The Sun.
London, England, 1869-02-06 00:00:00

ELECTION PETITIONS.

Mr. Baron Martin's protest at Bradford against having
to try election petitions has attracted some attention.
The Times has a leaderupon it, but does not think it willdo
much to influence public opinion. But in one point, says
our contemporary, everybody n ill sympathise with Mr.
Baron Martin. He is in this painfully anomalous position,
that what he does is as telling an argument as any
antagonist need be at the trouble to produce against
what he says. He protests against the present system
as unsatisfactory, while he is himself acting upon it in
such a way that everybody is satisfied. Indeed,
" satisfied " is far too mild a word to use. The
way in which Mr. Baron Martin and his brother
judges have discharged their new duties has won
for them the admiration and gratitude of the country.
Mr. Baron Martin is, indeed, a touching instance of the
half-cruel, half-sportive irony of fate. If it is hard to have
to carry out in your own person a system you cordially
dislike and disapprove, what must it be to feel that under
the iron pressure of duty you are carrying it out in such a
way as to make everybody else delighted with it ?
Mr. Justice Wiles had rather a curious point to decide
at Westbury. It was admitted by the respondent that
an employer of labour in the town had used his influence
unduly amongst his workmen. But it was argued that
such an act would not vitiate an election. As Serjeant
Parry put it in his address to the judge, "The act of a
single man among the people employedwithin the walls of
his own factory, and without the knowledge or sanction
of the sitting member, was not an act upon which his
lordship was necessarily bound to void the election.',
It seems, too, that several of the cases thought by the
betitioners to be cases of bribery were merely matters of
usiness, having nothing to do with the election. Then
111 r. Justice Willes has to decide also what amount of
rioting and intimidation would upset an election. One
case of bribery, it has been laid down by Mr. Baron
Martin, would void an election ; but Mr. Serjeant Parry
contended that this would not be the case with reference
to treating or undue influence. In the cases of intimidation
heretofore decided by committees, the proof had usually
been that there.had been riotous and disorderly proceedings,
or, as in some of the Irish cases, denunciations by priests
addressed to large numbers. Surely his lordship
would not say that the act of fifteen or twenty
persons surrounding and intimidating a voter would be
enough to void an election ? In answer to this query his
lordship said : "That is a question of law which would
have to be decided. I may say this, that I shall struggle
to maintain a svell-conducted election, unless I aria con-
vinced beyond any conceivable doubt of an act which does
not of itself affect the result of the poll, but which techni-
cally destroys the transaction." Notwithstanding the
arguments of the learned serjeant, the judge decided for
the petitioner, voiding the election. He declared that the
intimidation by Mr. Harrop on the employer was suffi-
cient to make the election of no effect. This, however,
neither affected the character of the sitting member or the
character generally of the town. No order was made as t
costs.
Some remarks of Mr. Justice Blackburn on the Wal-
lingford petition may be interesting. He agreed with
Baron Martin and Mr. Justice Wiles that the statute
meant that treating with a corrupt intent would void the
election ; and that, as one of them bad said,
if a single
thimbleful of liquor was given with a corrupt intention, it
would be enough to void the election. But if only a thimble.
ful had been given, no man would find it out as a fact.
Therefore it was a question of amount and degree. If this
case stood alone, no one would think it was done with a
corrupt intention. All the things must be taken together.
Again, his lordship defined corrupt treating. Drink or
entertainment given in such a way as to influence the
election, considerable entertainments to gain popularity
or to avoid unpopularity, would come within the statute ;
but it was a question of degree. His impression was
that it was clearly settled by the previous decisions in
election petitions that an election was void where an
agent had, even contrary to the wish of his employer, been
guilty of a corrupt act, provided it was done by colour of
the agency. Where money had been given to an agent
csith an intimation that no inquiry would be made as
to its application, or where the agent was able after the
election to ask to be repaid money he had expended, there
would be sufficient to invalidate the election.
At the Derry election, bribery having been attempted
to be proved, a letter was put in from Mr. Serjeant
Dowse, M.P., who won the election in which he said to
his agent, " One thing we must all bear in mind, that no
expenditure that is legal will be wanting. Anything
beyond that I will never in any manner sanction.".

The Bishop of Bath aDd Wells has collated the
Right Rev. J. Chapman, D. 13., late Bishop of Colombo,
to the kreys4d4l talk 91,Nis Cathe:
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