THE WALSALL ELECTION PETITION.
pUBLIC opinion on electoral corruption is a pendulum constantly on the swing. Before the Corrupt Practices Act was passed, all decent people had been shocked by the amount of indirect bribery which every- where prevailed. The ballot from which so much was expected had proved effective enough as regards intimi- dation; but as regards corruption, it had only changed the form, not the substance, of the offence. Bribery was still resorted to, though the persons bribing had to go without certain evidence that they had got value for their money. They bribed in the confident hope that every penny spent during election time was bread cast upon the waters. It created a favourable impression,—an impression that the candidate was "a free-handed gentleman" for whom it was the right thing to vote. Whether these outlays often affected the result of an election is doubtful. If they had been re- sorted to only by one side, they would, no doubt, have had great influence, for a large part of the electorat .; has not yet risen above the conviction that a vote ought to have a value in exchange as well as a value in use. But the balance was ordinarily kept even, by the readiness of both parties to make the opinion of the electors their standard of electoral morality. If equals be added to equals, the wholes are equal, and when both sides spent money freely, the electors were unwittingly raised to the level of Bacon, and took bribes to do what they would equally have done without a bribe. Bribery, however, has two vices. It tends to make the House of Commons an untrue repre- sentation of the electoral mind, and it degrades and weakens the electoral mind itself. These two vices do not necessarily disappear together. Since the ballot, we doubt whether bribery has had any appreciable action on the composition of the House of Commons. The men who would have been returned if the elections had been pure, have for the most part been returned when the elections were corrupt. But the morality of the electors suffered considerably. If they did not vote against their convictions in consideration of so many quarts of beer, they came to regard their convictions as machinery which could not be put into action without so many quarts of beer being poured in first. To remedy this, the Corrupt Practices Act was passed; and treating of all kinds—even the almost indispensable treating of giving the voter a lift to the poll—was strictly forbidden. A more comprehensive statute was never passed. The candidate's legitimate expenses were defined and limited. He can only spend money on certain specified objects, and even on these specified objects he can only spend a specified sum. So far as legislation is competent to check the universal desire to buy a thing you want when it is on sale, the Corrupt Practices Act has answered its purpose. The one loop-hole that it leaves open, is one that cannot be closed without making candidates answerable for the sins of those over whom they have no control. For what they do by themselves, or by their agents, they may justly be made to suffer ; but to make them suffer for what enthusiastic supporters may do on their behalf, would outrage public sentiment, and place a candidate at the mercy not merely of injudicious friends, but of enemies passing themselves off as friends.
The result of the Walsall election petition is an apt illustration of the far-reaching character of the Act. For the charges of bribery, treating, and general corruption, no evidence of any value was offered. Mr. Baron Pollock, in giving judgment, declared that, considering the number of public-houses, it was to the credit of the town that nothing more had taken place. But of one offence Mr. James had undoubtedly been guilty. A large number of hat-cards had been ordered, and Mr. James had paid for them. In the election accounts appeared the items, "two thousand cards for hats, with Play-up Swifts' on them, and two thousand more on stout paper.' On all these cards was a photograph of the candidate, and what Mr. Baron Pollock decorously described as "words of encouragement to vote for him." They were all prepared to be worn in the hats of the candidate's supporters ; they were so worn ; and Mr. James had paid for them, knowing that they had been used for that purpose. His defence was that he did not know that the practice was contrary to law, and, morally, this is a good defence. In interpreting a Statute so full of minute particulars, any one may be excused for not seeing at a glance the whole scope of its multiple pro- hibitions. But though ignorance of the law excuses the offender, it does not do away with the offence. Mr. James had ordered and paid for these hat-cards innocently, but he had none the less committed an act which legally makes void an election. To relieve him from the consequences of that act, would be to go in the teeth of the law. It is hard on Mr. James ; but if the Statute is to be of any use, it must be enforced against all who violate it. To allow questions of the interpretation put on it to come in, would be to convert it from a Corrupt Practices Prevention Act into a Corrupt Motives Pre- vention Act. Naturally, however, such a decision gives the pendulum of public opinion a good push in a direction contrary to the Act. The offence is so slight compared with the penalty. 'There is nothing illegal in wearing a hat-card. Any one who likes to show the strength and tendency of his political feelings in this way is free to do so. But if the cards are provided at the cost of the candidate, the election is void. A may wear B's card if he chooses to pay for it. But if B pays for it, and then gives it to A, and A puts it in his hat, the law steps in and condemns B to lose his seat. Certainly, we repeat, it seems hard. Here is an election, which in all other respects has been fairly conducted, declared void, all the money spent on it wasted, and the constituency condemned to the annoyance of a hard contest, just because the candidate inadvertently pays for the cards his supporters stick in their hats. What can be more unreasonable ? What can be a better reason, —not, indeed, for seating Mr. James, but for altering the law which has unseated him ?
It is a very natural inquiry, and yet to give the answer which those who make it expect would be to afford a fresh illustration of the maxim that "Hard cases make bad law." Why has Parliament forbidden so many seemingly innocent acts at election time ? Why may not a candidate give his friends a glass of beer, or pay cab-hire for them, no matter how far they may live from the voting-stations, -or cheer their drooping spirits by providing bands to march at their head and discourse sweet music to them on their way to the poll, or gratify their love of colour and brightness by decking them out in his colours ? The answer to all these questions is the same. Because .there is not one of these items of expense, harmless as each may be in itself, which is not capable of being made a vehicle of corruption. The friendly glass of beer admits of being multiplied like a very widow's cruse,—until at last a large fraction of the constituency votes only from a drunken gratitude to the man who has placed draughts of such unwonted magnitude and potency within its reach. The considerate lift on the road to the voting-station becomes a means of bribing every man who has a vehicle of any sort that can colourably be used for the purpose. The band, by a generous interpretation of the players' musical faculty, may be turned to the same account. And even the party badge—the rosette, the streamers, or the photograph—may be an occasion for paying the makers and the distributors nominally for goods sup- plied, but really for their "vote and interest." We have only to declare these trifling attentions to the voter once more legal, and the evils which the Corrupt Practices Act was designed to prevent will, in a short time, be as rampant as ever. If we are determined to put down corruption, we must not be content with forbidding acts which are flagrantly corrupt. We must be prepared to forbid a number of acts which, though they may not be corrupt in themselves, are still corrupt in the uses to which they admit of being turned. It is a case of willing the means if we really will the end. It is an arguable point, of course, whether in the matter of Electoral cor- ruption, the means are not so irritating that it becomes a question whether Electoral purity is worth buying at • the price of so much inconvenience. Probably, when a general election is just over, a good many election agents are ready to protest that it is not. But, though arguable, it has already been abundantly argued. When the Cor- rupt Practices Prevention Act was under discussion, these very objections were urged again and again in debate, and urged without result. The unseating of an innocent Member here and there, whatever annoyance it may entail on the sufferer, is no reason for repealing pro hibitions which were deliberately enacted, after full consideration and with ample warning of the con- sequences they would entail. If we do but recall the universal and deep-seated corruption which used to characterise certain constituencies, and the seemingly harmless acts which were made to minister to it, we shall feel that if Mr. James is sacrificed, he is, at least, sacrificed to a genuine public need. And, after all, it does not require any very irksome precautions to secure a candidate against a similar annoyance. If he cannot master the Statute himself, he can at least take care to employ an adviser who can master it. Mr. James's error seems to have been due to an excess of paternal affection. He wished to provide his son with an interesting employ ment, while providing himself with a seat. In future, candidates will do well to keep their emotions in better order, and to remember that a good son is not of necessity a good agent.
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