SIR. FITZ-ROY KELLY'S BRIBERY BILL.
IF the Parliament sincerely desires to render bribery impossible by penal compulsion, Sir Fits-Roy Kelly has shown the most likely way of effecting that object. He has addressed a long letter to Lord Brougham, explaining a bill which he proposes for the pre- vention of bribery and the amendment of the Corrupt Practices Act of 1854. The letter was published in the 7'inics of Friday last, and it renders the whole case as clear as glass.
In 1854 Sir Fitz-Roy proposed the introduction of a series of clauses, the main purpose of which was, to enact that no money should be paid at elections for the necessary expenses, save through the hands of a public officer; every candidate being called upon to make a declaration, with the solemnities of an oath, and all the penal consequences of violating an oath, that he had not paid, and never would pay, had not authorized and would not directly or indirectly authorize, or sanction, the payment or ap- plication of any money whatever to the purposes of the election ; except through the hands of that officer. Another clause consti- tuted the violation of that declaration a misdemeanour. A com- mittee adopted the principle ; but the clause making it a criminal offence to pay money for election purposes was modified, and in- deed the whole plan was so changed and cut up that it was to- tally altered in meaning ; and finally the declaration was thrown out by a narrow majority. Sir Fitz-Roy proposes to revive the original bill with some modifications calculated to make it more simple and effective. The bill stands thus :—
" 1. Every person upon becoming a candidate, and again, if elected, upon taking his seat, shall make oath or a declaration under the statute to the effect that he never has paid, and never will pay, and has not authorized, or become party to, or sanctioned, or ever will authorize, become party to, or sanction, directly or indirectly, the payment or application of any sum of money whatever to or for any of the purposes of the election in question, except to and through the election auditor. [Exception of his own personal expenses.]
"2. Every person whomsoever paying, or applying, or authorizing, or becoming party to, or sanctioning the payment or application, at ail time of any money whatever to or for any of the purposes of an election, except to and through the hands of (the candidate or) the election auditor, shall be guilty of a misdemeanour, punishable as in cases of perjury. " 3. Every person offending against either of these two provisions, besides incurring the penalties of perjury, shall be for ever disabled to hold any office under the Crown, or any municipal office in England or Wales, or to be- come a member, or to vote in the election of any member to serve in Parlia- ment.
"4. Election auditors should, like revising. banisters, he members of the bar, and appointed by the judges. [I see, indeed, no reason why the present • revising banisters should not be appointed election auditors for their respec- tive districts throughout England and Wales. The additional remuneration necessary (perhaps a hundred guineas to each) might be paid either by the State or by the candidates. The former I think preferable.] "5. The election agents appointed in writing, under the statute, and named to the auditor, should alone receive from the auditor from time to time such sums of money, not paid directly by the auditor himself, as are necessary for the purposes of the election. The agents to render a minute, detailed, and exact account, upon oath, to the auditor of every payment made by them out of all the money so received for any of the purposes of the elec- tion.
" 6. Power to the auditor to disallow any payments made, or proposed to be made, by any election agent, subject to an appeal to the County Court, by action to be brought by any one claiming payment of any election ex- penses refused or disallowed by the auditor. Any such action may be brought against the candidate, subject to the provisions of the Act of 1854. Proviso—Nothing herein to impair or affect the jurisdiction of the House of Commons, or of any election committee."
According to a very practical test, however, it must be admitted that Sir Fitz-Roy Kelly has hit the right nail on the head. The most flagrant cases of bribery were those subjected to the recent inquiries at Wakefield, Glouoester, and Norwich. Here the plan of proceeding was very similar,—though it varied. In one in- stance a candidate had a large sum, 5000/. more or less, to distri- bute ; it was carried down by an accredited agent, parcelled out by him to subordinate agents, and freely sprinkled amongst the electors. A certain degree of mystery was made ; but the whole process was notorious. In another case the 5000/. was lodged in a bank ; an able election agent was empowered to pour it forth, and he employed subordinates, "the Man in the Moon" amongst them. In a third case, a candidate, besides money furnished by himself, obtained money from a political friend out of a fund set apart for the purpose ; and thus he purchased 200 votes. In all these cases there was no difficulty in establishing the offence after the fact. The process was notorious ; the distribution of money amongst a considerable number must always become tolerably well known. Many of the recipients did not half like the trans- action, and witnesses were almost as abundant as accomplices. And in all these cases Sir Fitz-Roy's process would have inflicted a .punishment so definite, and in its nature so deterrent, that it might have been effectual. He shows how it would work :— A gentleman having become a candidate, having made the declaration, and having ascertained the probable amount of the expenses of the election, must place that amount in the hands of the election auditor. He has then no more to do. His task is performed. If anyone apply to him for money, whether to provide for future expenses, or to pay any that may have been already incurred, he must refer the applicant to the auditor. If informed by his agents that more money is wanting, again he must pay it into the hands of the auditor. His course is easy. If he makes these payments to this officer, and to him alone, he cannot be a party to any illegal expendi- ture, for no illegal expenditure can possibly take place. " So, if any other than the candidate is desirous of assisting him in meet- ing the expenses of the election—if the father, or brother, or friend of the candidate, or the dispenser of the funds of a political club, be desirous of contributing the sum of 5001., or 10001., or any other sum, towards the ex- penses, he may do so by placing it in the hands of the candidate himself, or by remitting it to the election auditor. The auditor will pay the money in his hands either to the agents or to the persons themselves with Whom the election expenses are incurred, and in no case whatever can any money be illegally applied except by collusion between the auditor and the agents; and, as all alike—the candidate, the auditor, and the agents—act under the sanction of an oath, and under the penalties of perjury, it is scarcely pos- sible to suppose that they at least will violate the law."
Certainly not. Each one of the gentlemen who figured as a defendant in the recent inquiries would have been horrified at the risk of standing before a penal court, and being subjected to imprisonment as a perjurer, and above all of being thou and for ever disqualified from accepting office or becoming a Member of Parliament. Tell the briber that he shall never be a Member of Parliament at all, and he is not likely to seek admission to the House of Commons by means of 5000/. Show him that he cannot dispense the money in any manner likely to escape detection, and the horror of his contemplated orime will most assuredly be ren- dered effectual. Sir Fitz-Roy's plan seems applicable to the offence as it is now practised, and if the House of Commons really desires to put down bribery in its most tangible and limited form, the bill may pass. There is however " much virtue in if."
But would any such measure prevent bribery at elections ? We hesitate to answer absolutely in the affirmative. Human nature is ingenious in discovering methods of evading laws that do not in themselves speak positively to the instinctive conscience ; and perhaps there is at the bottom of all these discussions some diffi- culty on that point. It is not easy to make Englishmen under- stand that there is any crime in paying money for any purpose i whatever, that purpose not being in itself bad. The bribing of an elector is not an offence malnm in se. It is " un-English,"
" i unpatriotic," to give votes for money, but it does not necessa- rily n itself amount to a crime. It may be, and sometimes is, nothing more than a sort of stupid inertness, an insufficiency of motive ; or it may be willingness to take a little advantage which can be got by the way in the execution of duty. It frequently happens that an elector has no very strong political feeling ; he is inclined to think that any gentleman of ordinary education will do for a Member of Parliament ; and, as Members of Parliament go, the judgment may not be very wrong. Hence he sees no reason why he should vote for Mr. John Smith any more than Mr. Smith Johns, or vice versa ; but if there is a twenty- pound note to be got by the transaction in the one case, and not in the other, there is something tangible. It fre- quently happens that an elector declines to exercise his pri- vilege from an idea that the political excitement in the place will cause his business to be impaired if he should vote as he other- wise would : a money payment compensates that loss, and enables him to satisfy his conscience without detriment in business. It sometimes happens that an elector would be disposed to vote, but he does not care to take the trouble : a money payment furnishes the incentive, and he votes " according to conscience," because his cab-money is paid, with a little overplus. When Thomson, the poet, was asked why he did not rise early in the morning, he answered, " Young man, I have no motive ; " and the torpid elector is in that condition, until the proper stimulus be applied. In none of these cases has the elector, strictly speaking, violated political conscience, and examples of each of these cases could be found in the elections that were the subject of recent and noto- rious inquiries. Such being the dubious state of conscience with regard to the act of bribery, it is possible that, however ingenious the proposed Act of Parliament may be in concentrating a watch upon some point of action and rendering it difficult to pass that point, evasion might still be discovered ; and we feel a difficulty, therefore, in affirming positively that any bill, however inge- nious, could infallibly accomplish the object in view.
Some who have great experience in such matters and have care- fully considered them, take larger exceptions. Gentlemen in the House of Commons are talking only of direct or express bribery, and fo meeting this merely by punitive means, after elections, while they say nothing of preventive means before the election, or of the prevention of expense. Fifteen hundred pounds may be set down as the average expense for the election of a moderate-sized open borough. A candidate for an ancient provincial city was let off lightly for some eight hundred pounds ; another candidate for one of our seats of learning was equally fortunate ; and both these gentlemen had declined metropolitan constituencies on account of the expense, as others have done. The average cost of a large constituency is not less than 30001. ; it is notorious that an illus- trious candidate is computed to pay upwards of 3000/. of "legiti- mate expenses ; " and no leading reformer seems to think of di- minishing audited and allowed expenses. The expenses of the five and six thousand-pound candidates in the metropolitan boroughs are duly audited ; and none of these outlays seem to be set down for restriction under Sir Fitz-Roy Kelly's bill for the repression of bribery ; yet every candidate, or every election agent, knows that it is in substance bribery. Such for instance, is the payment to publicans for committee-rooms not needed ; pay- ment for their influence over customers ; payment to brothers and sons of voters, as " agents " and " canvassers," for their influence in bringing up their relatives or connexions to vote. To augment the numbers of voters, to make moderate-sized boroughs into large metropolitan-sized boroughs, without regard to the mechan- ism, is simply to augment the small borough expenses ; in other words to increase substantive bribery on the largest scale, and to multiply the present metropolitan species of Members representing positive minorities. We have yet to see the measure for cor- recting abuses of this kind,—abuses far larger than the buying up of voters from political waverers and non-political idlers.
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