The hiring of public vehicles by a candidate or his
agent for the conveyance of electors to the poll is to be strictly forbidden, while it is to be permitted to any number of electors to join
together to hire a public vehicle for their joint conveyance to the poll, and private persons may lend their own carriages and carts to convey electors to the poll. This seems to us an altogether impracticable confusion of prohibitions and permis- sions. How is it to be shown that when a public carriage has been hired by a number of electors to convey them jointly to the poll, each of them has really paid his own fair and equal share ? And yet, if this is not the case, there will certainly have been a violation of the prohibition against the hiring of a conveyance by one elector for the behoof of another elector. And how is it to be shown that where private carts and carriages have been freely lent for the conveyance of voters to the poll, the owner has not received and will not receive any equivalent for thus placing his conveyances at the disposal of the candidate? We still hold very strongly that if all paying for conveyance is to be disallowed, the lending or hiring of vehicles for the purpose of carrying electors to the poll should have been wholly dis- allowed by the Bill. As it stands, the provisions on this head will lead to endless disputes, confusions, disappointments, and recriminations.
Previous page
