The Sun.
London, England, 1854-03-21 00:00:00

gave that answer was, that he believed the question put
was one of an offensive kind. (Hear, and No, no !)
Mr. WHITESIDE would only say that, in common
with several of his friends around him who were in the
same predicament with himself, he wished to know how
far the Attorney-General went back with his bills. He
had therefore tried the Attorney-General, but had been
unsuccessful with him. According to the principle on
which he went, it might be inconsistent with official dig-
nity to reply, but he had nevertheless a right to know
how far it was intended to carry legislation in a wrong di-
Stadion. He would ask the house if it was correct, when
they could not obtain in a town or borough independent
evidence to proceed with this kind of legislation ? He
thought it a right thing to put down corruption, but it was
of more importance still, in his opinion, to adhere to a prin-
ciple which would be more satisfactory to themselves, and
which would prove of more advantage to the country.
The SOLICITOR-GENERAL regretted these conflicts
of legal opinion in the house, which tended very much to
diminish the confidence of the public in the sincerity of
lawyers, and he hoped the house would endeavour not to
decide, as an hon. member had observed, on a legal quibble,
but if possible to make out the true meaning of the statute
as far as the wisdom of the house could determine it. The
act was intended to suppress bribery and corruption, and
at the same time to furnish them with the materials of fu-
ture legislation. It was an act to enable them to legislate
about that which the law had distinguished from private
property, of which a man was absolute owner, and with
which he was entitled to do what he willed. It was an act
that legislated about the conduct of persons in the exercise
of a great public trust—(hear, hear)—and those gentlemen
who desired to adhere to the rules that should govern
a deliberative body would do well to emancipate them-
selves from all considerations of a legal quibble, and
endeavour to determine the distinctioa that existed
between the use made of private property, for which
a man was not responsible, and a public trust, for the
exercise of which he was morally responsible. (Hear.)
He was quite willing, in dealing with this question, that
the house should confine itself to the legal meaning of the
particular clauses in dispute, and, in the construction that
it was necessary to put upon them, he felt quite assured
that the house-would have no desire to put fetters upon
itself. The clause to which the hon. and learned member
for Enniskillen more particularly referred was best ex-
plained by the concluding words of it, which went to show
not only what was the meaning to be attached to the clause,
but what protection was extended from any penal conse-
quences which might otherwise be attendant on its being
carried out. (Hear, hear.) He could not agree with the
hon. and learned member for Enniskillen as to his reading
of this clause, inasmuch as he considered such reading, how-
ever original and independent it might be—(laughter)—not
according to these grammatical rules which generally pre-
vailed, at least in this country. (Hear, hear.) To read the
clause as the hon. and learned gentleman proposed would,
in fact, be doing violence to it, and ruthlessly destroying
its meaning, than which nothing could be more clear and
explicit. (Hear, hear.) The sentences of which the clause
was composed must be read altogether, and not dismem-
bered and disjointed, to support particular or speculative
notions or constructions. (Cheers.)
Mr. WALPOLE said that the house ought to hesitate
and well consider the matter before it gave its consent to a
measure of so great and vital importance as the present,
and one which might be so serious and momentous in its
consequences and effects. (Hear, hear.) The hon. and
learned member the Solicitor-General had more than once
stated that the object of this statute was to put down
bribery. What such object really was could only be tested
and ascertained in two ways—namely, in the first place,
by referring to the preamble of the act ; and, in the second
place, by going back to see what the intention of the
framers of the act was, what particular meaning they
wished to be attached to its clauses, and whether we were
acting up to such intention and in furtherance of and ac-
cordance with such meaning. (Hear, hear.) If he referred
to the first mode of testing the object of the act, he found
that it was simply one for the purposes of inquiry, and
nothing more, as could be clearly seen from the words of
the preamble, which distinctly and expressly stated that
such was the object of the statute. If he wished, on the
other hand, to ascertain the object of the act from the
intention of its framers, we should remember the par-
ticular occasion on which it was found to be neces-
sary, and that it referred immediately to the two
boroughs of Sudbury and St. Alban's. (Hear, hear.)
With respect to the first of these boroughs, it had been
proved that out of 280 voters 220 had been bribed, and,
further, that a sum of 3,000/. had been sent down to
the borough for the purposes of bribery—had been
made use of for such purposes, and upon a calculation
that such a sum would be more than sufficient, at the
market price of the day, to bribe such 220 voters, and
so, in fact, implicating a still greater number in the sus-
picion of corruption. With respect to St. Alban's, it was
proved that out of a number of 217 186 were bribed ; and
out of a number of 280 no less than 240 were bribed. Mr.
Coppock had said of this place, that to deal with it in auy
way it must be " bribed and bled ;" and Sir Robert Car-
den, one of the candidates for its representation, had re-
ferred to it as a place " possessing no other principle of
action except such as might be found in the breeches
pockets." (" Hear," and laughter.) The commissioners
also had spoken of the place as wholly and completely cor-
rupt. (Hear.) The present measure, he believed, would
be far more dangerous, because more general, and less
effective, because less explicit than the statute of inquiry
to which he was referring, and which did not, as it ap-
peared to him the present measure did, violate one of the
great fundamental principles of our law—namely, that no
man should be called to condemn himself. (Cheers.) In
St. Alban's and Sudbury the bribery committed was of two
kinds, general and systematic. He had always contended
that, unless the corruption of any borough could he proved
to be both general and. systematic, Parliament had no right
to punish the innocent as well as the guilty. (Hear.)
The Attorney-General said the House of Commons could
not disfranchise these boroughs, and the only question was,
whether, as the Solicitor-General somewhat incautiously
seemed to admit, you could deprive the electors of a right
which belonged to men whom, by the law of England, Par-
liament could not have called upon to convict themselves,
except under an assurance of indemnity ? (Hear.) What
was the great principle at stake in this question ? In other
countries men were punished upon their own evidence ; but
in this country the courts acted upon the principle so often
laid down by Lord Eldon, that you were never to put a
man into a position in which it would be to his interest to
commit perjury rather than tell the truth. Parham enthad
said to these electors, " We will indemnify you, so that it
will be no longer your interest to commit perjury ;" but if
the present act were passed and persons were disfranchised
who had been indemnified from all the consequences of
giving their evidence, he should like to know where they
would get witnesses in future to give the evidence that was
to deprive them of that right, which ought not to be taken
away from them except by evidence from other quar-
ters? (Cheers.) The commissioners themselves, in their
aeport to her Majesty, spoke of the importance of the act of
Parliament giving the indemnification, because it appeared
that the very witnesses who had been examined before
committees of the House of Commons, and upon oath, had
not told the truth before those committees, but had told
the truth to the commissioners, because they were indem-
nified. (Hear, hear.) But when future commissions
should be sent into the country, and when witnesses saw
that they were no longer indemnified, but that they would
be visited with disfranchisement if they spoke the truth,
was there not great danger that perjury would be again
committed ? Why, he wanted to know, was the Attorney-
General about to deal with all these cases of individual
bribery, because they came before him in a mass, in a
different way from that in which cases had been dealt
with that had been reported upon by committees of that
house? (Hear, hear.) What could be the object of the
Legislature in passing the acts of Parliament relative to
an inquiry into these boroughs ? One object was, that
they might deal—as they had dealt with St. Alban's
and Sudbury—with any boroughs where they found them
in so corrupt a state that they could no longer be trusted
with the right of returning members. The other ob-
ject was, that Parliament should have a mass of evidence
with reference to those boroughs accused of bribery
and corruption, so that Parliament might be enabled to
deal retrospectively with the matter by some general law.
The noble lord (J. Russell) had thus acted upon the evi-
dence so obtained ; for in this Bribery Prevention Bill,
brought in during the present session, he called upon Par-
liament to enact that where a person had been convicted of
hribery-he was to be disqualified for life from again voting
in elections of members of that house. (Hear, hear.) That
was right legislation, and he should never complain that
parties guilty of bribery should be disqualified after due
notice. But he protested, in the most earnest and solemn
manner, against violating the law by inducing parties to
give evidence against themselves, upon the assurance of an
indemnification, and then taking away their votes which
they thought they should not lose by reason of that in-
demnification. (Hear, hear.) He could not shut his
eyes to the difficulty of dealing with all these boroughs.
He was afraid Parliament must deal with them in some
way, but he could not see the distinction between dis-
qualifying any one of the voters of these boroughs, and
not having disqualified one voter during the last century
who, by the committee of the House of Commons, had
been declared guilty of bribery. (Hear.) It was in his
judgment more important to keep faith with those who had
been induced to give evidence by the solemn promise of an
indemnity than to punish the great mass of bribery com-
mitted in those boroughs by a retrospective law. Nor ought
the house to lose sight of this fact—that these voters ought
not to be deprived of a locus penitentice. (Cheers.) It was
said that unless these persons were disfranchised Parlia-
ment would give an immunity for future corruption. Far
from it. There was the bill of the noble lord (J. Russell),
which enacted that if these or any other parties committed
acts of bribery in future, they were to be deprived of their
votes. (Hear, hear.) He had not read these reports for
some weeks, but in one of them—he believed in the Hull
commission report—a schedule was given in which cases of
bribery were mentioned as having been committed by
parties during the last four or five elections. In other
boroughs the same parties had been guilty of these acts at
two or three elections. Now, was the Attorney-Generalgoing to disfranchise parties who had been guilty of bribery
at two or three elections, but not at the last ? The Attor-
ney-General shook his head, but if the objection were
confined to those who had been guilty of bribery at the
last election, the objection was just as strong that this
was a retrospective law. (Hear, hear) If the Govern-
ment replied that it was necessary to punish the persons
who had committed these acts, he had shown that if they
occurred again they could be punished under a general act.
But not even for the great object of condemning and
punishing these acts would he consent to violate the funda-
mental law of England, or induce the feeling that Parlia-
ment had been guilty of a breach of faith, and that gross in-
justice had been committed. (Cheers.)
Mr. WARNER thought that the house had been some-
what taken by surprise by the nature of the measure. He
thought they ought not to reject at so early a stage any
bill which had reoeived the sanction of the Government.
He should vote for the first reading without pledging him-
self to the principle of the bill, because he could not but
feel that very serious objections had been urged against
it. (Cheers.)
Mr. SCOTT held that the house would do better if they
extracted evidence by torture or by the thumbscrew rather
than by violating the faith of England, given under a sacred
promise to those persons who had afforded all the informa-
tion Parliament could desire to have, because they had been
assured that if they so gave information they would not be
visited with any penalties. He would read the indemnity
clause of the act of Parliament in a lay sense, and then the
house would see that these parties had been fairly inveigled
into giving evidence under false pretences. (Hear, hear.)
Having read the indemnity clause of the act, he contended
that any person looking at it in a general sense would come
to the conclusion that such individuals giving evidence
should be free from all incapacities. He asked whether, for
the sake of purifying boroughs, the house would do a thing
more corrupt than that of which they complained—violate
their faith to those individuals who had given their evidence
on that faith?

Mr. W. O. STANLEY thought, if the present measure
Were not sanctioned, the sooner they repealed the act for
appointing those commissions the better.
The ATTORNEY-GENERAL, in reply, expressed some
regret that the debate should have been interrupted by any-
thing like an exhibition. Nothing could be further from