The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1836-04-26 00:00:00

in our next. ,

The House of Commons, on Saturday Morning, 'de-
cided, by a majority of 243 to 169, that..seut selling in
the reformed parliament is NO OFFENCE The pro-
fessed friends otipority of election have declared.by their.
votes that,to sell the.staffrages of a county—to job.away
the rights of the electors of a county—is NO breach of
the privileges of the reformed House of Commons! !:
We are not surprised at this decision; but we confess
we look forward with
,much dismay to the effect of it
upon future elections and the commons themselves, if
the people,do not protest, in the most solemn manner,
against a doctrine so monstrous and unconstitutional.
A member of the house is clearly convicted of having
jobbed, by a corrupt sale, the- county of -Carlow, in Ire-
land, for two thousand pounds, to a man utterly unknown:
to its constituents, and wha had never been in Ireland
in the whole course of his life. . The money is paid, the
agency is established,- the offence is proved, the transfer
of the county is completed, though in a fraudulent form;
and yet the. reformed house, led by Lord JOHN RUSSELL,
the,prince of, reformers, neither reproves nor punishes
the guilty party. . Had they refused to inquire into the
charges, they might have sheltered the delinquent, under
some flimsy pretext invented for the.purpose, and they
might thereby have given him the, ,benefit of a negative
acquittal; but, in.the present case, the house entertained
the charges, received evidence through a committee;
printed that evidence, and gave the nation. an opportu-
nity of forming its own judgment upon the innocence or,
criminality of the accused. We thank them for this.
We thank GOD they are not the judges but simply the
representatives,of the people. The evidence ,is before
the world. The house was not content with a negative
acquittal ; they resolved, with this evidence before the-
eyes of all, men,,and notwithstanding- its plain and rine-,
quivocal nature, to whitewash and acquit the accused in'
the most formal and positive terms.
'Reformers of England! is this your reformed parlia-.
ment? Was it for the purpose of establishing the prin-
ciple that seats may be sold to the, highest bidder with.
perfect impunity that you struggled, amid convulsion
almost approaching to revolution, to suppress rotten and'
nomination boroughs in these realms ? Did you ima-
gine. that, when you extinguished Gatton and' Old Sa,
rum, you only transferred trafficking in seats from Wilt-
shire to Carlow, in Ireland ? If you are of this opinion,
say so. If you think otherwise, you will be guilty of
meanness, inconsistency, and cowardice, if you do not
speak out !
What a situation for any country to be placed in
whose people have any claim to freedom or independ-
..ence! Here is a man, of the most worthless and profli-
gate character, who, bidding defiance to the laws of the
land, openly traffics in -seats—who enters into pecuniary
contracts with candidates—who pockets the money ad-
vanced upon conditions dictated by himself—who pays
his baker's, butcher's, and wine merchant's bills with the
money thus. corruptly procured—and who, when con.-
victed, either as a principal in the traffic .orat least as an
agent, has the whole.power of his Majesty's government
and the united band of radical reformers thrown into the
scale of his defence, and by this means is acquitted in the
(.-
teeth of the most unquestionable guilt ever placed upon
record by an_ unanimous jury All this is most su-1
premely disgusting. It is dishonouring to the. name and
fame of our country. It is n blot like :a blood-stain upon
our domestic hearths. It shakes our confidence in the
purity and integrity of our,public men; it writes traitor
on the forehead of the minister ; it imprints coward on
the brows of
,our statesmen; it brings shame upon all;
and we pray HEAVEN it may not prove a national curse. •

We cannot—we dare not—trust ourselves with a free
use of those terms of condemnation which the whole cha-
racter of this black transaction demands. We are not
satisfied with any part of it, or the conduct of any man
who has figured in it, with the exception of the honour-
able member for Bradford, Mr. HARDY. His firmness,
his spirit, his.unbending honesty, his. unflinching inde-
pendence, and his contempt for cant and special plead-
ing—the veil which ingenuity throws over vice and
crime—are the subject of universal praise. He has
proved himself to be one of the most able, acute, and
eloquent representatives that has appeared in parliament
in these corrupt and unprincipled times. He himself is a
reformer, and, we believe, what is rare, a conscientious
one.. He. has unearthed the Irish vampire. He has
placed the leech of the priests and the blood-sucker of
the IriSh peasantry. in all ugly. deformity. before- the
people of England, and he has shown them how. the
Irish demagogue can, trample with impunity and scorn
upon every principle of the reform bill. 111r,' HARDY has
exposed the disgusting fraud practised upon every Eng-
lishman by his Majesty's ministers: He ,htnr-brang-"ht-tcr
light the impositlon.s which they .haye employed in order
to make corruption in ,Carlow and other places bear in-
juriously upon the rights, liberties, and franchises of the'
people of England ; and for this, we say-Again, the ho-i
nourable member .for Bradford has our sincere and hearty
thanks.

But how has he been treated by some of the conserva-
tives? Just as every new man of superior talent is in-
variably treated by_ them. His strong.positions are sub-
jected to artificial amendments which only weaken them:
His foot of batiron is reduced to a mile of small wire.
His unanswerable argument is cut and carved into a pro-
blem. His bold facts are bled down into suppositions ;
and his charges of fraud and gross corruption are made
to assume the form of metaphysical abstractions of error,
which, having no substance, are of no value. •

We regret to say that this charge against the leading
members of, the conservative party is not confined to the
debate in parliament. We trace the truth of it from the
commencement of the proceedings in committee to the
last conservative speech on Saturday last. First, let us
examine the report of the committee. It acquits the man
(we detest his very name, and cannot write it here) of pe-
cuniary corruption. The meaning of this is, that the Car-
low jobber did not pocket any money in the transaction.
Upon what evidence is this exculpation founded ? Mr.
VIGORS states that O'CONNELL paid over to him the
whole sum of £2ooo—not in money—mark that I—but
in bills of long dates, the interest of which he paid.
Who is Mr. ViGoßs ? One of the parties implicated, and,
therefore, not a very pure or questionless witness. But
this is the very point where the committee failed in per
forming their duty. They did not ask VIGORS to pro.
duce the bills! They had no corroborative proof that
such bills were accepted or paid in the way stated. They,

were so courteous that they did not enquire upon whom
these bills were drawn, their dates, and their amounts.
Viuous, an implicated party, and whose evidence should
have been received cautiously, is hardly cross-examined
as to the main points, and his` word is taken instead 4:)f 'the
bills; which, if paid, might easily have been produced.
This we contend is bad.

But'there is enough in the evidence to show that the
Carlow jObber had 'a cornipti- interest, and a benefiCial
interest-too, in the corrupt transaction. It is admitted
that the accused took nAPHAEL'S money, and sent' it to
his account at his private banker's. It is-also admitted
that he applied that money to his own private purposes.
It is admitted that he never paid one penny' of the said
Money to VIGORS, 'Or the CallOw club. If is proved that
he drew bills upon some-person or persons in Dublin, ,f6i
whatever sum he remitted on account of the Carlow elec-
tiou. ' '

These are facts, and upon them we found this charge,
namely, that the select committee are guilty of gross
ignorance or dereliction' of 'duty in not 'Placing them in
a conspicuous light before the public,nneffnunding upon
them more rational conclusions than they have vethought pro-
per' to" adopt. Pecuniary aCconiModation to a needy man,
as the jobber is, must be considered a pectiniary benefit.
The man derived froth' the job the valuable advantage of
paying his immediate wants in RAPHAEL'S cash, and his
honourable engagements in bills—an advantage posi,
tively received—an engagement which might never
have. been fulfilled:. The accidental fact that. the Carlow
.
jobber paid the bills is no "answer to the charge of per,
sonal- corruption' involved by the acknowledged accom-
modatiOn. We have proof that he received RAPHAEL'S
£2000; but we have no proof that he has to this..hour
paid the bills.. We throw' VIGORS overboard. He is
not an admissible witness. But'even if the payment were
proved, the 'accoMmodatiOn remains unchallenged, .and
this establishes a pecuniary interest—_-a pecuniary turpi-
tude?

ft is to us a most unpleasant task to express, even in
subdued phrase, what we feel 'upon Ibis important sub-
ject.. But we beg to tell oertain honourable members,
whose conduct in this mismanaged enqUiri ha's been ex-
-tremely-prejudicial to them, that there is a strong under
current orfeeling adverse to their interests. It is not
our solitary opinion—for that would be nothing—but it
is the prevalent opinion that the Conservatives yave not
done their duty on this occasion.