be that in every case the high character of honourable members may suffice to refute the notion that there is anything wrong in all this. All that need be said here, is that the facts just referred to not only speak volumes against the system of private bill legislation, but in favour of any change by which a seat in Parliament may be made less dependent on the use and abuse of the almighty dollar.

The plague of electoral corruption originating with those to whom the expenditure of money is altogether a secondary consideration, everything that gives money the advantage in the contest tends to aggravate the disease, and the costly ordeal which is now prescribed for curing the evil tends in a great degree to aggravate it.

When a candidate has the fortune to be per fas aut per nefas at the head of the poll, and the returning officer declares him duly elected, he can only be unseated by a committee of the House of Commons. The ordeal of an election committee has terrors for all except those whose lavish system of expenditure keeps up the system of corruption. An election committee is, in spite of all efforts to reform it, an anomaly, and at once the most costly and unsatisfactory of all our tribunals.

The claim of the House of Commons to alone adjudicate on the validity of the election of its own members is in principle very objectionable. It is, in fact, neither more nor less than the claim of a body of individuals to act as judges in their own case. The right of freely choosing representatives in the British Parliament is one which the electors enjoy by the law of the land. The question whether that right has been legally exercised is in principle one for a purely judicial tribunal, and not for a mere committee of privileges.

By the tenor of the privilege in question, the determining on the validity of elections, belongs to the whole assembly of the House of Commons. Mr. Grenville, who in 1770 effected, by the Act of Parliament which usually bears his name, the first reform of this anomaly, succeeded, when introducing

his bill, in convincing the House of Commons of the evil tendencies of the privilege contended for.

"Instead," he remarked, "of trusting to the merits of their respective causes, the principal dependence of both parties is their private interest among us, and it is scandalously notorious that we are as earnestly canvassed to attend in favour of the opposite sides as if we were wholly self-elective, and not bound to act by the principles of justice, but by the discretionary impulse of our own inclinations; nay, it is well known that in every contested election many members of this House who are ultimately to judge in a kind of judicial capacity between the competitors, enlist themselves as parties in the contention, and take upon themselves the practical management of the very business upon which they should determine with the strictest impartiality."

The claim of the House of Commons to have the exclusive cognisance of election cases is much less founded in reason than the claim by which the abuses of private bill legislation are upheld. In the latter instance there is always some concession to be made deviating from the general law of the land, which though capable of being more justly dealt with under a system of general legislation, comes at present constitutionally within the exclusive province of Parliament. In the instance, however, of the assumed exclusive jurisdiction over election questions, the House of Commons, through its committees, not only sets at defiance the great principle of justice that none shall be judge in his own cause, but does it without excuse; inasmuch as the law being clearly laid down, justice and propriety would suggest any other tribunal to put it in force than one composed of interested judges.

True it is that by the reform of the proceedings on election petitions in Parliament, commenced by the Grenville Act,* and advanced by more recent regulations, great precautions are taken to prevent the election committees being composed of members who are immediately interested in the result of the individual case submitted to them; but so long as there

* 10 Geo. 3 c. 16.

are no effectual means actually to prevent bribery and corruption, the suspicion will arise, that all members returned to the House of Commons after a contested election are in some way in pari delicto, and therefore in the highest degree unfitted to sit in judgment on each other.

If it is possible to believe that the members who compose an election committee are all free from party spirit, there is the slightest security imaginable that those who have the control of the inquiry will not so conduct it as to serve only their own sordid interests. It too often happens that the petitioner is in consimili casu with the successful candidate. With absolute power on the part of the committee to set at nought the rules of evidence and the letter and spirit of the law, and almost unfettered discretion on the part of those who conduct the proceedings to suppress facts, to intrigue, to withdraw, and to compromise, there is no security whatever that the finding of an election committee may not be brought about by means as corrupt as the return whose validity is in question.

As the sole aim of the litigating parties is to win the contested seat, every circumstance which does not directly tend to this end is prudently kept from the committee; when the victory has been gained, the victor can afford to be generous; and though the grossest bribery has been proved, the committee who declare an election void on the ground of bribery, are easily induced to add, that there was no evidence that the unseated M.P. was cognisant of the bribery that was practised on his behalf.

Whilst this system continues it must always, of itself, abundantly supply inducements to a class of candidates whose lavish expenditure tends far more to keep up the money value of electors' votes on the polling day, than all the mere party spirit which can be infused into the contest, by the emissaries, or the influence, or the gold of the Carlton or the Reform Clubs.

The penal laws against bribery and corruption are for the most part severe enough. There are large penalties and full

costs for those who will turn informers; but the effect of these penal provisions is unhappily too often, instead of really checking the offence of bribery, merely to encourage extortion. Proceedings for penalties left to the tender mercies of mere informers are threatened in secret, and as secretly compromised. The dread of exposure, of placing in jeopardy the result of an election, and of the costly ordeal of an election petition, tends to prevent the elected candidate from disputing any claim, however exorbitant, which those whose harvest is a general election may please to make, with any semblance of pretence. What candidate is there in our time so happy as to have escaped such inflictions? If rumour speaks truth there are cases where extortionate claims and threats of legal proceedings arising out of an election contest have sprung up long after the election was over, and have remained for years-ay, even during life—a millstone round the neck of the fortunate candidate.

These great evils, which the existing law is unable to cure, have engaged the attention of earnest reformers. We have many remedies suggested. Lord Brougham would increase the penalty and make the offence of bribery felony.* Mr. Craven Berkeley annually presses on public attention the ballot as a means of enabling the elector to vote in secret and outwit those who seek to corrupt him. Others advocate the discontinuance of all artificial remedies, and leave the plague of corruption to die by the force of public opinion, and a voluntary combination of honest men from all parties determined to put a stop to it.†

To all these suggestions there are objections of a serious. character. Merely to increase the penalties of bribery would not tend to diminish the number of offenders, and experience proves that it would seriously lessen the number of prosecutions. To substitute secret for open voting, it has been over

*See "Journal of Society for Amendment of the Law," Vol. III., p. 115. † See the able papers of Mr. W. D. Christie and the Rev. F. D. Maurice, printed among the proceedings of the Social Science Association, 1864.

and over again demonstrated, would tend to lower the general character of the constituencies, but not to put an end to bribery or coercion; and simply to trust to public opinion to put an end to bribery would be to rest on a very frail security. Public opinion, unhappily, is not strong enough to put an end to any other kind of offences. How can it be expected to operate with greater power in this particular instance? It is the law which gives the elective franchise, and it is the law that ought to carry out the principle that elections shall be free. Is it really impossible to legislate effectively for this purpose?

Combination among good men may, however, effect much. If the form of combination suggested by Mr. Christie and Mr. Maurice failed to effect the object aimed at, there is no reason to suppose that combinations on the part of electors, more immediately damaged by the present state of things, and societies established by them on the principle of mutual protection, would be more pernicious in their operation than ordinary trades' unions. If such societies were formed throughout the country for the purpose of enforcing the laws against bribery and corruption, without regard to party, and held out to their subscribing members that they would be indemnified out of the funds of the society against all unfair consequences arising from their just exercise of the elective franchise, the mere fact of the existence of such societies would be more efficacious in stopping bribery and coercion than the provisions of the law itself. We have such friendly societies, on the principle of mutual assurance for indemnity against the visitations of sickness and other calamities. We have societies also for prosecuting offences, and for mutual protection against acts of oppression between employers and employed; what is to prevent such societies being also formed for protection against bribery and coercion-against the oppression of the honest voter by the landlord, the employer, or the creditor, and the detection and punishment of all corrupt practices? A very small pecuniary contribution from each member of such an association would suffice to secure a great gain.

VOL. XXI.-NO. XLI.

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