own depositions they could be convicted and
disfranchised. Of course, as the immediate result,
there might be fewer petitions, but eventually
there would also be less corruption. This is going
to the root of the evil, and compassing the purifica-
tion of the constituencies, whereas the chance of
being called upon to pass a month or two on the
treadmill might be calculated in bargaining for the
vote ; and as for the plea of poverty and tempta-
tion, men who were not in a position to exercise
the franchise independently could not complain if
it was taken away from them. That, instead of
extenuating their wrong, would rather go to show
that the electoral qualification was likewise, to some
extent, responsible. There are, however, two other
propositions to which, now that the subject is under
consideration, it may not be out of place to refer.
That which is to be pressed upon the House of
Commons this evening may be disposed of in a very
few words. The ballot is a thoroughly exhausted
hobby. All communities have been, are, and will
be so long as they exist, subject to influences which
no law can bind or loose. Rank, wealth, intellect,
mutual relations, moral respect, and social depen-
dence will operate, more or less, in the conflict of
political opinions. This is in the nature of things,
and it is well that it is so. Undue influence is
another matter. We believe that it is nearly ex-
tinct, and that where it does survive it is by no
means without redeeming qualities.
i There may be
relics of the feudal system in the agricultural coun-
ties, but that the legitimate influence of the land-
owners is, on the whole, exercised so as to degrade
the yeomanry, or to prejudice the representation of
the people, does not appear. The clergy, again,
are an influential body, but they could not, if they
would, abuse their power with impunity. As to
large manufacturers, they stand relatively much in
the same position as the considerable landowners,
while the strikes show clearly enough that the em-
ployed are not inclined to submit to the will of the

employers. And, .as regards the tradesmen in
towns, who are facetiously supposed to be fascinated
by their lady customers, if this were the case the
answer is obvious. It is idle to attempt to govern
the mind of man. You may say that a tradesman,
for example, is not fit to be trusted with the fran-
chise because he thinks more of his till, or his
bankers' account, than of the political principles of
this or that candidate, but the Ballot would not
make him forget interests that are tangibly ref"'
sented by suburban villas and their pleasant aP;
pointments. It would be no protection to him, and
if it were, he would be ashamed or afraid to oat;
himself 'of it. Mr. Berkeley may make a House, all
call for a division, but the Ballot has had its day:
No class desires to be placed in its equivocal
shade, no individual asks for it on his own account.
But while political influence must be left to the
regulation of private morality and the checks of pub-
lic opinion, it seems desirable, in considering the
expediency of extending the franchise, to have re-
gard to the prevalence of bribery in the electoral
body. Looking at things as they are, there eau
hardly be a doubt that the simple reduction of the
actual qualification would, in many boroughs,
crease the number of the venal voters, whereas
what should be desiderated is the infusion of a purer
element for the purpose of leavening the subsisting
corruption. It is evident that this idea is being
thoughtfully matured by statesmen like Mr. Glad-
stone, who are capable of carrying it out ; and what
Mr. Disraeli calls the " lateral" extension of the
franchise would, it may be assumed, give votes to
persons whose position precluded the offer or accep-
tance of a bribe. As a matter of fact, the represen-
tation cannot be said to have suffered much by the
existing venality. But when it is proposed to mods
a system expressly to get rid of its anomalies, it is
plain that corruption is the first thing tobe guarded
against, and, if possible, reduced ; and that which
cannot be effected by means of pains and penalties
may, it is hoped, be brought about by degree°
through the administration of a political alternative.
The legal disfranchisement of the corrupted electors;
which, however just, would be deemed harsh an
ie
partial, can, it is believed, be virtually accomplished
by neutralisiug their votes. The publicity, the
frequency, and the impunity of the abuse of the
franchise, point to the necessity of a remedy, but
they indicate even more cogently that it is indispen'
sable to provide against the spread of the contagion.
If candidates were to agree, not formally as they cle:
but frankly and honourably as between man an
a
man, neither to spend nor to countenance the expen-
diture of money for an illegal purpose, and if they
could answer for their supporters, this nuisance
might be summarily abated. But the truth is that
the humble, hard-working voters, who are eloquently
described as standing in need of protection, are the
seducers. The pecuniary value of the franchise is
all they care about. They trade with their votesl
and although some are so politically scrupulous o°'
they will only vote for what they term their odd
party, they nevertheless decline to vote unless PAL
for taking the trouble. It may not, therefore, be
premature to submit that the evidence taken befell)
the election committees of the next House of Coin'
mons will be admissible in the larger issue to winch
we have adverted.

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