The story of the elections would be dull this week
but for two small scandals. The story of the elections would be dull this week but for two small scandals.
Mr. Grantley Berkeley has denounced the attempted "sale of a county " ; his brother being the delinquent. Earl Fitzhardinge had proposed, through a committee of gentlemen, a set of terms which amounts to this : Mr. Grantley Berkeley was to abandon his claims to the seat for West Gloucestershire, as a candidate, or even as a Member if elected,—vacating it in favour of Mr. Gren- ville Berkeley ; Mr. Grantley to receive 200/. for his observance of the terms, Mr. Henry Berkeley 1,000/, for being neuter. In a letter to the Times, Lord Fitzhardinge disclaims any attempt to "sell" the county; avers that the arrangement was sanctioned by a number of influential persons ; and declares that he had. "family reasons" for it. The other case is a private letter from Mr. Henry Tufnell, the Secretary to the Treasury, to Lord Melgund, which has strayed into the papers through some breach of confidence, and has been made a wonderment in the House of Commons. In this letter Mr. Tufnell avows that he used all his influence with Lord Mel- gund to induce him not to stand for Greenock, as it would be inconvenient to the Ministerial interests.
We see nothing marvellous in either of these cases. Mr. Tufnell's is a friendly note ; and if Mr. Bankes supposes that Secretaries to the Treasury do not pay any regard to Ministerial interests in election affairs, why, Bankes is "greener" than that "whereon the wild thyme grows." As to Lord Fitzhardinge's case, peers are prohibited from interfering- at elections, but it is notorious that they habitually do so. .Nor is this so nnuch "the
attempted sale of a county," as the attempted sale of a candidate, who is estimated at an extraordinary cheap rate. The scandal
here is not so much the treatment of the electors, as the extraor- dinary money bargaining. between brothers whose years ought to have brought more worshipful demeanour. It is idle to whine at these " irregularities " : they would not occur but for that state of the elective franchise which makes tampering feasible.
