The Report of the Committee on Parliamentary and Municipal Elections
has been published. It is not yet official, as the Com- mittee will reassemble next session, but it is understood that Lord Hartington's Draft Report will be accepted. According to this report, there are gross bribery and treating in municipal elections, much bribery and some intimidation in Parliamentary borough elections, and in county elections great intimidation. In England, county electors either "do not desire or do not dare" to vote against their landlords ; in Ireland, landlords and mobs both intimidate; and only in Scotland are elections free. The report recommends the ballot as the remedy, more especially for rioting,
advises the closing of all public-houses on the day of election, and condemns previous "nominations." It is clear from the proceed- ings that the Old Whigs have accepted the ballot as well as the Radicals, and opposition therefore is nearly hopeless. We can but repeat that voting is a public duty, that no public duty ought to be done in the dark, and that the Scotch plan of doing one's duty regardless of consequences, is infinitely preferable to the proposed one of doing or neglecting to do it in secret.
