The Sun.
London, England, 1853-03-14 00:00:00

BRIBERT-THE BALLOT.

The Derby Election Committee has concluded a
searching inquiry with a comprehensive and particular
report. It has discharged all its duties, and the curtain
drops with all the dramatis personce on the stage. Mr.
Horsfall is unseated, and his civic crown transferred to
Mr. Heyworth. With even-handed mercy, both of
them have been allowed the opportunity of exculpating
themselves from all knowledge of bribery. The petition
against Mr. Bass has been declared frivolous and vexa-
tious. Thirteen recipients of bribes, three agents, the
principal, Mr. , Thomas Morgan, and the man that
brought the money, have all been designated, and the
recipients ignominiously struck from the poll. Many
more would probably have shared their fate had they been
necessary ; but thirteen were more than enough to give
Mr. Heyworth a majority trier his rival. The commit.
tee further report the prevalence of corrupt practices at
former elections, and recommend that parties engaged
in them for the future should be punished with the loss
of their fianchise. The only point in which the com-
mittee appears to have failed is one that is usually
rather unattainable, and that is the detection
of the parties that set the bribery going and
supplied the sinews of war, or the " nail-heads,
as they were called in this instance. Three per-
sons had been mentioned to the committee, but one
was ill in bed, and the other two were not to be found,
it being, in fact, no such very difficult matter to evade
a committee of the House of Commons. As Mr. Frail
and the illustrious "W. B." had already received their
meed of fame from another committee, it was hardly
consistent with British notions of justice to repeat their
names again. But, with these exceptions, the whole
story of the Derby election has been told, if not in the
report, at least in the evidence. The sum Mr. Horsfall
was ready to stand, the amount he set down, the figure
actually drawn,—all " for legal expenses,"—and the ex-
act amount of the bribes in each case, are all stated with
an exactness not always attainable in the Court of Bank-
ruptcy or Insolvent Debtors. On the whole, it may be
pronounced quite a pattern report. It is a case to legis-
late upon. What makes it all the better is that thereitis.
nothing abnormal, monstrous, or extravagant about
of
a,
no enormous expenditure ; hardly even a shadowd
an _
a con-
mystery. There is a minuteness in the scale _
it cinnity in the design which seem to have
cause got
adapted
ex-
pressly for Parliamentary use, •like a neat little
up by lawyers for the purpose of trying a prihciple, di-
vested of superfluous issues.
But does not every case of corruption admit of a like
expose ?—and r why have we not at once a ready cure for
this great public scandal ? Nobody ever doubted that
it was in the power of the House of Commons to extin-
guish corruption, were it to set about the task in good
earnest ; but there is the rub. A good committee, such
as that which delivered its report yesterday morning,
would probably unseat at least half the sitting members,
and disqualify a respectable-fraction of the borough con-
stituencies. Conscience still whispers "Let him that is
without sin cast the first stone ;', so no member will
begin the attack. It is only the defeated candidate who
will interfere to preserve the purity of the representa-
tion ; and, if he has not a pocketful of money, and a few
zealous and clever auxiliaries, he may as well pocket his
defeat and his indignation. The petitioner has to main-
tain an army of witnesses, foragers for evidence, attor-
neys, and counsel, in order to unseat his rival, with only
a remote prospect of getting in himself; and happ '
he if he gets off with less than 2,0001. Clearly so great
a national duty as that of defending the British g
Legis-
lature from the arts of corruption ought not to be left
to disappointed candidates, or to any private hands at
all. But hitherto all the legislation and proceedings of
the house on this delicate subject have gone on the sup-
position that it was the business of the public at large to
purify the house, and not of the house itself; as much
as to say, "It is your place to return us ; do it in as
clean a way as you can ; but, once returned, we are
not going to denounce, to defame, and to unseat
ourselves ; that's your business, if like dirty
work."
work." We say this, because it is evident there are
various methods of dealing with such a case as that of