The Sun.
London, England, 1833-05-25 00:00:00

(Questiun.) The Hon. Member was proceeding to qul

scone cases, when—
Lqrd GRANVILLE SOMERSET rose to order, and
appetled to the Speaker if the matter introduced by the
Hon. Member was not irrelevant to the question before

the Howe
The SPEAKER decided that it was, and read the motion.
Mr. WARD bowed to the authority of tbe Speaker,
and sat down, declaring that it was his determination to

support the motion.
Mr. GOULBURN said the resotutions of his Hon.
Friend appeared to him highly objectionable ; for the ob-
ject of his Hon. Friend was to appoint a Committee, not
to inquire into the existence of extensive bribery and cor-
rupt treating in the borough of Hertford, but to devise
mean., for punishing that, to the existence of which it ap-
peared he had made up his mind, and which, he therefore
assumed, the House would as readily credit, and act upon.
--(Hear.) They had before them the indictment, cer-
tainly ; but was it fair to call on them to proceed to judg-
ment, without first going through that stage, which ap-
peared to him to he no unnecessary form, viz., an impar-
tial tri,i, where the accused parry would have, at least, an
opportunity of defence afforded him.—(Hear, hear.) Al-
liedon had been made to the case of Newry : he begged
leave to read to the House the recommendation contained
in the special report of the Committee.—(No, no ! Hear,
hear.) In tl:e case of Newry, the Committee reported
that bribery prevailed to a considerable extent in that bo-
rough ; whereas, in the instance before them, all
that was alleged by the Committee was, that bribery
and treating prevailed. without saying to any extent ;
and they were therefore called upon to punish
this
constituency for what might turn out to be merely a
few individual cases.—(Hear, hear.) It was the extent
of corruption alone, which could be considered to consti-
tute a crime on the part of the borough generally. The
. . .•_

case of Newry, a borough containing a constituency o
about 600, was, in all its circumstances, very analogous
to that of Hertford ; and there the resolution of the Com-
mittee war, that the Attorney-General should prosecute
the individuals who were most prominently engaged in
these corrupt practices. He regretted that a similar plan
had not been adopted on the present occasion ; but, at al'
evente, he trusted that the House would not stultify its
already declared opinion, by coining to a resolution con-
demnatory of the borough, without bearing its defence.--
(Hear.) If he really thought that bribery prevailed to a
considerable extent in Hertford, be should most certainly
desire that an opportunity cf establishing or refuting that
fact should be given ; and no one would be more ready
than himself to punish the offenders, if this could be
proved. But he did not think a sufficient case had been
made out to warrant the adoption of such a course.
Lord JOHN RUSSELL—The defence set tip in the
present case, was precisely the same as had been set lir
on all former charges of bribery and corruption.—(Hear,
hear.) His Right Ton. Friend bail contended that the
effect of the proposed resolutions was to condemn the
borough of Hertford without trial. He was surprised at
such an argument.—(Hear, hear.) The ultimate con-
sequence of this measure, if adopted, would be the prepara-
tion of a Bill which would lie introduced into that House.
On that Bill the electors of the borough might obtain
leave to be I eard by their witnesses and Counsel at the
bar of the House, as was done in the instance of East
Retford, and after the Bill should have passed that
House, it would have to undergo the same ordeal in the
House of Lords, and this was what the Right Hon.
Gentleman called condemning without trial.—(Cheers.)
The cry of those who opposed such a visitation on the
offending electors as was now proposed, was, that there
were already laws and penalties enough against bribery,
and that they should be carried into effect; nor did they
object to any general measure that could be proposed
against bribery, provided it could not be applicable to par-
ticular cases when they occurred. It really was a pity
that the zeal which those gentlemen exhibited against
bribery in the abstract should be so lamentab'y deficient
when individual instances were brought before them.—
(Hear, hear.) He was surprised that his Right Hon.
Friend, the Member for Montgomeryshire, should con-
sider the treating in the present instance as so venial an
offence, for be remembered when he first entered that
Fl use, there was no Member who denounced such prac-
tices with more zeal than that Right Hon. Gentleman.
Intleed, in that respect, they had frequently differed, he
(Lord John Russell) thinking that some allowance was
to be made for the temptation to which the poor electors
were exposed, whilst his Right Hon. Friend was always
for sending them to prison. But now his Right Hon. Friend
thought the best thing was to hush it up. The evi-
dence of Mr. Nicholson was alone quite sufficient to con-
vince his mind that the borough of llertford bad been for
some time in a very corrupt state.—(Cheers.) It ap-
peared, then, that 2,5001. was expended before the testing
of the writ. Tickets of refreshment, as they were called,
were issued out ; and Mr. Nicholson spoke of about 400
applications—applications certainly not to be registered,
but for some purpose perfectly intelligible. He was le r-
fectly ready to vote for the motion, and that by which it
was to be followed, considering it the duty of the Com-
mittee not to bring in a Bill, but to declare what they
think the best means to promote the purity of the bo-
rough. He trusted they would not stop in their efferts to
preserve purity of election. They had already got rid of
the abuse of seats being sold by individuals—let them non
get rid of the remaining abuses, springing from the cor-
ruption of a small class of voters.—(Hear.) It was their
bounden duty to set their face against such practices.—
(Cheers.) He declared that with respect to any of those
boroughs where bribery and corruption prevailed, unless
very satisfactory proof were offered to set aside the pre-
vious evid.nce, he would never consent to issue any writ
to those places during the present Parliament.—(Cheers.)
Mr. Gouerannet anti Lord Joliet RUSSELL exchanged
explanations. which were inaudible in the gallery.
Mr. BERNAL replied. He declared his perfect con-
viction of the completely corrupt state of the borough of
Hertford. Out of the 2,500/. expended before the testing
of the writ very little was paid for the expenses of registra-
tion ; full 1,7001. was devoted to corrupt treating alone,
which was expended by Messrs. Nicholson and Dack ;
anti yet gentlemen could be found to call on that House to
declare to thetnselsree. and-to their constituent., that it was
not itnprop r to circulate tickets guaranteeing the payment
of their amount in cash over the whole town of Hertford,
under the deceitful guise of refreshment tickets ; such
tickets enabling the persons possessing them to go, as they
did, into the shops of the various tradesmen of the town
and purchase with them any articles of which they might
stand in need.—(Hear.) Was this the bread and cheese
refreshment which the Hon. Member for Montgomery-
shire eulogised?—(Hear, hex.) It should not be for-
gotten that the exclusion of non-resident freemen had cut
off one very fertile source of corruption anti expense, and,
therefore, there was no longer the same excuse for treating
as formerly existed. Out of six hundred and fifty who
furnished their names an overwhelming proportion bad
received these tickets, which it was absurd to treat as the
effusions of English hospitality ; in his opinion it was
I,eebery, and nothing else.—(Cheers.) Such bribery
might be small in its individual distribution, but it was
wholesale and gross in its general consequences.—(Cheers.)
In short, they hail here a case which, if they did not
choose to be wilfully blind, imperatively called on them to
elo something.--(Cheers.) He denied the statement of
the Right Hon. Gentleman (Goulburn) opposite, that the
report d d not set forth the extent and general prevalence
of bribery and corruption in Hertford. He was also at a
loss to understand what his Right Hon. Friend meant, by
urging that the proposed Committee was to devise a
punishment—it was not to devise a punishment, but to
prevent the future occurrence of such transactions.
Mr. GOULBURN—You punish by throwing in the
eitcumadjacent places.
Mr. BERNAL—His Right Hon. Friend had also
reterred to Newry ; but what, he should like to know, had
Newry to do with this case?—(Hear.) The Committee
)tad decided on the present course, and he thought they had
,doge their duty; and he was doing his in carrying their
Feccanmendation into effect.—(Loud cheers.) He, of
eourse, did not mean to intimate that the Newry Commit-
tee had not also done their duty. Allusions had been
made to the cases of East Retford and Penryn, but they
were not analogous, for there the proposition was to take
away the franchise altogether, and transfer it to other
places, whereas it was proposed to incorporate other dis-
tricts with the boroughs of Hertford. It had also been
asked why he had not brought in a Biil in the first in-
stance, but considering the number of populous circum-
adjacent pieces in the county of Hertford, he felt that it
ought to be dealt with by a Committee. It had been
erroneously steted that the Reform Bill had already ex-
tajed the limits of the borough of Hertford to a radius of
ten miles—(No, a circumference.) lie begged pardon;
but even that was a mistake, for the extension of the
limits of the borough was merely to the limits of its cor-
porate jurisdiction.
The House then divvied, when there appeared
For the motion ........................................... 9:21
Against it ............................................
Majority ...............
VOTE BY BALLOT.
When we re-entered the galls y 1 we found Colonel
EVANS on his legs, speaking of de second resolution
respecting the borough of HertferJ— s,ie
" That a c
Committee be appointed to consider arid report rpon the
best means of preventing bribery and corrupt practices at
all future elections for the borough of Hertford." The
Rant Colonel obeervcd, that the object of the Nyble

17.