THE STRO1JD PETITION.
THE electors of Stroud, or rather a section of them, are doing their very best to discredit the Law of 1868 for preventing Bribery at Elections. From the day when the borough, previously so Liberal, returned Mr. Dorington, to be unseated immediately by the Dissolution, the two parties have been contending at the polling-booths and before the Courts with a fury which has defeated itself, and left the borough with only one representative. No sooner was a vacancy caused by the Dissolution, than the voters who had just seated Mr. Dorington as a Tory, rejected him and his fellow- Tory candidate, Mr. Holloway, for two Liberal, Messrs. Stanton and Dickinson, though as regards Mr. Dorington, by a majority of less than thirty in a constituency of 5,942. The closeness of the contest invited corrupt practices, chiefly in the form of treating ; the inflamed Tories presented a peti- tion, and both Liberals were unseated, to be replaced, after another election, by Mr. Dorington and a Liberal, siill the sitting Member. The Liberals, in their turn, filed a petition against Mr. Dorington ; he was pronounced by Baron Bramwell disqualified ; and after a severe con- test Mr. Brand, formerly Member for Hertfordshire, was returned in the Liberal interest. By this time it was thought Stroud would have had enough both of the expenditure and the discredit caused by these repeated petitions, but both parties were warm with the contest ; money was forthcoming in plenty ; Mr. Brand was attacked, and though perfectly innocent, he fell. The Judge, Baron Pigott, went out of his way to clear him from all imputations, but still he had accepted an agent, who had employed s sub-agent, who had used a deputy-sub-agent
who had, in the Judge's opinion, offered a bribe, and the seat therefore is, for the seventh time within twelve months, open to any aspirant. It is not one, however, which any aspirant with money, or character, or prospects to lose will be very ready to accept. So strong is party feeling, and so rich are some of the partisans, that the contest is cer- tain to run close, that in spite of all orders or remonstrances from the candidates, some sub-deputy-assistant-canvasser is sure to do something illegal, and that the winner may rely upon having to fight a petition, with its scandals, its perjuries, and its ruinous expense, and will be lucky even then if he secures the doubtful and precarious honour of representing Stroud.
It is evident that a campaign like this, fought out as it is before the Courts, tends to bring the Bribery Law into popular contempt. Who, it will be justly asked, can be safe when, without his consent, or knowledge, or connivance, or money, a deputy-canvasser, whom he never saw, can be em- ployed by a deputy-agent, whom he may never have heard of, and may draw upon a secret fund of the very existence of which he is unaware Nobody contends that Stroud is a corrupt place. Two Judges in succession have affirmed that corruption in the borough is not wide-spread, and yet any candidate, on any side, is as much exposed to danger as if it were ; is, in fact, more injured by the zeal displayed on his behalf than by the zeal dis- played against him. He may even, it will be alleged, be unseated by the act of a man who has foisted himself upon a sub-agent as a friend, when he really is an enemy in disguise. All that is quite true, but it does not alter the difficulty of discovering a remedy. The perfect innocence of a candidate is a good reason for reporting him guiltless, as the judge is empowered to do, and so saving him from disqualification for seven years, but it is no reason for refusing to void the election. His supporters may have acted without his knowledge, and the election may be as corrupt as if he had expressly promised to pay his bribes.
The power of returning the Member tempts a local magnate almost as much as the power of becoming a Member ; party feeling makes men liberal, and in this very instance of Stroud, £1,200 was ready for a secret fund called the Decora- tion Fund, of which the candidate had not subscribed one penny. It is impossible to disfranchise a place merely because petitions have been frequent, and unconstitutional to leave a seat vacant because the electors are so nearly divided that half-a-dozen scamps can ask for money, which half-a-dozen hot-heads, foolish with excitement and rancour, are per- fectly ready to pay. Power might perhaps be given to a Judge to load vindictive petitioners with costs, or to throw them on the borough, but it is a power which Judges would be most reluctant to use, and no fine on petitioners as such is
of any use. The party once excited, would pay it by subscrip- tion. The only remedy, as it seems to us, is for the bulk of the electors to take the matter into their own hands, to ostra- cise all concerned in the transactions of the year, and to insist on nominating some man eminent enough to attract support from all sides, and elect him in his absence. They might take a man eminent for professional capacity, instead of politics, like Admiral Sherard Osborn, or a sound Colonial statesman like Sir John Rose, the ablest Canadian in England. There are plenty of men still outside the House of Commons who would be useful to the Legislature and creditable to Stroud, and the election of any one of them without canvassing, or speech- making, or personal appearance of any kind, would show that Stroud understood her duty, would emancipate her from the dominion of her few bribable rascals, and would relieve the House of Commons of a very invidious task,—that of deciding whether a writ de lunatic° inquirendo can be issued against a borough which has shown itself tolerably pure, but incompetent to elect a Member without incessant appeals to a legal tribunal to decide whether it has elected him or not.
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