WORKING OF THE REFORM ACT—INTIMIDATION BY LANDLORDS.

THE Tories have laboured hard to give currency to the notion, that if the Catholic priests were prevented from interfering in elections, no ground for complaining of undue influence would remain. Their extracts from the evidence given before the Inti- midation and Bribery Committee have been all of one description. Those who look not beyond the columns of the Times for infor- mation on this subject, might suppose that the Protestant parsons and the landed gentry never so much as asked for a vote; while the Catholic priests actually drove some of the electors with long cart-whips to the polling-booth, and terrified others into support- ing the Liberal candidates by threats of eternal damnation. Some of the stories told by the Tory witnesses were incredible in them- selves, and have since been proved to be false ;* but we never doubted that the Catholic clergy were active, unscrupulous, and efficient election agents, on the Liberal side. Fully admitting thus much, we maintain that the Protestant clergy in Ireland THE Tories have laboured hard to give currency to the notion, that if the Catholic priests were prevented from interfering in elections, no ground for complaining of undue influence would remain. Their extracts from the evidence given before the Inti- midation and Bribery Committee have been all of one description. Those who look not beyond the columns of the Times for infor- mation on this subject, might suppose that the Protestant parsons and the landed gentry never so much as asked for a vote; while the Catholic priests actually drove some of the electors with long cart-whips to the polling-booth, and terrified others into support- ing the Liberal candidates by threats of eternal damnation. Some of the stories told by the Tory witnesses were incredible in them- selves, and have since been proved to be false ;* but we never doubted that the Catholic clergy were active, unscrupulous, and efficient election agents, on the Liberal side. Fully admitting thus much, we maintain that the Protestant clergy in Ireland • For instance, a Mr. O'Coerroa stated that Mr. O'SurtavArr, Catholic priest at Dingle in Kerry, obtained the vote of one Tuosins Lugano?? by going to his house with other priests uho carried horsewhips, and threatened to horses hip him if he did not vote for Alur.t.irrs an ti d O'CoNrr.t.. Much was made of this absurd story by the Titan; but an affidavit of LANODON himself, denying the whole story from beginning to rod, has been published in the (Jhronicle. Again—an elector of Tralee, named MILLINGAR, was said to have been taken by the collar, by a priest, and forced into the Court-house to vote for MULLINS and O'C,orrust.t., instead of MAURITS FITSMALD. Mr. O'SULLIVAN, the priest alluded to, denies the charge; and declares, after searching the toll, that there is no such person as Mn.Lirioast among the voters of Kerry.

and in England are liable to at least equal animadversion on the same score; and the selections we made in two former numbers of this journal (333 and 384) from the Intimidation Evidence proves it.

The undue exercise of their influence by the clergy, however, is by no means the only, nor is it the principal mode of intimidating dependent electors. The landlords use more extensive and more stringent means for the same end. The length to which they carry the system of compelling tenants to vote against their own inclinations and consciences, can only be fully conctived by those who have been personally engaged in election contests : but a peru- sal of the minutes of the evidence published by the Intimidation Committee will give some idea of the conduct of these petty t) rants.

It is considered a piece of supreme impertinence in a tenant to have any political opinions of his own. A landlord will promise the support of the whole of his tenantry to the candidate he favours, without consulting one of them. Mr. JOSEPH PARKES gave the following testimony on this head.

"I have known a landlord correspond with a candidate on the subject of the Corn-laws, and I have known him send a list of the whole of his tenants, and [inform him) that he should come with them and vote ooe way or the other, according to the explanation he received from the candidate. I know the fact of the resident agent of a considerable property, the agent being of a class 'Apoli- tical opinion different from the politics of his nou-resideut master, promising all the votes of an estate to a candidate. I wrote to a high family to influence this stewaid the other way; aud the tenants were in consequence all polled con- trary to their original promise through the above agent.

Mr. JAMES SKERRATT, a solicitor in Cheshire, told the Com- mittee how the landlords polled their tenantry in that county. (The phrase, be it observed, is not that the tenants poll, but that the landlords poll them.)

" They bring their tenants up like soldiers well-drilled, headed by one of their principal tenants, and perhaps the agent with them. They march them up, sometimes the landlord at the head of them. I know an instance of one landlord bringing up his tenants, and he went to stand at the end of the polling- booth to see that they all went in ' • and I looked them over, and saw one amongst them who did not appear to be very clever in his intellect, and I lead a friend with me, and 1 told him I would ask hint to follow that man, and, as he was going along, to repeat to himself the words ' Grosvenor and Wilbrahatn.' My friend walked after hint and repeated Grosvenor and Wilbraham.' When the man came up to the poll, after asking him his name, and the usual question for whom he would vote, he said Grosvenor and Wilbraham.' When he went down, the landlord gave him a violent oath—' Damn your blood ! I will give you notice to cplit,'—or words to that effect ; and he turned round to hie principal tenant, and said, Why the Devil did you not drill him ?' kle said, 'I drilled hint all up the street.' '

Mr. Enowoivra, a solicitor at Wrexham, explained to the Com- mittee how it happened that Mr. WILSON JONES turned " honest Jolts MAnocKs' out of Denbighshire at the last election.

" Mr. Madocks spent an entire week in Wrexham, either the last week in , November, or the first in December Nothing had been pre- , viously known of the part ninny of the gentlemen in the neighbourhood would take, except that their political principles were known ; and about the middle of that week, a letter was handed about front Sir Watkin to Mr. Wilson Jones, expressing himself favourable to his wishes and adverse to Mr. Madocks. That letter had influence with several voters. I called with Mr. Madocks on one in particular, and I remember the circumstance very well. He was a tenant of Sir Watkin ; and was beginning to say to Mr. Madocks, that he should have very great pleasure ia supporting him at the election. I knew that this letter would be shown to him. I asked him, had he beard of any such thing ? I told him there was such a letter, for Iliad seen a copy of it in the hands of an inti- mate friend of Mr. Wilson Jones. He immediately drew back, and said, Then I cannot support you ; I must depend entirely upon the will of Sir Watkin:" and he eventually voted for Mr. Wilsou Jones."

The intimidation employed at the South Devonshire election, to defeat Lord JOHN RUSSELL, is notorious. Mr. JAMES TERRELL, of Exeter, gave several instances of the mode of proceeding.

"In the parish of Rattery there were 21 votes polled at the last election : only one was a freeholder, the others were leaseho1deis, or 50/. renters.In the

election of 1832, these voters all voted for Mr. Bulteel, time Reform Candidate,— the landlord voted with Mr. Bolted : in time last election, they all with the exception of one, voted for Mr. I'arker, the Conservative candidate' —the land- lord voted for Mr. Parker. A yeoman, who ever since 1816 had been a most active man on our (the Reform) side, attended the nomination: on his return he received a letter from his landlord, requesting that he would not oppose Mr. Parker : I have seen him since, and he told me he thought he might have been allowed to be quiet, but, on the Sunday, his landlord called on him, and compelled hint (though, as he told me, with tears in his eyes) to go to the poll and vote for Mr. Parker."

The successful candidate for South Devon has little honour in a victory obtained by such disgraceful means : lie is the Member, but it is a mockery to call him the Representative of the Devon- shire electors.

It is not merely upon the poorer class of tenantry that intimi- dation is brought to bear : again hear Mr. TERRELL.

" Mr. John Bear, of Kenton, rents a eery large farm under the Eerl of Devon: he and his }mother have always been very active partisans on oumide in politics; and up to the Saturday previous to the election, which was on the Monday, he was very actively canvassing for Lord John Russell, and was at our Committee-room, I believe, on the Friday, the market day. On the Sunday, the day before the election, the son of the Earl of Devon's steward went to him, and requested him to vote for Mr. Parker: he told us that he had refused to do so ; but that intimidation was used to the extent upon him that he was

prevented front voting at all ; and he did not vote. . . . The brother of Mr. Bear, who is also a tenant of Lord Devon, was pressed its the same way; but he was a man of stern independence, and of independent property, and he voted focus."

Although the change of Members in South Devonshire has been from Reform to Tory, Mr.Tnitaz Li. states that the " change of feeling has been most generally from the Conservative to the Re- form party, among the mass of the yeomanry?

In Lincolnshire the same game is played. Mr. CHARLES

WHITE, of Horncastle, stated the following facts to the Com- mittee of the House of Commons.

" The Chairman of Mr. Corbet's Committee demanded a plumper of my father for Mr. Corbet. My father had already promised Mr. Pelham and Sir William Ingilby. The Chairman said—' Lord Mansfield, your landlord, de- sires that you will give a plumper for Mr. Corbet.' My father's reply was- ' I have every respect for my landlord, Lord Mansfield, and I should be happy to serve him ; but I cannot serve him this time : I have always voted this way, and shall do so again.' " A voter promised Sir William Ingilby a vote ; when Sir William got his name and residence, he said, You live under the Chairman of Mr. Corbet's Committee ; he is an opponent of mine : my good fellow, do not vote for rac- ks is sure to turn you out of your farm.' The man said, I will give you a vote, if it costs me my farm.' He was compelled by his landlord to vote a plumper for Mr. Corbet."

So much for England : now let us turn to Ireland ; where the mode of dealing with dependents is more shameless and violent than in this country. There is a great deal of horror expressed at the plain language of the Catholic priests: it will be seen that the landlords feel no compunctions in proceeding to the extremi- ties of action in order to influence voters. English clergymen would shrink from employing the description of arguments found most effective with the Irish peasantry : English landlords would rarely resort to the means common in Ireland to force the voter's conscience.

Mr. H. J. BROWNRIGG, a Tory Magistrate, admits that if a tenant, in Kerry, votes against his landlord, " it goes to ruin him decidedly ; there is no question about it." Dr. ROBERT MULLEN was asked, if he knew of any tenants in the county of Meath having been taken out of their houses at night by the drivers of landlords in that county; and he replied- " Yes, I do. In the year 1831, the tenants of Lord Darnley and General Bligh were taken out of their houses, in the night, by a party of Police, com- manded by a Chief Constable and attended by a Magistrate of the county ; they were taken to the town of Athhoy, and locked up there during the night ; the next day they were brought into Trim, escorted by the Police, and locked up sn a house there."

In reply to other questions, the same witness stated, that tenants on the estates of Lord DARNLEY and General BL1GH were dispossessed and distmined, in consequence of their voting against the wishes of their landlords ; and that Lord GORMANS- TOWN had gone to the houses of his tenants by night, and taken them to his castle, to prevent them from voting. Mr. DANIEL SUPPLE, an attorney in Tralee, mentions direct attempts at intimidating the tenants of Lord VENTRY'S estates in Kerry, by Mr. DAVID PETER THOMPSON, Receiver in Chancery ever that property. The tenantry wished to vote for Mr. MuL- LINE; but Mr. THOMPSON, a decided Tory partisan, "took his seat opposite the voters, as they came on the table ; and every man who voted for Messrs. MULLINS and O'CoNNELL, I saw him take a note of his name."

It appears from the evidence of this witness, that although Lord KENstastE professed hostility to the O'CONNELL party on account of the "death's head and cross-bones," he, in point of fact, did not use any effort to defeat Mr. OtoNNELL's nephew ; but reserved all his hostility against Mr. /VIuLtims, who is not charged with violent words or deeds. Mr. SUPPLE says that "the entire hostility" was aimed against Mr. MULLINS: the fuss that has since been made about the "death's head" seems to have been an afterthought. We close this part of the subject with an extract from the evi- dence of the Reverend JAMES MAHER, as illustrative of the be- nign influence of the Tory landowners in Carlow !

" On a certain night during the last election for the county of Carlow, Mr. Harvey, accompanied by Mr. Walter Newton, Magistrate of the said county, and Henry Newton his brother, and some of the Military and Police, came to the house of a freeholder and tenant of Mr. Ilarvey's, at the hour of about eleven o'clock at night : on their arrival, the freeholder, Christopher Byrne, concealed himself from his visiters in a room of his house ; Mr. Harvey ordered a light and went in search of him ; and finding one room-door closed, where Byrne was concealed, he broke it open and brought him out, and, in the presence of others, asked him to vote for Colonel Bruen and Mr. Kavanagh. Christopher Byrne refused to vote for Colonel Bruen ; and after Mr. Harvey and Mr. Newton had used various arguments to induce him to vote agreeably to Mr. Harvey his landlord's wishes, Byrne still refusing to comply, Mr. Harvey addressed him in a very emphatic manner, ' I will eiect you on Mon- day morning after the election, and send you and your family to the road.' Byrne replied by saying, The world is wide.' Mr. Harvey then said to Byrne, that he should come with him at that time. Byrne, Mr. Harvey, and Mr. Newton, and the military, then proceeded from Byrne's house, and went in the direction of Bagnalstown : Byrne was detained during the night, and made his escape next day, and came into the county-town and voted for the Mere! candidates."

There are upwards of 800 pages occupied in detailing similar facts to those which we have quoted. Landlords, Whig, Radical, and Tory, (but more especially the Tory)—clergymen, whether of ibe Establishment, Dissenting, or Catholic—all resort to illegal and unjustifiable means of carrying elections. The voters dare mot exercise the franchise independently. If threats of ruin, the prospect of immediate distress for themselves and families, fail to overcome the political virtue of the electors, we have seen that the aid of the Military and Police is called in, and voters are forcibly carried off and imprisoned. The Reform Act appears to love extended, not diminished, the influence of the landowners. The question which every man who thinks that Parliamentary Representation ought to be real, not a mockery, now asks himself; is,, whether a remedy cannot be provided for the enormous evil produced by the common mode of carrying on elections ? Few axe hardy enough to argue that the elective franchise was intended to be a curse; )et such it has become to multitt.des. All will admit that intimidation and corruption are contrary to law and good morals; and some are willing to employ the best method of staying the plague. We are firmly of opinion that, in this country, where the inequality of conditions is so great, there is but one mode of enabling an elector to give his vote independently ; and that is, by keeping it out of sight.