Star.
London, England, 1821-05-11 00:00:00

innocent indiscriminately with the guilty. Such a
principle might snit the Grand. Seignior, but it was
contrary to the spirit of the British Constitution, and
Marta caarta. This was a direct attack on the char-
tered rights of the people. He admitted that there
was an appearance of fifty persons having acted cor-
raptly ; of these, twenty-three wet; convicted; and
it was to be presumed that the others were innocent.
There were about seventy electors altogether; and
there were thirty-two persons against whom no com-
plaint was made whatever ; and were these persons
to be disfranchised without any ground ? Was such
a thing to be tolerated in England ? There were
eight Magistrates, and were six of these to be punished
because two of them were guilty ? He was almost
ashamed to stand before their Lordships to repel
such an argument as this. It was for these reasons
he differed from the principle of the Bill ; he differed
from it because it went to confound: the innocent
with the guilty.
The Earl of LIVERPOOL said he should vote for
the second reading of this Bill, and he should state
his reasons for so doing. He had ever considered the
right of election as a public trust, to be exercised,
not for the benefit of individuals, but of the Public ;
and therefore it could not be said that they were
treated with injustice by being deprived of this right
after having abused it. With respect to the provi-
sions of this Bill, he must say that he would not vote
for any change on the ground that the right should
be transferred from one place to another, and on the
supposition that the other place would make a better
exercise of it. These rights had no analogy to the
right of property ; their Lordships sat and voted in
that House not for their own benefit, but that of the
Public ; and if the conduct of any Peer was proved
to have been notoriously corrupt, that House might
justly deprive him of the right of silting in it. The
sari* principle existed in regard to a Corporation, the
power of whose members the Parliament had a right
to take away, if that power had been abused. When.
such abuse of power happened to be the act of the
majority of its member., although some of them
might have been innocent, it was the act of the whole
body, and Parliament was justified in depriving them
all of the power. The only question then for the
House to consider was, whether a case had been made
out of such general systematic corruption in this
borough as to render the disfranchisement justifiable
and necessary. It was clearly proved in evidence
that the borough of Grampound had been systema-
tically corrupt; for it was proved that a sum of
money was to be given to each individual for his vote;
and he never heard of a more complete case of cor-
, ruption being made out against the majority of any
Corporation. The question then to be considered was,
what should be done? The usual practice was to
reform the borough by throwing the elective fran-
chise into the adjacent Hundred ; that was a fair
mode; but in the present instance it could not be
done without great inconvenience, as there were so
many other Cornish boroughs in the neighbourhood,
and the rule could not be applied to this particular
borough. He had great objections, however, to the
particular remedy proposed here, becatr.e it was
merely arbitrarv, and founded on no fixed principle.
It was agreed that the right of election should be
transferred to some other place ; but he doubted whe-
ther the giving the right of election to the town of
Leeds would not lead to as much corruption as that
which was sought to be got lid of. He should prefer
the giving of two additional Members to the County
of York ; or that the two Members for Grampound
should in future be returned by such town as his
Majesty should, by his ancient prerogative, think fit
to name. Many boroughs obtained their right to
election by the prerogative of the Crown, which had
the power of granting Charters for such purpose ;
and this was strictly conformable to the practice of
our Constitution. This power would be exercised
with more satisfaction to the Public than by either
House of Parliament. This would be a safer and
less obnoxious principle than any other that could
be adopted. Those ideas he thought fit to throw out
before the second reading.
The Earl of LAUDERDALE could not avoid no-
ticing a great mistake which prevailed on the pre-
sent question. It was said that a majority of the
voters of Grampound had been guilty of corruption;
but that was not proved : for it appeared that against
thirty-two of them, who formed the majority, no cor-
ruption whatever had been proved. There was not a
tittle of evidence to prove them guilty. This was an
es post facto law, which might be extended to most
other boroughs in the kingdom.
The Marquis of LANSUOWN said, he conceived
that this Bill was entitled to the favourable considera-
tion of their Lordships ; and because he abs ays ap-
proved of the principle of a Reform in Parliameia,
he was favourable to this measure, which he consi-
dered less liable to objections than any other mea-
sure of Reform which could be adopted. It was not
on the merits of individuals that a question of this
kind was to be tried; but because he believed that all
persons belonging to corporate bodies, which had
proyed themselves a great public evil, must share the
fate to which the bodies themselves, betraying their
trust, were subject ; and they must feel, that when
they became corrupt, they must lose those privileges
which had already become vitiated, although some
persons belonging to the bodies might have con-
ducted themselves virtuously. With respect to the
idea of leaving the selection of the new borough to
the prerogative of the Crown, he must protest against
this proposition as a novelty in the Constitution of
the country, introduced under the appearance of an-,
cient usage. It would be an innovation altogether
inconsistent with the practice of the Constitution to
allow the Crown the privilege of selecting another
place where a new franchise was to be created; for
such a thing ought only to be the act of the three
branches a-the Legislature ; and he hoped the House
would never sanction the renewal of a prerogative
which had long since been abandoned. • If the House
should, however, think fit to transfer the franchise to
the county of York, he should not object to that.
The Earl of LIVERPOOL assured the Noble Mar-
quis that he never meant to say that the Crown could
create a new borough; he only suggested that the
Act should empower the Crown to select the town
to which the franchise was to be transferred. The
Union with England and Ireland completely took
away from the Crown the right of creating new bo-
roughs.—The Bill was then read a second time, and
ordered to be committed on Monday next.
At Half-past Eight o'clock the House adjourned.

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