NE of the first topics brought

ment was the prevention of bribery at elections-an object which a reformed House of Commons was specially bound to secure. On the 6th of February, lord John Russell moved the same resolutions which had been adopted by the preceding House, and which diminished the obstacles that stood in the way of effectually questioning a corrupt election. According to the resolutions which the House had hitherto adopted as its standing orders on this subject, the return of a member could be questioned only within fourteen days after the assembling of Parliament, or after his return, if the House were then sitting; and it was consequently the practice of persons who made use of bribery to secure their elections, not to make any payments till that period was passed, thereby avoiding the penalties that were attached to such conduct. The new resolution would not afford in itself a sufficient check to the bribery which it was intended to meet; but it was to be hoped, that that practice would experience a considerable check from the honest manner in which the committees

appointed under the Grenville Act

tion was, "That all persons who question any future return of members to serve in Parliament upon any allegation of bribery or corruption, and who shall in their petition specifically allege any payment of money or other reward to have been made by any member, or on his account, or with his privity, since the time of such return, in pursuance of, or in furtherance of, such bribery and corruption, may question the same at any time within twenty-eight days from the time of such payment; or if this House be not sitting at the expiration of the said twenty-eight days, then within fourteen days after the day when the House shall next meet." The resolution was agreed to; some members regretting that it did not go further, and maintaining that a bribery oath should be administered to the member no less than to the electors.

And, in truth, the first reformed parliament had no small quantity of bribery to deal with. On a petition from Liverpool, though the return was sustained, the committee resolved "That cases

of bribery and corruption have been proved at the late election for Liverpool, but that such cases do not appear to have been with the authority of the candidates, or to have been pursued systematically or extensively." This was followed up by a petition from Liverpool, complaining of bribery in the election, not only of representatives, but of the mayor and other officers of the corporationascribing all these enormities to the freemen, who had retained that qualification under the Reform Act, and praying that the freemen should be disfranchised. On this petition a committee was appointed by ballot to investigate its allegations in all their extent; and later in the session another committee was appointed to continue these retrospective inquiries. The return of sir C. J. Greville for the borough of Warwick had been petitioned against. The committee reported, that he was not duly elected; that gross bribery had prevailed at the last election, on the part of the agents of sir C. Greville; and that although it did not appear that sir C. Greville had taken any part in such bribery, yet that his return was in a great measure attributable to it. The House ordered, that no writ should issue for a new election for the borough before 25th May. The suspension of the writ was subsequently prolonged, and a select committee was appointed to make further inquiry into the proceedings at the last election, and to consider and report on the best mode of preventing bribery, treating, and other corrupt practices, in all future clections of members to serve in Parliament for the borough of Warwick. The committee reported, "That the evi

dence of bribery having existed at the last election for the borough of Warwick, proved to the former committee, remains uncontradicted: That gross treating existed in the borough of Warwick at the last election: That intimidation also existed to a great extent in the borough of Warwick at the last election: That several members of the corporation of the borough of Warwick were cognizant of the introduction of strangers before the election, and are implicated in the corrupt practices existing at the election: That it has been proved to the satisfaction of this committee, that many of the other parties implicated were agents of lord Warwick: That fictitious qualifications were obtained by parties in both interests by colourably rating and registering voters.' They further reported, that the earl of Warwick, lord-lieutenant of the county, and recorder of the borough, "in violation of the resolutions and standing orders of the House, did unconstitutionally apply by his agent and steward, Alexander Browne, 3,000l., and upwards, towards the election expenditure, and promotion of the political interest of the candidate sir Chas. John Greville, in the transfer of such sum of money to James Tibbetts, town-clerk of the said borough, who appropriated the same to various corrupt and illegal practices at the last election; the office of town-clerk being in the appointment of the recorder:" And that the steward of the earl of Warwick, subsequent to the election of 1831, "caused numerous persons, many of them non-resident in the borough, and dependents of the earl of Warwick, to be fictitiously rated to the poor of

in to disfranchise the borough, but, after having been read a first time, it was postponed on account of the approaching termination of the session. Hertford was exposed to the same fate. The election committee, while it declared the election void, reported, that bribery and treating had prevailed in the borough previous to, and during, the late election. The writ was immediately suspended, and the House resolved, 1. that the bribery and corruption which prevailed in Hertford both before and after the late election for that borough required the most serious consideration of that House; 2. that a select committee be appointed to consider the best means of preventing bribery and corruption in the borough of Hertford. The committee was appointed, and, on its report, a bill was allowed to be brought in for the better prevention of bribery in that borough.

Ireland, too, presented various samples of the frailties of the reformed constituencies. The Londonderry election committee reported that an extensive system of treating, and other gross acts of corruption, were practised, both before and after the election, by an association called The Iudependent Club,' but that the sitting member was neither directly nor indirectly connected with such practices." The committee for trying the petition against the return for Carrickfergus reported, that there had been most gross and scandalous bribery and treating on both sides at the late election, and although it did not appear, that the returned candidate personally took a part in corrupt practices, yet his return had been procured by means of them through his friends and agents; that a

large proportion of the constituency had been influenced in their votes by bribery; and that corrupt practices had prevailed, not only on the occasion of the late election, but at former elections. The writ was suspended, and subsequently, on 24th May, leave was given to bring in a bill for the disfranchisement of the borough. The committee, too, on the election petition against the return for Newry reported "That, although it has not been proved that the sitting member was implicated by the existence of unlawful practices during the late election for the borough of Newry, it appears that a system of bribery prevailed there to a considerable extent, in which certain members of a club called the Union were concerned; and the committee wish to direct the attention of the House to the part taken in these transactions by James Lisle and other clectors." The minutes of evidence taken by the committee having been laid before the House, a party concerned in the bribery was directed to be criminally prosecuted.

In the course of these discussions it was frequently repeated, that purity of election could be secured only by the introduction of the ballot. A formal proposal to establish voting by ballot was brought before the House (April 25th) by Mr. Grote, one of the members for the City of London. He maintained, that secret suffrage was the only arrangement compatible with the genius and purposes of a reformed parliament, and the only sure method of obtaining a House of Commons possessing the confidence of the people. What would have been said if the Reform Bill had declared,

that all tenants on a great man's estate, should merely be mechanical instruments for transmitting his will to the hustings, that every tradesman should give his vote at the dictation of one or other of his customers, under a penalty, that all voters who happened to be employed by others, should be peremptorily bound to vote as their employers prescribed? No party in the state would have tolerated such propositions; yet the very same result was produced, in point of fact, by relations which existed independent of legal enactment. Nearly one-half of the constituency of the kingdom were unable to call their votes their own, each of them being liable to suffer pecuniary loss equal to a heavy fine, if he voted independently. Numbers of electors, too, saved themselves by refusing to register; others made a compromise by absenting themselves from the poll. Secresy of voting, and freedom of voting, were necessary and inseparable companions; and where the one was not, the blessings of the other could never be known. How could any elector either hope to propitiate, or fear to offend others, by an act unseen, unknown to any one but himself? This was the direct and specific virtue of the ballot, that it destroyed all motive for an elector to falsify his sentiments at the poll, because, under no circumstances, could he attract favour, or avert injury, by doing so. A laudlord might, if he pleased, eject tenants whose sentiments he suspected, and look out for others whose sentiments he approved of; but so long as he had tenants differing from him in sentiment, so long would his tenants vote according to their own consciences, not according to his will,

He did not assert that the ballot, directly and of itself, would put an end to all persecution for political sentiments expressed elsewhere; but he would assert, that it would most infallibly put an end to compulsory and insincere voting. They could not have forgotten the analogous case of France. There, during the last ten years, it was notorious, that the ballot had proved the single but the all-sufficient guarantee of electoral independence against all the invasions of an overwhelming government ascendancy. This was a matter confessed by all parties, friends and enemies; indeed, the shameless efforts of the Bourbon government to allude or nullify the ballot proved sufficiently how well they knew and felt its influence. He relied, too, upon the ballot, as going very far-and much farther than any penal act, with open suf frage, could do-to put an end to bribery. He admitted, that there was a particular description of bribery-a sort of wholesale or collective bribery-which might still be practised, even under the ballot. A man might offer to give a considerable sum among the ag gregate of the voters of any given place, conditional upon his being returned member. But it was to be recollected, that this was a transaction not a little hazardous, and very likely to bring about an exposure. The ballot might not reuder bribery altogether impractica ble, but it would render it much more difficult, much more complicated, and much more dangerous to the parties concerned; and for one vote perverted by bribery there were fifty perverted by intimidation. Some there were who objected to the ballot; not on the score of inefficacy, but from pure