The Sun.
London, England, 1854-08-08 00:00:00

FIAT JUSTITIA.

THE BRIBERY BILL.

Alter all the aberrations and extravagances of this
wearisome session, Parliament last night exhibited what
may be be called a lucid interval, though unfortunately
the insanity has been in the Lower House, the reason in
the Upper. This phenomenon has occurred in the
treatment by their lordships of the Bribery at Elections
Bill, which has been very remarkable in many respects.
As the bill emerged from the Lower House, notwith-
standing its title and the lofty pretensions of its pream-
ble, it was nothing more nor less than a bill for legalis-
ing the payment by the candidate of the travelling ex-
penses of electors, seeing that, in the absence of the
proposed d claration, every clause was as nugatory as a
watch without a mainspring, or a Chinese war steamer
with a funnel and straw to do duty for an engine. This,
then, was what their lordships had to consider—viz.,
whether they would make it lawful for candidates to
pay whatever they pleased, or whatever public opinion
would allow, for the travelling—that is, for the convey-
ance, feeding, and recreation of electors. It was rather
a nice question for the Lords, who are commonly sup-
' posed to have a vested interest in the lower appetites of
the rabble, insomuch that there are people who main-
tain that if small freeholders and tenant-farmers were
not thirsty in summer we should not have either Howie
Of Lords or Queen. In the Lower House seven Cabinet
Ministers voted in favour of this clause, so that it might
he expected that not only the instinctive love of corrup-
tion ascribed to the House of Lords, but also Ministe-
rial consistency, would secure the safety of the . clause.
Strange to say, it was last night quietly and almost
unanimously extracted from the bill and sent to the
winds. The House of Lords has come fotward to
protect the virtue of the Commons, and to secure
that small electors, scattered about the country, away
from the polling-places, shall not have any extra induce-
ment to do their duty. The omission of the clause was
actually moved by a Cabinet Minister—the Duke of
Newcastle—in the face of his seven colleagues, who had
voted for it ; and all the deference or respect he showed
for his colleagues consisted in his refusing to vote for as
amendment of a directly contrary nature —viz., utterly
forbidding the payment of travelling expenses. The Duke
of Newcastle had just so much respect for the lower
hone and his friends in it that he would not go quiteso'
far as the Marquis of Clanricarde wanted him to do ;.
but he pointed out how the thing could be matiaited
rather more quietly—viz., by striking out the clause
altogether.

There can be no doubt that their lordships are right,
much as one is disposed to suspect them in the matter of
elections. Nobody is fit to have a vote if he will not
pay ten shillings or so to carry him to the poll, and, if
the expenses of a voter come to more, then the less the
candidate has to do with him the better. The election
is the elector's affair, for, though there are people so
heroic or so silly as to wish to be members of Parlia-
ment, the only ostensible object of the whole affair is
the good of the people at large. If the representative
attends in Parliament for half the year, sitting great part
of the time from 12 at noon to 2 o'clock the next morn-
ing in a poisonous atmosphere, and with disease and
death rife about him, it is not too much that electors
should once in three or four years—practically once in
a dozen years--spend a few shillings for the good of their
country. It is only rather strange that the House of
Commons should put itself in the very false position of
being taught a lesson of virtue by the landlords. The
cry so often raised by the vested interests, "Thank
God, there is a House of Lords," may now be repeated
by the most zealous sticklers for constitutional govern-
ment,'the rights of the people, and purity of election.
But for this timely interference, this deathbed repent-
ance exhibited by the Legislature in the last week of
the session, it would be perfectly lawful to give any man
101. for his vote at the next election, if he only took
care to be at Caithness, or Galway, or Paris, when the
election was approaching. This, too, was the only
effectual part of the bill, for all the rest is machinery for
working something which no longer exists. It only
tstrikes oneou
ld as
be
ratherlittle
estrange
baentdw
enenna
Mc c
nuisn
tteae rsb
in thatone

house and in the other, and that the Duke of Newcastle

should feel himself so entirely at liberty to throw over-
board the work of his colleagues. There has, to be sure,
been a great deal of candour this session—of that candoUr
which none can show so well as the members of one
Cabinet—and so we presume the candour of the proceed.
ing is only a proper requital for the candour displayed on
several other occasions. But the tables are strangely
turned when the Lords are become the purifiers of the
Commons. The advocates of the Charter must make
the next attempt in the Lords, and the ballot, if passed
by a majority of ten to one in that house, will have
rather more chance in the Commons than it has usually
found. -

' --
It is just possible, indeed, that their lordships may
have discovered that in elections, as on other occasions,
nobility is very liable to be beaten by the still more
exuberant, self•willed, and lawless power of wealth.
The wealthy parvenu, with his pedigree and coat of
arms manufactured and paid for at the Heralds' College,
boats the descendant of kings, emperors, and divinities, is
the town and in the country, in his mansion in Hyde-park,
his castle in Yorkshire, and his domain in the Highlands;
in banquets, balls, races, yachts, scientific husbandry, pic-
tures,— in everything, in fact, within the power ofa Medici,
a Napoleon, or a Rothschild. Money is omnipotent in
i,ooin.ni cia, :dt:' lee'l
could)an 'un'
the command of existing means, and the country gen-
tleman with his estate in his family since the days of the
Conqueror, but so encumbered that the balance is one
way or the other way according to the markets, stands
no chance whatever with the man who has only to
smile, and it rains gold all around him. So their lord-
ships have possibly discovered that two can play at the
game of corruption, and that " Plutocracy, as a cor-
respondent described it the other day, is now a much
more powerful state of therealm than the "aristocracy."
Under these circumstances it is as well to be virtuous,
which at all events is cheap, and who knows but what,
, with the assistance of this novel auxiliary, the old Extihg;
lish gentleman may once more make head against
and Hebrews
cotton-spinners, railway kings, merchants,
itnhetihreloN‘r.dosrlildip7s,
is still
we Howeverare
inclinedtli e speculation
to believe,m
Nobility
ntaskaed
awithnd
sober earnest, it is their best chance.
much
as
worshiped in this country, but it is worshipedorshi
ped their old
ii the civilised, intellectual Pagans.
1 deities, with a mild,
of devotion. Thoge deitiesi,ie
sonages that it was im
Plfsithe 01,1 lords of the soil, the
qualified respect. sere
t iws.seeu,n,
such
semi humorous
them
eccentric
with
it bform
puellr
:
otwmereendinthtehier
c mdit,ou of the Pagan
would be numbered. But they
reputation, their daysto
hollers
have it in their set themselves right, and it is
dians of the cons
particular against the blandishments and
pebe3r.o;tl..,:lottlrangiacionmste
aflolrikvahrlddsasoftheeviglui/ri..
wealth, and they will gain
encroachmentsitiluieei2r,ebee,satnin p:fr
upstart
! have been the motive of their lordships'
another lease of their influence in this country. This
not
may or may
proceedingslast night, but, if it wai, they are becoming
proceedings
in their generation.—Times.

TEE NEW CLOCK TOWER AT LONDON-BRIDGE.--Thill
tower is rapidly rising, and will form,when completed,
a very conspicuous object from the bridge. It belongs
to the perperdicular or best period of Gothic architec-
ture, and will be very like one of the memorial crosses
which are to be found hi many of our country distriotc
It has attaiped a height of about 30 feet from the
ground,