A REMEDY FOR CORRUPTION.
Boulangists sometimes hit the nail on the head.
They are wise from their point of view in making a fuss about the accusation brought by M. Numa Gully against the Budget Committee, and right from any point of view in proposing that pecuniary corruption in a Deputy, or a person holding a trust either from the State or a Municipality, should be made a highly penal offence. Lord Randolph Churchill, to his great credit be it spoken, anticipated the Boulangists in that proposal, and displayed in doing so one of his rare flashes of insight into the actuality of things. Nothing can be more singular or more certain than the present position of opinion in civi- lised countries upon pecuniary corruption in representatives or officials. Upon the one hand, the tendency towards bribe-taling undoubtedly increases. We are not sure that it increases in proportion to the spread of democracy, for we know that it was rampant under the Second Empire, and is rampant in Russia, and we see reason to believe that it has assumed dangerous proportions in countries like Austria, where birth is the passport to place, or like Spain, where the monarchy is still the depository of ultimate power. It may be that the increase of the offence is due to the rise everywhere of men full of intelli- gence and also of cravings for luxury, but not possessed of the means which in our day ensure their gratification. What is certain is that the crime increases, and is not checked by democracy, corruption being most visible in America and France, and beginnin. to make its appearance also in England. No Members of Parliament have been convicted of bribe-taking yet, but the interest they show in contracts, in Indian " improvements," and in the Acts necessary to great Companies, is sometimes suspiciously keen ; while important members of municipal bodies have two or three times recently been exposed. Nobody, in fact, denies the charge when made in general terms ; and the public make it, especially in France and America, three times for every case submitted to investigation. On the other hand, the increasing belief in official dishonesty is not accompanied by any increasing tolerance for it. On the contrary, the public resentment against it seems every day to grow sharper. In America, the worst bribe-takers constantly commit suicide when found out, and it is neces- sary for the guilty to bribe jurymen, and sometimes Judges, because if the Court is impartial, the verdict of the jury and the sentence of the Judge are sure to be severe. In France, a charge of the kind, though never satisfactorily proved, blew down a powerful Govern- ment, and nearly shattered the Republic ; and in Eng- land, the strongest Municipality in the country, though armoured in statutes and disposing of means like those of a second-rate Kingdom, found, when once suspected, neither in Parliament nor the Press a single defender. The public in all three countries, to judge by the evidence, loathe corruption ; and as corruption is rife, the total result is that the institutions under which it is possible are themselves discredited. Party government in America, Parliamentary government in France, and municipal in- stitutions in England, are more endangered by accusations of corruption than by any kind of criticism, however acrid, or any kind of opposition, however bitter. The popular conclusion may be unjust—we think in part it is unjust, for courtiers are as bribable as democrats—but no one who watches with open eyes the course of events will doubt either its prevalence or its potency.
It follows inevitably that those who, like Lord Randolph Churchill and the Boulangists, propose that bribe-takers shall be punished like ordinary criminals, are not only in the right, but will receive credit from the multitude for their propositions. They are in the right not only because bribe-taking is one of the worst forms of breach of trust, a direct and base swindle upon the helpless, but because there is no known method of at once checking the crime, and checking the baseless suspicion of the crime, equal to a public trial by the ordinary methods. The public understands criminal trials and the evidence produced at them as it understands nothing else, and will acquit after a regular trial as it never acquits while the accusation is confined to rumour or the journals. The bribe-takers, again, are cowed by the fear of punishment —actual ordinary legal punishment—as they are cowed by nothing else. They are indifferent to opprobrium, and they will risk demands for restitution ; but they dread hard labour more than mortal disease, and are ready to escape imprisonment by suicide. Even acquittal, if they are guilty, terrifies them, for they live on their reputations, and know perfectly well that, except in extreme circum- stances, nobody will buy men whose adhesion is of itself proof of dishonesty somewhere. They dread, in truth, punishment more than other thieves, for the very motive of their offences is the desire for luxurious or easy lives. We have no more doubt that punishment will check bribe-taking, than we have that it will check swindling, and the justice of the penalty is exactly the same in the one case as the other, or if there is any difference, it is in favour of severity to the bribe-taker. He is robbing the very men who, in their confidence in his character and his fidelity, have trusted him with power. The only question for argument is the method and the extent of the punishment, and on this we agree substantially with the Boulangists,—that is to say, that the penalty should be the same as that for fraud, or imprisonment with the addition of per- manent disqualification for election or for office. The man who takes bribes should cease to be a citizen, like any other convict. He has shown himself unworthy, and should be forbidden to deceive the people again. We only wish the bribe-giver could be punished too, for though not equally guilty, he not having accepted a trust the con- dition of which is fidelity, he has done his best to incite another to a foul swindle. Unfortunately, if we punish him we preclude evidence, for it becomes his peremptory interest to be silent, and it is not expedient, whenever bribe- taking is suspected, to promise pardon to the bribe-givers on condition of their telling the truth. That must be done sometimes, as it has been done recently, but it always demoralises the public conscience, and always creates the false impression that bribery is an offence against law only, and not against the plainest dictates of ordinary morals.
So far, then, from thinking that M. de Susini's proposal will do the Boulangists harm, we believe that it will tend directly to increase their popularity. In its present form it is absurdly crude, for it makes the bringing of a regular charge with evidence, a penal offence if the evidence is not believed or is insufficient ; but it inflicts punishment on bribe-takers not for conspiracy, or fraud, or the obtain- ing of money under false pretences, but for bribe- taking; and the public will heartily approve. Their morale also may be low, and their conduct often indefensible, but in this instance at least, their interests will not be found to obscure their consciences. Bad or good, they do not want to be robbed. To do them justice, indeed, there is in all large masses of men an instinct which teaches them that the sale of a public trust for private gain is shameful as well as bad, and indicates in itself an utter rottenness of character. The offence, constantly pardoned by Kings, is, when once clearly proved, never pardoned by the multitude, who, again, assign to disinterestedness an almost absurd place in the list of virtues. The people thought it a. glory in Pitt to have died heavily in debt ; and of all the pre- posterous charges at one time levelled against Mr. Glad- stone, the one which did him most service was that he was, for an English Premier, comparatively a poor man. There is hardly any degree of severity towards bribe-takers which the public will not endorse ; and whether in America, France, or England, the party which first makes of bribe• taking a specific legal offence, punishable like embezzle ment, and entailing disqualification for office, will be held, like Lord Beaconsfield when he punished Parliamentary bribery, to have deserved well of the country. Lord Randolph Churchill was shrewd in seeing that, as well as right-minded; and so, whatever their party motives may be, are the Boulangists. If the Republic falls, it will fall for many reasons, its atheistic intolerance being one ; but the most effective cause of its ruin will be the sympathetic tolerance with which its representatives have agreed to shut their eyes to evidence of public theft.
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