25 SEPTEMBER 1869, Page 6

THE LATE ELECTION DISCLOSURES.

THE sameness of the facts elicited by the Election Com- missions has more than once been made the subject of remark, but every now and then a more promising stratum is reached, and a copious stream gushes out. Some revelations made at Bridgewater late last week, and at Beverley in the beginning of the present week, show that the Commissioners are beginning "to burn," if we may apply the phraseology of a drawing-room game to a pursuit which has to deal with the back parlours of low inns and with bedrooms containing black bags of sovereigns. After many witnesses of humble rank have confessed that they took bribes of five and ten shillings each, we are at last coming to the more important evidence of Members of Parliament and of their managers. The course things are taking is significant of all these election inquiries. When one party has triumphed in a notorious borough, the defeated party naturally feels sore, and longs for revenge. Rumour is, of course, busy with the number of bribes administered, and it really seems as if this time the victors had violated the usual decencies of political. immorality. A check must be put to such reckless expendi- ture. A petition is presented. Under the old system this would be very likely to lead to a compromise. But now it is the forerunner of a trial. Mr. Baron Martin or Mr. Justice Blackburn comes down, the whole case is investigated, and the- Judge recommends that a commission should issue. Then the people of the place are alarmed. They never meant to carry matters to such a pitch. The defeated party only wanted to deprive its adversaries of one triumph, and to reverse one successful vote. But if the commission comes to know every- thing, there will be an end of votes as well as of triumphs. Both parties soon agree to say nothing. The Commissioners are receive& with taciturn civility. The small fry are, of course, allowed to- speak, and it is hoped that their statements will be enough for- the Commissioners, as enabling them to reflect on the depravity of the lower orders. All goes on smoothly for a time, and the borough breathes again. The outside public is heard saying- that this is nothing more than was known before about all the. small towns in England. Then, however, comes a change. Some awkward fact leaks out. Some new man is implicated, and in his fright he rushes into the witness-box to shift the- burden from his shoulders. Others find themselves implicated too, and they must go through the same process. At first that seems harmless. Men come prepared with plausible stories, and with memories arranged, as it were, in pigeon- holes, so that inconvenient facts may be dropped out an& appear to be forgotten. But this elaborate mechanism does not stand the test of cross-examination. It becomes clear that something is being kept back, and the threat of withholding a. certificate brings that out. Applying this rule to a great many cases, we can understand how it is that twenty-four days- have been needed at Beverley to get to the evidence of Sir- Henry Edwards's manager, and that Mr. Alexander Brogden, M.P., did not appear at Bridgewater till Thursday s'ennight. The facts, however, stated by these two witnesses, couple& with the incidental statements of those who immediately pre- ceded them, bring out an entirely new phase of the Commis- sions, and shed a flood of light upon the whole system of corrupt practices.

Nothing has been more tantalizing in the reports, both of Committees and Judges, than the invariable statement that the bribery which voided an election did not appear to -have been committed with the knowledge and consent of the candidates._ We find this even in Mr. Baron Martin's judgment at Beverley. It is true that there Sir Henry Edwards declared in the most- solemn way that to the best of his belief there never was a purer election in England than the one which was then under consideration. "After having fought eight contested elec- tions," he added, "I mean to say this in the presence of my God, that I don't believe there ever was a purer election than the last." But by the light of the present disclosures we may interpret this statement in another sense than would naturally- be put upon it. If Sir Henry only meant that money was not spent at the Parliamentary election of 1868, he said nothing more than was borne out by the evidence. The real question is, whether there could be a pure election in a place which had been saturated with bribes for eleven years, in which local charities were made a source of corruption, and in which waggon companies were started for the express purpose of carrying votes. Sir Henry knew perfectly well that for years he had been paying sums of money to the celebrated Mr. Wreghitt, and he has admitted that he never looked at an ac- count of the way in which those sums were expended. His- manager tells us now that at one time the sums amounted to £150 a year. This process was evidently more satisfactory than the one adopted at Sir Henry's first contest, when his manager was sent down to Beverley with £2,000, the whole of which was spent. Perhaps when Sir Henry says that the eleztion of 1868 was pure, he may be comparing it with the election of 1857; and it is the width of his experience that makes him take other views than those adopted by humdrum honesty. The importance of keeping up local charities and of encourag- ing native industry is certainly as well known to Sir Henry as- to Mr. Wreghitt. Mr. Christopher Sykes, who is now Member- for the East Riding of Yorkshire, but was till lately Sir Henrys. colleague, tells us that when he was asked to stand for Beverley Sir Henry suggested that it was desirable for him.

to take shares in the Waggon Company, that he took £2,000 worth of shares, and sold them "at a loss" when he ceased to represent the borough. He was also told by Sir Henry that it was the custom to confide money to Mr. Wreghitt, and he did confide money to Mr. Wreghitt. He, too, never asked Mr. Wreghitt for an account, and his reason was that Mr. Wreghitt's disposal of the money saved the trouble of letter-writing. Mr. Wreghitt, moreover, had "often occupied a very difficult post," and Mr. Christopher Sykes has "a very great regard" for him. Mr. Sykes' intro- duction to Wreghitt seems to have been managed by Sir Henry. Captain Kennard, who succeeded Mr. Sykes, was also introduced to Wreghitt, and was told by that admirable man that he had better keep away from Beverley during the municipal election, but that £100 would be welcome. It is clear that this is and has long been the Beverley system, bat if we are to believe that Sir Henry was kept in the dark, a large demand must be made upon our credulity. We may be satisfied that Wreghitt never told him anything which would directly implicate him, that even if he had looked at Wreghitt's accounts they would not have carried conviction, that the excuse of local charities and native industry was sufficient to salve over an easy conscience. But with public opinion for a jury there must be an end of this shuffle. The verdict must be pronounced that a man who employs secret agencies to dis- tribute money in a borough which he represents, and makes no inquiry as to the distribution of the money, who, finding himself always in a majority at the elections, recommends a similar course to other candidates, is as fully responsible for every act of bribery as if the bribe had been given with his own hands, and as if he had entered into a personal compact with the voter.

Indeed, if we look at the conduct of other Members, we see that many of them are divided from similar guilt by very thin partitions. If they have been blinded to the fact that bribes were given on their behalf, they have been blinded wilfully. Mr. Sykes, for instance, had imagined that money had been spent in his behalf, but had not heard there had been bribery for him. He did hear this about others, but he only suspected it as far as he himself was concerned. Yet he admitted that after an election he repaid money which he knew to have been illegally expended. Mr. Kinglake, at Bridgewater, believed that as he left the place before the corrupt practices began, he was not responsible for the sub- sequent acts of his agents. He seems to have thought the money came from Vanderbyl, and perhaps Mr. Vanderbyl may have thought the money came from Kinglake. Certainly, Mr. Kinglake, in giving evidence before Mr. Justice Black- burn, declared that he knew nothing about any bribery having been practised. But his agent adds significantly, "He never asked me how the change in the state of the poll had been effected." No wonder the professions of many of the candidates seem "very much like humbug" to those who are behind the scenes. The principle on which all this is based appears to be that agents may do anything on their own responsi- bility, without incurring guilt either for themselves or for their principals. This is most strikingly exemplified by the confessions of Mr. Alexander Brogden, the Member for Wed- nesbuiy, who went down to Bridgewater as a friend of Mr. Vanderbyl's. He took £1,100 in sovereigns with him, and put them in a black bag in his bedroom. When he was.told the money was wanted, he sent a solicitor into his bedroom, and thought himself relieved from all responsibility. He considered himself a mere vehicle, and that very unfair inferences had been drawn by those who accused him of bribery. Had these sums been expended for his own election, we presume even Mr. Alexander Brogden, M.P. for Wed- nesbury, would have felt some touch of contrition. But as a mere vehicle, of course he can have no conscience. In "My Novel" a speech is compared to a ferry-boat, because it seems made for nothing else than to go from one side to the other. It must be comforting to Wednesbuiry to be repre- sented by a mere vehicle, which is made for the purpose of carrying sovereigns from a bank at Bristol to a bedroom at Bridgewater. Mr. Brogden is not very likely to take the opinion of his constituents upon his conduct sooner than he can help, and we do not know what steps the House of Commons may think fit to institute against him. The Commissioners have announced their intention of bringing his conduct before the House, and we may hope that something will be done to mark the public sense of such an act, com- mitted and avowed by one who is pledged to the suppression of all similar practices.

But an even more striking instance is afforded by Mr. Spofforth, the accredited Agent of the Conservative party, and a member of the firm of Baxter, Rose, and Norton. This gentleman is said to have advised Wreghitt to destroy all the letters received from Sir Henry Edwards, and also to have given a hint to Sir Henry Edwards's manager that he had better keep out of the way during the sittings of the Com- mission. Wreghitt swears positively that Mr. Spofforth spoke to him of the injurious course he was pursuing in preserving Sir Henry's letters, and Sir Henry's manager swears as posi- tively that the suggestion about his going abroad came to him through Major Waterhouse, the Member for Halifax, who had seen Mr. Spofforth. We do not know if either of these state- ments can be explained away, but if not, they place the Con- servative party in a very delicate position. Here is their accredited agent, the manager of all their elections, the wirepuller-in-chief for counties and boroughs, the man to whom all candidates' hearts are open, all their desires made known, and from whom no secrets are hid, recommending the destruction of evidence and the absconding of a material witness. After such a revelation as this, it is useless to talk of corrupt practices taking place in secret, and not being known to the persons who profit by them. So long as it could be thought that nameless and obscure agents receiving money from one mysterious stranger, and then acting the part of mysterious strangers with small voters, were the only people employed in bribery, it might be considered that candidates came out of the contest with clean hands, even if they chose to dirty them when it was over. But when it appears that such men as Mr. Brogden enter into the actual work of bribery, and that such men as Mr. Spofforth help to destroy the traces of it, we have a means of gauging the sincerity of those pro- testations which are made upon every trial, and which have imposed upon judges as well as on committees. It becomes plain that the guilt of bribery consists either in employing it for your own seat, or in being found out ; that as long as you are a mere vehicle you may safely pay money, or conspire to keep back facts from the knowledge of a legal tribunal, and to blind justice to the commission of crimes which corrupt a whole community. If we ask what the House of Commons is disposed to do with one of its Members, we have a still better right to ask what the Conservative party will do in the case of its Agent. We question very much if it will care to make itself an accessory after the fact to bribery.