The Sun.
London, England, 1865-09-28 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES. —During the present month, we have from
time to time published abstracts of the expenses in-
curred by candidates at the late general election.
These abstracts are furnished to the returning offi-
cer of each borough or county under the provisions
of the Corrupt Practices Prevention Act, and pur-
port to contain a complete statement of all that has
actually been disbursed on the candidate's behalf.
Perhaps it would be too much to expect that in
every case they should exactly tally with the corre-
sponding entry on the wrong side of his banker's
account, but they exhibit for the most part a rate of
expenditure which is quite high enough to be near
the truth. When we consider what the cost of an
election might be if it were conducted on principles
of strict purity, without paid canvassers or district
committee rooms, or conveyances to carry voters to
the poll, the lowest price of a contested seat appears
to be somewhat unsatisfactory. Even Mr. Guildford
Onslow, who was returned, unopposed, for Guild-
ford, had to pay £157, of which only £35 repre-
sented town clerk's fees and hustings' expenses, be-
cause the Liberals of the borough thought proper
to run a second horse against Mr. Bovill, the Con-
servative candidate. The contest for the City of
London must have cost, on the whole, an enormous
sum, although it was so hollow an affair that nei-
ther of the defeated candidates obtained two-thirds
as many votes as any of the four Liberal members
returned. The average expenses of the latter are
stated at £1,560, making £6,240 in all, and as it is
known that no money was spared on the other side,
it may well be doubted. whether £15,000 would
more than cover the expenditure of both parties.
The Leeds election is officially reported to have
cost very nearly £3,000, for £1,739 of which Mr.
Beecroft is-responsible, leaving £1,223 to be divided
between Mr. Baines and Lord Amberley. It will
here be observed that the successful and unsuccess-
ful Liberal candidates spent jointly £3OO less than
the successful Conservative, a difference which
gives rise to a good many reflections on the various
ways in which elections are worked. It has long been
a disputed point, for instance, whether it is goodikolicy
to " take up" as many publichouses as possible. By
doing so, no doubt, you gain the publicans' interest
and a certain number of votes among their cus-
tomers ; but then you estrange the temperance in-
terest, and run a greater risk of being committed to
bribery and found out. Hwe analyse the returns
of the Leeds election, we find other contrasts of an
analogous kind. One item in Mr. Beecroft's account
is £344 to " solicitors for professional services,"
whereas in that of Mr. Baines and Lord Amberley
" professional charges" only stand for £lO5. So,
again, Mr. Beecroft's agent puts down £513 for
" horse, coach hire, and railway passes," against
which there is nothing to be set on the side of Mr.
Baines and Lord Amberley, except the compara-
tively modest sum of £169 for " cabs and tolls."
The greatest anomaly, however, and the one that
cannot admit of two explanations, is the flagrant
disproportion between the expense of contesting a
given borough and the number of its voters. It is
hardly too much to say that the smaller the consti-
tuency the more ruinous the process of canvassing
it. Leeds is by no means the cheapest of great
manufacturing towns, yet a contest for Leeds is
infinitely less formidable to an aspirant of limited
means than a contest for many small boroughs that
we could easily name. The meaning of this fact, in
plain English, is that Leeds being too large to be
effectually bribed, the inhabitants actually return
the man of their choice ; while in a small town,
with one or two hundred registered electors, some
of them freemen and living close together, each vote
commands a monopoly price, whic is pretty well
known to the neighbours. The same excuse, if it
be one, can hardly be pleaded in favour of places
like Cheltenham, which, having a constituency of
2,664 and a population of nearly 40,000, returns
only, one member. In this fashionable watering-
place we might expect to find a good deal of public
spirit, or, at all events, an ample supply of unpaid
agency. Yet, we learn from an abstract published in
the Cheltenham newspapers by the returning officer,
that more than £4,000 was expended there at the
last election, £1,969 oa behalf of Mr. Schreiber,
who was elected, and £2,286 on behalf of Colonel
Berkeley, who was defeated. Now, these figures
strike us as quite monstrous, and the details of the
two accounts do not remove that impression. They
are made out, as usual, with an entire disregard of
uniformity, but there are several items about which
there can be no mistake. No less than £763 was
paid by Mr. Schreiber for " canvassing agents and
assistant canvassers," and £702 by Colonel Berke-
ley for " canvassers and professional canvassers."
The rest of the £4,300 went chiefly in " printing and
advertising," " messengers, clerks," of various de-
scriptions, and " conveyances." There is another
item in kr. Schreiber's account which we should
very much like to see explained-2121 for " night
and day watchers." Watchers are often employed
to protect game from poachers, and we have heard
of such persons being engaged to watch a favourite
for the Derby or the St. Leger, but we can hardly
conceive the necessity of a similar precaution at an ,
uncorrupt election. To protest against the exorbi-
tant scale of election expenses may well seem to be
a bootless task. Where there is a large class of
persons ready to give anything for the attainment
of a certain object, and an infinitely larger class
able and willing to supply their demand for an ade-
quate consideration, are not all legislative restric-
tions on bribery almost like au interference with an
economical law ? How can a man who has no poli-
tical convictions in the world, and cares not one
straw for the difference between Whig and Tory, be
made to feel that he prostitutes his convictions when
he accepts a £5 note for his vote ; and how can he
possibly be detected if, instead of doing this, he
trusts to a tacit compact that he will hear of some-
thing to his advantage some months afterwards?
It must be confessed indeed, that the use of illicit
influences at elections is too subtle an evil to be put
down effectively by any law, however stringent and
however rigorously administered. Bribery is already
defined 'with an elaborate minuteness sufficient to
suggest new modes of committing it. Any gift,
loan, offer, or promise, direct or indirect, in person
or by agent, of money or money's worth, or of any
office, place, or employment, for the sake of a
vote, is bribery. It is bribery to hold out these
inducements to A in order to procure the vote of
B ; it is bribery to pay any money to any person
with intent that it may be used for any of these
purposes ; and it is equally bribery, under all these
heads, to be he recipient of the bribe. Short of
treating bribery as an offence punishable with im-
prisonment, or of permanently disfranchising any
person guilty of it, we have done our best to prevent
it ; but, hitherto, in vain. Possibly the actual sale
of votes may be less common than before, but what
does it really signify whether a man get £5 down or
a fortnight's job in the nominal capacity of a mes-
senger or " watcher "—at least at Cheltenham—with
a fancy salary ? What is the real difference between
promising situations to thesons of so many electors
who decline to pledge themselves till the last moment,
and making it known among the same same body of
electors that one has these situations at his disposal ?
How is it less venial in a candidate to gratify people
out of his own purse then to promise them that, if
elected, he will urge Government to gratify them out
of the public purse ? It is even said that a certain
class of electioneering agents will undertake to in-
troduce any presentable candidate to a certain class
of boroughs, charging so much for the introduction,
so much for the show of hands, and so much for
ultimate success. Whether this be true or not, it is
possible, and not as improbable as we could wish.
The public conscience sadly needs enlightening, not
only as to the criminality, but as to the mischief of
bribery, in its most refined forms. Not the least of
its evil consequences is that by raising the general
standard of election expenses it virtually establishes
a property qualification of the very worst kind, and
excludes from competition many a man who might
otherwise become a valuable member of Parliament.
POST.—Within the last few days the Austrian
Government, we have reason to know, has addressed
a despatch to the Cabinets of the great Powers, which
is of some importance at the present moment. It
comes apparently as a sort of comment on the
somewhat obscure manifesto lately promul-
gated with the object of suspending the
Reichsrath without definitely replacing that re-
presentative body by any decided substitute.
Perhaps this might have been felt by the new
Austrian Liberal Cabinet, for as such the present
advisers of the Crown are regarded by some politi-
.cians of the Austrian Empire. But whatever may
be the motive, certain it is that the Austrian Mini-
stry have addressed a despatch to most European
Governments, in which the Minister of Foreign
Affairs declares, in very emphatic language, that
_
foreign
the late manifesto or rescript doos not meana
tical retrograde movement. On the contrary,
Cabinets are to understand that his Apostolic
Ma-
jesty Francis Joseph has decided on maintaining
whole
the ming a
ainta
representative form of government .
empire, after each of the States have made known
their wants through the medium
desirous of i the Diets, which
shall be worked by an Executiveon
_ng
di to the, wants
promot-
ing liberal measures and of P
suspicion
about Aus-
triaim-
portant in that they remove all
the Vienna Parliament to re-
turnof the people. These declarations are so far
rule which the statesmen
having dipersed
mode of overn.ing this
to the old system of rule
of 1815 thought the
in t% serve despatch
ques-
tion may be intended
The The g
regarded another
purpose.
Many statesman having.. the conduct of
Austria towards Prussia, with regard to the disposal
of the Danish Duchies, as significant of an under-
standing between the two great German Sovereigns,
to the effect that the Austrian system of rule should
become more like that of Pr 11Saia,--a military