THE LIBERALS AND THE BRIBERY BILL.
THE Liberals are not behaving well about Mr. Disraeli's Anti-Bribery Bill. It is an open and, as far as any one can perceive, an honest attempt to put a stop to an evil which
threatens to hand the entire Representation of the People over to the Plutocracy, and which, if it spreads much further, will
undo the effect of any conceivable reform. A better measure might possibly be framed, and we should ourselves prefer a stronger one ; but Mr. Disraeli's secures the two main requisites, an inquiry on the spot, and a tribunal independent of party feeling. The Bill may be made much stronger in Committee if the House wishes ; but even as it stands it will give a most effective check to corruption like that exposed last week at Bristol, or the more dangerous because more subtle form now prevalent in medium boroughs, The facts cannot be concealed on the spot, because men who might lie in London will not perjure themselves amidst neighbours who know the truth, and the independent tribunal has no wish that anything should be concealed. It is specially important that some such measure should be passed before next election, not only because the new electors will be more exposed to temptation than the old, but because it is most desirable to protect new constituencies from an infection which, once caught, is too often ineradicable. No other proposal has the slightest chance of acceptance, yet it is difficult for the simplest credulity to believe that the Liberals wish this one to be accepted. Mr. Gladstone is, we all know, honest in the matter, really detesting corruption as an instrument of Government ; but some of his followers appear to be actuated by some fear, or hope, or theory they hesitate to avow. Whenever the Bill comes on they talk and talk as if talking against time, repeating over and over again a sort of parrot cry that the independence of the House is endangered by submitting the validity of an election to any power outside itself, even although that power be a tribunal which it could itself suppress the moment its action became dangerous, or even annoying. Every other offence against electoral laws, even the right of voting in the House without taking the oaths, can be submitted to the Judges, as in Mr. Solomon's case ; and it is as difficult to believe that the opponents of the Bill are not actuated by some secret motive as to discover what that motive can be. It cannot be mere party feeling, for the principle of the Bill has Mr. Gladstone's approval, and the Bill itself is defended by some of the stoutest Radicals in the House,—by men like Mr. Mill and Mr. Fawcett, who would regard a Tory victory this year almost as a national misfortune. It can hardly be the desire to make elections expensive, to keep the House a rich man's club, for the legislation of 1867 has raised the "legitimate" expenses of a contest to an inconceivable height, raised them till country baronets, and broad-acred squires, and rich professionals are craning at open seats. Nor can it be, though that is so often alleged, an idea that corrruption is beneficial because it will secure the ballot ; for cynicism of that kind rarely influences hundreds of men at once, and the majority of Liberals are either impeding or neglecting Mr. Disraeli's Bill.
We believe there are two ideas still current among many Liberals which take all heart out of their action against cor- ruption,—the idea that the practice is of little consequence, that it does not really affect the composition of the House of Commons; and the idea that bribery is the natural defence of the moneyed classes against the intimidation practised by those who own either land or houses. Of these, the first answers itself—for why resist an unimportant Bill ? and the second rests, as we believe, on a traditional delusion. The Bill, if it passes with or without Sir Francis Goldsmid's clause, giving the seat to the pure candidate, will not alter or even affect the balance of illicit power. There are almost as many Whig as Tory landlords in the counties, and in the boroughs the men with the strongest means of intimidation will hencefor- ward be the great Captains of labour, the men with hundreds of voters in their employ, of whom at least half exert their influence on the Liberal side. We wish as heartily as any Member that intimidation could be put down, but the way to put it down is not to use bribery as a counterpoise, but to teach the intimidated how they may combine to secure their
independence. No landlord or captain of labour, however arrogant or however determined in his political faith, will empty all his farms or dismiss all his hands because they have exercised a right he himself does not deny. Meanwhile, till this great result has been accomplished, the weapon is one which can be wielded by both sides, and the veriest Liberal cynic need not lament the loss of a corrupt advantage. The only way in which bribery has a distinct party effect is in the ascendancy it gives to the rich, who, other motives apart, are always as the rich disinclined to innovation. They cannot be more comfortable than they are, and are always in internal trepidation about their property. In other words, the practice of bribery, whatever its effec.t in a particular election, tends over any large area to increase the power of the permanent Tory party,—which party, to its credit be it spoken, is now endeavouring to put it down.
We are ashamed to use such cynical arguments, but our own creed is too well known to allow of misapprehension. We hold that the franchise is a trust, like any other power, like a seat on a jury, or in a Board of Guardians, or in the House of Commons itself, a trust for which its holder is responsible to God, that a man who takes cash for his vote is as bad as the man who takes pay for a verdict of acquittal, or assigns a contract for Union stores to a secret partner of his own, or votes for a Railway Bill he disapproves on a concession of shares. Bribe-taking is a crime, and bribery is the offence of suborning that crime ; and if opinion were decently healthy every pulpit in the country would, just before an election, ring with denun- ciations and exhortations, denunciations of those who are striving to debauch the consciences of the poor, and exhorta- tions to those poor to resist the temptation of perjury. In the present state of opinion, however, when bribery is regarded very much as smuggling once was, as an offence only when discovered, it is necessary to point out that it is not only wicked, but that it does not pay. If it pays any party, the party paid is certainly not the Liberal one, which relies so much on the healthy popular feeling that bribery corrupts, and has so much to dread from that domination of millionaires which bribery does so much to maintain. The interest as well as the duty of Liberal Members is to support any reasonable law which will suppress or even restrain electoral corruption, Mr. Disraeli's Bill will so restrain it, and it is with a feeling almost of shame that we watch their course in the matter, their incessant repetition of a plea which, if it had ever had any value, has none now ; when any tribunal which attempted to override the representa- tives of the people could be and would be abolished in a week. If they do not like to support Mr. Disraeli, even when he is in the right, they can stay away, and let the Squires pass his Bill ; but to argue against it on a plea which the constituencies think very important, but do not understand, is, to say the least, not creditable to men one-half of whom are pledged to support the ballot because it will prevent corruption. They may say Mr. Disraeli is not in earnest, but the way to test his earnestness is to cease from opposition, and then see if he will pass his Bill. If he does not, he can be accused once more o. want of sincerity, and if he does, the cause of Liberalism will have gained a great, it may be an inestimable, advantage. Apart altogether from the moral question, bribery can benefit only the rich, and it is not by the rich only that the Liberal party can be represented.
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