MOOT POINTS IN ELECTION-LAW.
LET it be granted, for argument's sake, that the landlord has a right to dictate how his tenants are to vote at elections ; that the landlords of England are to be represented in Parliament on the same principle as the Slave-holding States are represented in Congress—so many Black slaves being counted equivalent to one White voter. Tenants, then, are to have no will of their own in politics. But the law, which requires that they shall go through the form of voting in person—that the landlord shall not say at the poll, " I, having so many tenants, give so many votes for Mr. .4******* "—requires that this form shall be observed. In all civilized societies a decorum is expected even in humbug. The man who tells another that he is his "very obedient servant" probably means nothing, but he does not thrust his tongue in his cheek. The law requires, and people expeit, that the dictation to tenants should not be do open or avowed. A decent covering ought to, be drawn over this, as Mr. Canning might have called it, shameful part of the constitution. In the heat of elections landlords are too apt to overlook this maxim. For example, the Honourable Montgomery Stewart sinned grievously against its dictates at the recent Kircudbright election. In his opinion, the Cally tenants have hitherto voted fir Whig candidate's simply because their landlord was a Whig ; and the estate having now passed into a Conservative family, it is their duty to vote for Conservatives. He issues his mandate ac- cordingly. He forgets that the votes of tenants are meant to seem free, and that the sudden wheel he -calls upon the Cally tenants to make is incompatible with such a seeming. Two years hence, when Parliament dies a natural death, he may have a right to compel the Cally tenants to change sides ; but to ask them to reverse their votes before one blade of grass has had time to grow on their late landlord's grave, is a gross violation of the decorums of fudge. It is exacting more than his right—ob- liging the tenants not only to be mere machines, but to confess that they are. Another question in this important branch of constitutional law is raised by the circular which the Hon. Montgomery Stewart has addressed to the Cally tenants. Does the landlords right to dictate his tenants' votes vest during minority in the guardian or trustee ? In all other rights of ownership the powers of the guardian or trustee are more restricted than those of a proprietor, and that may be the case here also. The Honourable Mont- gomery Stewart is not the laird of Cally, but only the laird's grandfather. This question may give rise to another—In whom does the right vest of prescribing how tenants are to vote during a minority? Are the tenants to be left in the exercise of a law- less self-will till their young landlord comes of age? Or is it the function of the Court of Session to tell all the tenants, or of the Kirk-Session to tell the tenants of each parish, how they are to vote at each election? Or are the tenants bound to go on voting as their last lord bade them, until the new one comes to the legal years of discretion ? Irrespective of legal doubts and difficulties, there is a pru- dential consideration that ought to have some wetlit with gen- tlemen in the situation of Mr. Montgomery Stewart. The spirit of contradiction is deeply rooted in most minds. Minors are pro. verbially inclined to thwart guardians, were it only to show their independent judgment. The late Conservative representative of a county in the South of Scotland is understood to have adopted that side of politics to show his displeasure at the peremptory manner in which his political influence was disposed of by his Whig guardian during his minority. The young laird of Cally may be equally perverse ; and the Conservatives of the Stewartry, by being in too great a hurry to use the political influence of an estate, may throw it permanently into the hands of the opposite party.
These are " doubts" in Scotch constitutional law which it may require a new Dirleton to resolve.
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