113

ART. VI.-ELECTORAL BRIBERY AND

CORRUPTION.

By MR. SERJEANT PULLING.

N accordance with the intimation in our last number, we

IN

recur to the subject of Electoral Bribery and Corruption. The Law Magazine and Law Review, dealing generally with matters which have a peculiar interest for the profession of the law, has in the present instance hit upon one affecting-not only the credit of the law, and of those who are engaged in its administration, but the good fame of all who are either entrusted with the elective franchise, or who, through their suffrages, are returned as the representatives of the people in Parliament-the welfare, in fact, of the whole communitythe honour of the whole nation; and it is some satisfaction to observe that the opinions which have already been so expressed in the Law Magazine and Law Review* have not only been approved of by other writers on the subject, but have been in some degree adopted by those who have a voice in the Legislature.

If, happily, proof were wanting that bribery and corruption extensively prevail at the election of our representatives in Parliament, the disclosures in the cases of the four selected constituencies which have recently been brought so prominently under public notice, must supply that proof to the most wilfully blind and contented of the apologists of things as they

The first article which appeared in our columns in May last was subsequently reprinted and published under the title of "Our Parliamentary Elections. Can no laws protect the honest from the dishonest?" London: Ridgway, Piccadilly, 1866.

We ought to mention particularly Mr. Christie's able articles on this subject, in the Examiner, since published by him in a separate form.

VOL. XXIII.-NO. XLV.

I

are.

Such persons may, perhaps, believe that the plague spots which have so unmistakably broken out north, south, east, and west-at Lancaster, Reigate, Yarmouth, and Totnes -are not evidence of a general malady; but credibility like this is not of much value, and weighs very little against the general conviction, arrived at on so very unpleasant assurances, that the elector-pest at this day prevails as surely among the herd of voters as the rinderpest lately prevailed in our pastures and cattle markets.

Until the stain of corruption which now attaches to our electoral system can be wiped off-until Parliament can be induced to take up the matter in earnest-to legislate in order to deal with it effectually-the House of Commons' parade of a high tone of feeling will be regarded by honest men on the outside as a mere mockery; and powerless to vindicate the fair fame of England's Parliament will be all the panegyrics which enlisted eloquence in her happiest vein can utter. The stream that has pollution pouring in at its sources is sure to carry its impurity with it. It may require a practised eye to detect its presence to carefully analyse and scientifically expose the working of the corrupting matter-to mark the exact current in which it flows-to show the various disorders it generates. The crowd may be deceived by the stream flowing so bright and so smooth, may joy in its sparkle, and laugh at the forebodings of philosophy, but the immutable laws of nature will have their way—not even noxious matter is allowed to be annihilated. The lurking poison will make itself felt when least expected. Ill will come of ill-now an isolated case of disorder show itself; now the plague spread, and the malady become epidemic.

There is in general a wholesome recognition of all this. In most matters of ordinary occurrence we take care to avoid the risk which arises from a bad beginning-we hold it, for instance, essential to the purity of the course of justice that it should flow from an unpolluted source. We do not readily acquiesce in the sentence of those to whose office or appoint

ment a stigma of any kind attaches-the verdict of jurymen who have been tampered with before going into the boxthe award of arbitrators whose power has a corrupt inceptionthe acts of trustees whose fiduciary character has been acquired by means of an underhand bargain:—and let Parliamentary blustering disguise it as it may, a similar distrust will prevail with respect to those who have acquired powers aud trusts so much greater, and so much easier to abuse, by means of electioneering manœuvres and electoral corruption. High-minded may be the great bulk of England's public men-high the tone of honour which is in fashion among English gentlemen—and far be it from us to disparage that high feeling ;-but so long as it remains a fact that the title of M.P. is to be obtained by corrupt means, and a corrupt motive can be assigned to the conduct in Parliament of men so elected, small blame to ordinary folk out of doors, who, though unable to follow out in the intricate course of the administration of public affairs, the exact run of the stream of impurity, yet refuse to believe that the pollution which comes in at the fountain-head has been somehow altogether absorbed; or to place implicit confidence in the absolute honesty of the career of every M.P. so made-the immaculate character of the ayes and noes on every Parliamentary division-the absolute honesty and justice of all the decisions pronounced by Parliamentary committees to see the justification for diverting so constantly at the importunity of honourable members the due course of administration of public trusts-and the fair dispensation of Government patronage and the public money; and for the daily ignoring deserving claims for promotion in the public service, and perpetrating what, to common people, unbiassed by the morale of the Circumlocution Office, appears a sorry course of dishonest jobbing and breach

of trust.

It is at this day the practice of many people dogmatically to pronounce bribery at our elections as a necessary evil, which public opinion within or without the doors of Parliament is not strong enough to put down; and this notion is certainly

not discouraged by the way in which the topic is at present received in the House of Commons.

In that august assembly of English gentlemen, it is, unhappily, but too true that the stigma attaching to an honourable member of having gained his title of M.P. merely by means of bribery, has come to be regarded with so little abhorrence that discussions on the subject are somehow generally provocative of mirth. One of the ablest of our evening journals in describing a very recent speech on this subject by Mr. Disraeli, observes-" We find him keeping the House in roars of laughter, with graceful badinage about the Opposition members who had been reported guilty of corrupt practices. It is not very obvious to outsiders what was the precise point of the joke, as, indeed, is sometimes the case with jokes that amuse the House of Commons. But it is plain that imputations of bribery, if not exquisitely comic in themselves, are not in the least inconsistent with a lively bit of comedy. The scene reminds one of what sometimes occurs between two fast young fellows, one of whom has accused the other of being drunk. His companion replies, with facetious circumlocution, that if he has not made a mistake of personal identity, he rather fancies that he has seen his kind monitor with a drop or so too much himself. It is very funny and amusing to the actors, but it does not indicate a very high value for the virtue of sobriety."* It would be difficult to express more plainly the tone which honourable members, bored with complainings about bribery, adopt when they are together; persuading themselves that this tone is but a mere echo of English public opinion.

Many vices, and indeed crimes, which in former days were winked at as, at most, necessary evils, have now come to be regarded in a very different light. They have succumbed, like Let similar treatment be

most maladies, to proper treatment.

legally prescribed and duly administered in the case before us,

* Pall Mall Gazette, Thursday, March 21, 1867.

and we should soon find succumbing to it the odious malady which is now the bane of our boasted representative system. Public opinion would then as soon soon come in to discourage bribery and unfair conduct at elections as it does dishonesty and meanness in the ordinary affairs of life.

Our statute law prescribes, in the case of persons legally found guilty of electoral corruption, penalties severe enough at the present time, it is true; but though the offenders swarm, somehow or other very few indeed ever are caught and punished. Like the quaint directions of Mrs. Glasse for cooking hares, or the French professor's elaborate specific for dealing with little fleas, our bribery laws commence with a sly suggestion that first of all you must catch the offenders. In the case of electoral bribery and corruption the legal tackle for catching offenders, or affording fair protection from them, is at every turn singularly clumsy and deficient. The chances of escape really seem to be multiplied on purpose, and the punishment held in terrorem to be advisedly of such a character as in no way to act as a deterrent either to the briber or the bribed. The law prescribes pecuniary penalties—a matter of easy arrangement on the rare occasions when legal proceedings are taken to enforce them-but there is nothing in a conviction for bribery at this time, which involves any serious loss or risk to the offender, either by way of personal inconvenience or the forfeiture of character or social position. To judge, indeed, by the provisions of our law at this time, we might almost think that electoral bribery in moderation was altogether venial, and that unless it extensively prevail it should not be interfered with, serious measures only becoming necessary when electoral corruption has attained such a head as to demand extraordinary treatment. Candidates backed by a sufficient quantity of money, and accommodating voters eager to get a share of it, find the network of the existing bribery laws very easy to break through, and corruption works its way without hindrance from the back parlour of the borough inn or the little office or shop of the £10 householder, to the chamber of England's