said, he rose to propose the second reading of a clause, the object of which was to provide for a prompt and inexpensive manner of settling disputed accounts relating to elections without proceedings in a Court of Law. It was customary in Ireland for the Courts of Law to refer matters of this kind to the Masters, who adjudicated upon the case in Chambers with the parties before them. It might be urged that it would be impossible for the Master or any other official to settle disputed rates of charge; but no difficulty arose in practice. For instance, with respect to printing and newspaper accounts, both the Landed Estates Court and the Bankruptcy Court settled scales of charge which were acquiesced in by newspaper proprietors and printers through-out Ireland and acted on; and a provision was made in the Bankruptcy Act of 1857 that the fees of all brokers, agents, and such persons, should be taxed and ascertained by taxing officers. He believed he had made it clear that the difficulty of carrying out his proposal would not be very great, and that the system which he advocated had worked well, and proved conclusively that the amounts due to persons in respect of election accounts could be ascertained in a satisfactory manner by the same means. He thought it a hardship that a candidate who found himself charged with items that he believed to be unfair, and not in accordance with custom, should only be able to find out the truth of the matter by means of trying out an action at law; besides, if he made a mistake in his calculations, and lodged in Court even 30s. less than the amount awarded by the jury, he would find himself saddled with all the costs of the action. He, therefore, proposed that as soon as the account which the candidate believed to contain exorbitant items was furnished, a notice should be served on the claimant requiring him to submit the account to a Master of one of the Courts of Common Law for the purpose of ascertaining the correct amount payable to him. Immediately on receipt of the notice either party might proceed before the Master; and no other proceedings were to be taken before he had adjudicated upon the account, and no further sum than that ascertained by him could be recovered. He thought, now that a maximum amount had been fixed for the expenses of a candidate's election, that it was most desirable that the candidate should get the best value for his money, and that one creditor should not be allowed to exhaust the greater part of that maximum by charging exorbitant fees. He would not detain the Committee further than to express a hope that the Committee would see the desirability of candidates knowing the amounts they had to pay, without being obliged to involve themselves in expensive litigation. He begged to move the clause which stood in his name.

said, the Committee had already determined this matter in Clause 23, Sub-section 7, and, under the circumstances, he must adhere to the decision arrived at.

said, he was sorry the Attorney General did not see his way to consider the clause of the hon. Member for Monaghan. He did not see any analogy between what had been done in the earlier part of the Bill referred to by the Attorney General and the proposal of the hon. Member. Clause 23 merely said that certain things should constitute a separate claim, and be treated accordingly. But the hon. Member opposite wished to deal with cases where the agent, the candidate, or other persons might have no dispute whatever as to the work done—cases, for instance, in which the candidate would say, "I admit your retainer, and I admit the work was done; I only dispute your price." The hon. Gentleman asked that in cases of that kind the candidate might have a summary remedy, by bringing the matter cheaply and expeditiously before a Master of one of the Superior Courts, who would settle it in about 10 minutes. Everyone knew that there was a special tariff at election times as against the candidate, and he said that if the Committee shut their eyes to that fact they would pass by a most fruitful source of extravagance. The clause of the hon. Member provided a summary means of adjudicating upon and fixing election charges; and that clause, as it appeared to him, was refused without any reason whatever. Under those circumstances, it was, of course, idle for the hon. Member to go to a Division. He would have been glad if the Attorney General had seen his way to agree to the second reading of the clause; and, in that case, he would himself have suggested some verbal changes which he believed would have made it less open to criticism. They should bear in mind that there were two rates of charges at election times, and that the very minute a man became a candidate he had to pay 20s. for what at other times he would only pay 10s. He thought it would be a wise thing, under the circumstances, for his hon. Friend to consider whether he could not re-draft the clause, after referring to the debate that occurred on Clause 23, and bring it up again on Report in a form that might commend itself to the judgment of the Attorney General.

pointed out that in the discussion on Clause 23 it was said that if the tribunal named in the clause was to determine the matter in dispute at the option of the creditor or the debtor, the other party would have to go to the English or the Irish Metropolis.

said, he had mentioned already that in the Landed Estates Court only a certain price was allowed for work done; for instance, a price was fixed for a certain number of words in a line of print, and advertisements were taken by all the newspapers in Ireland at this rate of charge. The question of disputed liability on contract did not arise on his clause; that could be tried in the ordinary way in a Court of Law.

said, the proposal to fix the charges was totally unworkable. How, for instance, could they fix in the Schedule the charge to be made for an advertisement in The Times? The advertisement would probably not be accepted at the price.

said, he agreed with what the Attorney General had said as to the difficulty of making the parties take their case before the Taxing Master in Dublin or London; nevertheless, he considered there was great weight in the proposal of the hon. Member for Monoghan (Mr. Findlater). He suggested that the Registrars of the County Courts in England and Ireland would constitute good tribunals for settling those disputed accounts. These Registrars were in the habit of hearing the value of different articles supplied in their districts, and settling the amount of costs arising out of questions of this kind. Another reason in favour of this suggestion was that it would obviate the difficulty pointed out by the Attorney General, that the parties would have to go before a Master either in London or Dublin. He believed the Amendment of the hon. Member, if it were altered in the manner he suggested, would afford a means of deciding the charges in question in a satisfactory manner.

said, he held in his hand a Schedule in use in the Landed Estates Court, which set out the prices of the different kinds of work done.

said, it was desirable that there should be some easy way of settling these charges. He trusted the Attorney General would reconsider the clause, with a view to putting the settlement of disputed charges on a simple basis.

said, he hoped the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Findlater) would introduce a clause that would fix the maximum charge for printing, because within his own experience the cost of that work had gone up three-fold of late years. He did not know whether hon. Members opposite, whilst cutting down all other expenses, wished to continue the system of blandishment by means of the newspapers; he certainly did not concur in such a policy, although, of course, it was necessary that there should be an insertion in the newspapers that such a man was a candidate for election. But while the cost of business advertisements was perfectly well understood, that was not the case with electioneering advertisements, which, in the matter of price, were open to abuse. He did not, of course, complain of reasonable charges on the part of newspaper proprietors, who ran great risks, and must indemnify themselves proportionately; but his wish was to limit the total charge for advertisements, in connection with elections, to a moderate amount. He trusted the Attorney General would be able to give some assurance that he would, in this matter, endeavour to meet the wishes of the hon. Member for Monaghan.

said, after the discussion which had taken place, he would ask leave to withdraw the clause for the purpose of bringing it forward again on Report.

said, he had to propose a very important clause. They had been occupied for a long time in regulating the expenses at elections, and he thought they had, in some cases, succeeded in reducing them to a very low point. Hon. Members were aware that the costs in connection with Election Petitions were in a much more unsatisfactory state than the costs of elections, notwithstanding the proposals that had been made to regulate them. Now, he thought it would be following the principle of the Bill if a maximum were established for Petition costs; and, accordingly, he proposed that the costs given against the sitting Member, or against the Petitioner in any Election Petition, should not exceed twice the maximum of the election expenses allowed under the Bill. He believed that if the Committee saw fit to adopt that proposal, it would effect a very considerable reduction of the cost of Election Petitions. He begged to move the clause which stood in his name.

said, that the trial of an Election Petition, as a rule, lasted many days, during which time counsel would have to be paid for every day. Under those circumstances it would be impossible to keep the costs down, and the effect of the clause would be that the balance over the amount allowed would have to be paid by the candidate himself. It was impossible to apply the arbitrary rule proposed by the hon. and gallant Member, because there was no connection between the costs of an Election Petition and the expenses of an election. Under the circumstances, he could not accept the clause.

said, he would suggest that the difficulty would be met by omitting the words "or against the petitioner," which would simply limit the costs against the sitting Member.

said, he thought it was a pity not to accept this clause. The Attorney General said, if counsel were present every day, the expense of thousands of pounds could not be avoided. The object of the hon. and gallant Member for Galway was not to fix an amount for the costs of a Petition, but to fix a maximum beyond which they could not go.

said, the clause had this advantage, that it would enable a man to petition against an election at a reasonable expense. If the clause were not adopted, the sitting Member might be able to prevent his opponent obtaining his right. He thought it a most valuable proposal on the part of the hon. and gallant Member.

said, the Attorney General stated that a man must engage the best counsel to defend his honour.

I said you may engage any counsel you like, but that if you engage him, you must pay him.

said, that was sufficiently near for his argument. If a man engaged the best counsel, he understood the Attorney General to say that his honour would be pretty safe; but that otherwise it would not be so. He (Colonel Nolan) thought that the purse of the candidate was much more in danger than his honour. But the effect of a maximum would be that the Judges would make the Petitions cheap.

said, he had little doubt that every Member returned to the next Parliament would have to defend himself against a Petition. He had no doubt the Attorney General desired to make elections cheaper; and, therefore, he presumed he would be willing to say that a candidate should be able to take his seat in that House without being ruined. A Friend of his at present in the House, who was a Petitioner, gained the suit, the costs, £18,000, were given in his favour, yet he was £4,000 out of pocket. Now, if there were a maximum beyond which the parties could not go they would have to minimize their expenses; they would say to themselves—"We will get the best counsel we can, but only call those witnessed who are important." It was perfectly monstrous that a man should be liable to be mulcted in these enormous sums of money. If there was a maximum, that maximum would not be exceeded, because the parties to a Petition would call all their best and important witnesses, and not put the frivolous witnesses in the box. He trusted his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Galway (Colonel Nolan) would go to a Division.

said, he rose to move the following new Clause:—

said, he would remind the Committee that they had had the pleasure of hearing the speech of the hon. Gentleman the Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Stanley Leighton) once before, as he had used the self-same arguments on the clauses referring to committee rooms. The hon. Gentleman had said he had taken that course at his (the Attorney General's) request; but there could not possibly be a greater mistake.

said, what he had stated was that he hoped to have the hon. and learned Gentleman's approval.

said, the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Stanley Leighton) had also stated that he did not mean to include Scotland in the provisions of the clause. He (the Attorney General) presumed that that was in obedience to the speech of the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for South Ayrshire (Colonel Alexander), who, rising from his (Mr. Stanley Leighton's) side of the House, had said he could not see the slightest harm in meetings being held in places of worship as was the case in Scotland. As a matter of fact, the Scotch had no other places of meeting, and it was found that there was not the slightest injury done by their assembling in such places. He (the Attorney General) could not see why, if it was not a desecration in Scotland, it should be a desecration in England. [An hon. MEMBER: Or in Wales.] It was impossible for the Committee to tell a clergyman what he should say to his congregation. For instance, hon. Members opposite would not for a moment contend that a clergyman at Northampton should be prevented from denouncing, if he chose, Mr. Bradlaugh. He did not consider that they ought to interfere with the right of religious bodies to conduct their places of worship as they thought fit; and, considering that they had discussed the matter before, and that they had a very hard day's work before them, he respectfully asked the Committee to come to a speedy determination upon this point.

said, he did not intend to speak at any length upon the question; but, as he did not take part in the discussion on a somewhat similar Amendment which his hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Stanley Leighton) had moved some days ago, he might be permitted to make a few remarks. The hon. and learned Gentleman had not answered one point that had been made by the hon. Gentleman the Member for North Shropshire—namely, that the buildings referred to were relieved from the payment of rates on the ground that they were to be exclusively used for religious purposes. He should like to know whether the hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General would hold that an election meeting was so exclusively a religious purpose as to entitle the place in question to exemption from public rates? He should be glad to know whether, in the event of any overseer attempting to rate a Dissenting chapel used for the purpose of a political meeting, it would be held by any legal authority that a political meeting was a religious meeting? A meeting might have been held in a chapel at Northampton for the promotion of the election of Mr. Bradlaugh. Would that be held to be so exclusively a religious purpose as to exempt the building from any contribution to the public burdens? Reference had been made to the case of Wales. Now, he and the Attorney General might be allowed to differ on the question as to the use of chapels in Wales for political purposes. As a matter of fact, the chapels of Wales were so used for the exclusive purposes of one political Party. Some little time ago a Dissenting chapel was built on land immediately adjoining some property of his (Mr. Raikes') own; and he was asked whether he would lease to the trustees an adjoining piece of land, on which to build a Sunday school and mission room in connection with the chapel? He said at once that he should be extremely happy to let them have the land at almost absolutely no rent—at a peppercorn rent—if they would undertake that they would not use the room for political purposes; and the negotiation immediately fell through. This was only another illustration of the use which so-called places of reli- gious worship were put to in Wales. He hoped his hon. Friend (Mr. Stanley Leighton) would take the sense of the Committee on the matter; because, at the present time, there was certainly a strong feeling which prevented members of the Church of England from devoting their churches to political purposes. [Mr. DODDS: Oh, oh!] He did not believe that the hon. Member for Stockton (Mr. Dodds) would find any clergyman of the Church of England in his own borough ready to open his church for any political meeting. The feeling of the members of the Church of England was very strongly opposed to the use of their churches for such purposes; and he had very great doubt as to whether it would be a legal use so to appropriate those churches. It was, therefore, extremely unfair that other religious bodies should be allowed exclusively, as they pleased, to turn their buildings, which enjoyed exemptions on account of their religious character, into committee rooms or meeting houses in support of any particular candidate. This clause would certainly tend to remedy what was an admitted injustice, and to promote considerably the freedom of elections from undue influence.

said, they were all very much obliged to the Attorney General for the lead he had given them in going through the clauses of that Bill. He did not think, however, that they were equally obliged to the hon. and learned Gentleman when he spoke of the hard day's work that was in front of them, and hinted to the obedient majority behind him that discussion on this subject was to be suppressed. There was good reason why the Liberal Party should want to suppress certain subjects in that discussion. There was a great difference between the Liberal Party and the Tory Party on that question. The Tory Party preferred religion to politics, and to reverence its houses of God; but the Liberal Party preferred politics to religion, and to desecrate its religious places. Every church in Wales was turned into an election meeting house. The Church of England, on the contrary, held aloof from all political Parties. It did not attach itself to one Party or the other. On the other hand, the Liberal Party always boasted that the Nonconformists were its backbone; and no doubt it was on that account that the Government looked with favour upon the use of Dissenting chapels in Wales for political purposes. As a matter of fact, in Wales a spiritual despotism prevailed to an extent that was utterly unknown in the Church of England, or even in the Church of Home. He knew that men had actually withdrawn their names from a committee because they had been threatened with damnation by the wretched Welsh ministers if they allowed their names to remain on the committee list. He (Mr. Warton) hoped the point so ably stated by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. Raikes) would be taken advantage of some time or other. He hoped that the Excise would awake to the importance of settling this great question in Wales, and that the so-called places of religious worship in the Principality would be rated as they deserved. The Welsh people had little regard for the sacredness of their chapels, and he was inclined to remind them of what the highest authority had said—

"My house shall be called of all nations the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves."

said, he differed entirely from the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Bridport who had just addressed the Committee. He considered that politics were not so impure and unclean as the hon. and learned Gentleman seemed to imagine; indeed, he (Mr. Richard) thought it would be better for many of them if they made politics a part of their religion. He did not consider that to hold political meetings in a place dedicated to public worship was any desecration of such a building at all. Some hon. Gentlemen who had addressed the Committee had been kind enough to take the chapels of Wales under their guardianship; but if Wales had not sent to the House of Commons such a large preponderance of Liberal Members they would not have heard so much of this question. He doubted whether hon. Gentlemen who railed so much against the state of things in Wales had ever attended a Welsh chapel on the occasion of the holding of a political meeting, because it was evident they did not understand the manner in which meetings in these places were conducted. He (Mr. Richard) had attended many of these meetings, and, even in the midst of the excitement of a contested election, he had never seen anything that was not perfectly orderly and discreet, or anything that would throw discredit upon any place. He hoped the Government would not listen to this proposal.

said, that in the absence of his right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Lancashire (Sir R. Assheton Cross) he would move the clause which stood in his right hon. Friend's name—namely—

said, he shared in the views of his right hon. and learned Friend, and was anxious to do everything he could to lessen the election expenses; but he was afraid that it was absolutely impossible to make the reduction which the right hon. and learned Gentleman proposed. All Returning Officers agreed that it was exceedingly difficult to carry out the present scale, which was quite low enough; and he would mention an instance in which the expenses incurred by the Returning Officer had been considerably more, and were afterwards paid by the candidates.

said, he was sorry that the Attorney General could not accept this Amendment of the right hon. and learned Gentleman. The hon. and learned Gentleman said he had had communication with the Returning Officers, who said that the limit was not too high; but his (Mr. Rylands's) experience led him to the belief that if they put a lower limit the work would be still done. Unfortunately, the candidates were not able to check the matter themselves when the time came for paying the expenses of the Returning Officer. The Attorney General would be aware that candidates were often embarrassed by various considerations, and that they were unable to take measures for the protection of their own interests. They found themselves bound to submit. Personally, he had had two distinct experiences. His first experience of the Returning Officers' charges was in the borough of Warrington, and was of such an extraordinary character that his hon. Opponent (Sir Gilbert Greenall) and himself were driven to take the unusual course of saying that they would strike £100 off the bill, and they succeeded in getting it reduced by that sum. But in the borough of Burnley, which he now represented, the Returning Officer's charges were of a most moderate description. Everything was managed, not only in an economical, but in a most efficient manner. It would thus be seen that there was a very great difference in the way in which Returning Officers acted in regard to election expenses. It was a sort of local expenditure, which did not come out of the pocket of the Returning Officer; and, therefore, some gentlemen were very careless indeed as to the arrangements they made for taking the poll, and in providing the other requirements connected with an election. He had no doubt that if the expenditure was charged upon the rates, instead of being borne by the candidates, the cost of the polling stations and the other arrangements would be very much less; and if the right hon. and learned Gentleman went to a Division he should certainly support him. He was of opinion that great advantage would result from limiting the expenditure. The Returning Officers would then cut their coats according to their cloth, and would have very little difficulty in keeping the expenditure within the limit specified in the Act.

said, he very much doubted whether, if these expenses were charged upon the rates, the Returning Officer would cut them down, because the Returning Officer would be in no degree responsible to the ratepayers, and when authorities were not responsible to the ratepayers he suspected they would be quite as ready to make the ratepayers pay as anybody else. What he would venture to suggest was this. The Attorney General said that the present maximum of 7 guineas was by no means too high in some cases; but there were cases in which the polling station was held in a schoolroom, where a sum of 7 guineas would, by no means, be required. Might not the hon. and learned Gentleman meet the matter by enacting the maximum average charge should be 5 guineas, so that if there were 10 polling stations a total sum should be allowed of 50 guineas. But when the amount came to be paid it would be found that while one polling station cost 5 guineas others would cost less.

said, he knew a great deal about this subject, and had received many communications in regard to it. No Returning Officer was allowed to charge more than the actual expenditure. This maximum was for the construction of a polling station. If a schoolroom was used it would be right to say to the Returning Officer—" You have only spent £2 in fitting up the schoolroom, and you shall not have anything beyond that sum." But if he contracted to build a polling station such as the old-fashioned polling-booth, then the work could not be done for less than 7 guineas. There were many items in the Schedule which he was afraid would be considered too low, and in regard to this particular item, he did not think he could with safety allow their Returning Officers to charge a less sum. On the occasion which he had mentioned the ratepayers had to pay for the work done. It was done as economically as possible, but it cost £300 more than the sum allowed. He had received hundreds of letters upon the subject, and he could not consent to any further reduction.

said, that in the absence of his right hon. Friend (Sir R. Assheton Cross), who was the author of the Amendment, he thought the best course he could take was to withdraw the Amendment, so that his right hon. Friend might bring it up again on Re-port, if he considered it desirable that the modification suggested by the right hon. Member for East Gloucestershire (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach) should be adopted.

said, he begged to move the following Clause:—

said, he was sure that the proposal was brought forward in good faith, and the only question in his mind was whether it afforded a sufficient remedy. When the matter was discussed before the difficulty pointed out was a difficulty of finding the proper tribunal. He was afraid, if the Committee accepted this clause, that they would find that the tribunal was not a very satisfactory one. It would be necessary to employ about 400 of these gentlemen, and every time a General Election took place the Lord Chancellor would have to select 400 barristers of seven years' standing to do the work. What the Lord Chancellor would say to that he did not know; but he very much doubted, if his noble and learned Friend were to ask all those barristers who were willing to give up their proper and usual functions, that he would be able to find barristers fit to perform judicial duties, or that 400 barristers of seven years' standing would be always forthcoming. But suppose that they were. Probably the average time between the issue of the Writ and the election would be about 10 days. Then, what was to happen? Let him take his right hon. Friend in his own constituency, that of Mid Kent. If a barrister of seven years' standing was sent down there, where was he to go to? He must go to some place or other, and there he would have to wait. What was he to do? Was he to walk about the streets? If so, he thought he would have very little chance of finding out what was going on. Moreover, as far as he (the Attorney General) could judge, the adoption of this clause would entail upon the candidates an expenditure of £40,000, and a good deal of it would be expended for the purpose of sending persons into perfectly pure constituencies where there had never been any corrupt practices resorted to. Let them take the case of the West Riding of Yorkshire. Where was the barrister to go to? Was he to go down somewhere to remain until he was telegraphed to go somewhere else where he might be wanted. Dealing with the matter practically, he did not believe that they would often be able to catch a briber red-handed. If that were possible they could always arrest them and take them before a magistrate, and prefer a charge of bribery against them; but he had never heard of such a thing taking place. If they caught the bribers at all they did not catch them red-handed, and nobody had ever yet thought of taking a person before a magistrate and charging him with bribery. Then, again, according to the suggestion of his right hon. Friend, the moment the poll was closed these barristers of seven years' standing were to go back again; and, therefore, they would be away just at the time when, if any information was to be obtained at all, it would most probably ooze out. Now, before they were asked to pay men to go down to pure constituencies for this purpose, he thought they ought to show that they would get their money's worth for the services rendered. While he regretted that they had not yet been able to find a satisfactory tribunal, and although he knew that his right hon. Friend was actuated by the very best intentions, the tribunal he had proposed was certainly not a satisfactory one. It would be unnecessary in pure constituencies to have such a tribunal, and it would be ineffective in corrupt constituencies, because bribers were not so easily detected as the right hon. Baronet imagined.

said, there was great force in what the Attorney General had stated as to the expense and the difficulty of carrying the proposal out in its entirety; but he thought they ought to endeavour to create a tribunal of some sort or other to deter persons from committing these illegal practices, and to impose an adequate punishment for the offence when it was brought home to the briber. He thought that, at all events, the matter was well worth consideration; and if the Attorney General did not see his way at the present time to appoint Justices of the Peace where there were no stipendiary magistrates, at all events let him give the power now asked for in places where there were stipendiary magistrates, and where flagrant cases occurred at the time of a General Election. It would have this great advantage—that it would enable them to deal with those carpet baggers, who were always found at election times, who went down from nobody knew where, and who disappeared immediately the election was over. It was most desirable that they should catch such men while they were engaged in their nefarious practices, and not wait until an indictment could be preferred. He thought, if the Attorney General could see his way, it would not be difficult to insert a clause in the Bill to provide that where stipendiary magistrates existed, and where the district comprised a population of not less than 10,000, the stipendiary magistrate should have the power of checking bribery on the spot, and of dealing with persons who were engaged at an election time for no other purpose than that of committing illegal practices—those "men in the moon" of whom so much had been heard.

said, the clause certainly recommended itself to his mind, although he thought that the criticism of the Attorney General with regard to barristers of seven years' standing was quite warranted. He would, however, like to know if it were not possible to give the power to the County Court Judges? There were County Court Judges all over the country, and if it were possible to snap up these persons, take them before the County Court Judges, and secure their summary punishment, it would be beneficial to the community generally.

said, that the Attorney General's criticism of the details of the clause had not produced in his mind the impression that during the 12 months the Government had had for considering what the tribunal ought to be that they had devoted any serious consideration to the question. Why should it be assumed that it was necessary in all these cases that the tribunal should be brought to the offender—why not bring the offender to the tribunal? Surely a tribunal might be created for a large area surrounding a borough. Why should it be necessary to adhere verbally to the terms of the clause, that no case should be determined, except it happened to be a complaint arising out of acts committed between the issuing of the Writ and the closing of the poll? In a borough with a stipendiary magistrate, there would be no ground for anything of the kind. He wished that more attention had been paid by the Government to the very valuable suggestion made by the hon. Member for Newcastle (Mr. J. Cowen) when the clause was last discussed by the Committee—namely, that the magistrates of a county should appoint to act on such a tribunal a certain number of persons by rota who should be disqualified from taking part in the election.

said, it seemed to him that this proposal was intimately connected with Section 40 of the Bill, which made provision for a Special Commissioner to go down to a borough and try persons charged with corrupt or illegal practices, or illegal payment, employment, or hiring, within six months after the election occurred. He thought the two cases were intimately connected. The Attorney General had given overwhelming reasons why it would be absurd to send down 400 barristers of seven years' standing to the pure constituencies in the Kingdom. It would be most absurd to send down such a person to watch his (Sir George Campbell's) constituency; because he felt quite certain that he would not find out anybody breaking the law. The principle of the provision contained in Section 40 was that when the Public Prosecutor had reason to suppose that any corruption or malpractices had been going on, he should have power to send down a Special Commissioner to try summarily any offence of that kind. He hoped the Attorney General had not altogether thrown out of consideration the possibility of restoring Section 40 in some form or other, and that there would be some tribunal provided by the Bill by which offences of this kind would be tried in a summary way, instead of by the presentation of a formal Election Petition. He thought that in that way the difficulty suggested by the hon. and learned Gentleman of finding 400 capable barristers would be got over; because, except in special cases, it would be found that the Special Commissioner would be quite sufficient.

said, he regretted the change of tone in the Attorney General's statement from that which he had adopted when the subject was before the Committee on a previous occasion. He understood then that his hon. and learned Friend entirely approved of the proposal, and that the only difference had reference to the nature of the tribunal. If the Committee would read the clause a second time, it would then be in their power to discuss the details, and especially to see whether it would be necessary to have these 400 barristers. It might be possible to confine the clause to the polling day, and to provide that it should not have effect except upon the requisition of the Returning Officer, who might have good reason to suppose that corrupt acts were likely to take place on a polling day, and that the presence of some authority with power to deal with such cases might be necessary. All these suggestions might enable the Committee to cut down the wide nature of the proposal as it now stood, and they might amend the clause after it was read a second time. But as to the nature of the thing, he did not think there could be two opinions that it was desirable to have some ready mode of putting down corruption at the moment it was taking place. He did not agree with the Attorney General that corruption of this kind did not take place on the polling day; on the contrary, he was of opinion that it was most frequently resorted to on the day of election.

Nobody ever said that it did not take place on the polling day. What I said was, that it was never found out.

said, that experience taught them that in a borough where serious corruption prevailed, there was a "man in the moon" whom nobody knew personally in attendance. It was known very well where his head-quarters were; and although it was known very well that bribery was going on, there was no power to check it except by the cumbrous form of laying information before the magistrates and an indictment. His right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Kent (Sir William Hart Dyke) desired something to be done at once, in order to put an end to this practice—something that should be done then and there. He thought that under such a clause as this, not only would they put a stop to the proceedings of such persons, but that they imposed such a check on the corruption going on as would be most valuable to the candidate who was anxious to conduct the election upon pure principles. So far as the expense of the tribunal was concerned, he thought it would be quite worth while to consider whether it might not be added to the expense of the Returning Officer rather than such a power should not be exercised at all. He believed that if a clause were inserted in the Bill to carry out this object, an effort would be made on both sides to put an end to these corrupt practices. It was continually urged that the other side was doing so and so, and that unless they consented to do the same thing their election would be gone. That was the sort of fulcrum on which many had been hoisted; and he thought a provision of this nature would not only check corruption, if it happened to be going on, but in many cases would prevent it from being resorted to. He should, therefore, vote for the second reading of the clause, although he admitted that it might require amendment in some of its details subsequently.

said, he wished to join in the appeal to the Attorney General to allow the clause to be read a second time. He should be very sorry if the Bill were to pass without any provision of this kind. He thought that one or two cases of summary punishment under the clause would have far more effect in deterring persons from resorting to corrupt practices than the somewhat remote terrors they were endeavouring to hold out in order to bring persons engaged in conducting an election into something like a sensible frame of mind. He would appeal to his hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General, if he thought he could not deal with the question at the present moment, to bear in mind that there was another stage in which the subject might be brought up, and his hon. and learned Friend might promise to give it his serious consideration. He thought the Attorney General had hardly done so at the present moment. He did not think the mind of his hon. and learned Friend appeared to have matured much in regard to the only serious difficulty in the matter—namely, the tribunal. Therefore, the matter might be deferred until the Report, in order to see if it were not possible to get rid of this difficulty.

said, he could assure his hon. Friend the Member for East Gloucestershire (Mr. J. R. Yorke) that he and others, who had accused the Attorney General and himself of not giving the matter their serious consideration, were doing them a very great injustice. He could not tell the number of times his hon. and learned Friend and himself, since the subject was first raised, had discussed the matter, and tried to see if they could not make some suggestion to meet the difficulties which had been pointed out. It would appear, however, that he and his hon. and learned Friend seemed to be credited with some superhuman powers, which, he confessed, they did not possess. This matter had now been before the Committee for a month or more. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for South-West Lancashire (Sir R. Assheton Cross) had promised to do his best to put before the Committee a practicable and working scheme, and they had promised most carefully to consider any scheme which the right hon. Gentleman might suggest; but he believed the right hon. Gentleman had given up the matter in despair. Every hon. Member who had spoken upon the clause, including his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Launceston (Sir Hardinge Giffard), had admitted that the scheme proposed by it, as it now stood, would not work. Then, if the whole of the talent on the opposite side of the House, anxious as hon. Members were to find a scheme that would really work satisfactorily, had been unable to do so, surely it might be suggested that it was feasible that the task was too difficult altogether and almost insuperable. He was afraid that that really was the case. The right hon. Member for Mid Kent (Sir William Hart Dyke) suggested that barristers of seven years' standing should be sent down; and, as far as he could see from the proposal made, they were to go down gratis, for he did not perceive that any provision was made for remunerating them.

said, that no one but the Government themselves could provide for a question of remuneration.

remarked, that that, nevertheless, was the clause they were asked to read a second time, and it was not usual to read a clause providing for the appointment of an official without something being said as to his remuneration. He did not think the House had ever yet been asked to appoint an official, and expect him to work gratis. One suggestion had been made which was the one that was most likely to be practicable—namely, that the County Court Judges should be entrusted with the duty. He did not know how far that suggestion would be acceptable to the Committee. It was the first time it had ever been proposed that they should be invested with criminal jurisdiction. No doubt, it was a proposal worthy of consideration. The only difficulty in the matter was that they were limited in number, and that they had to go through more counties than one. Some of the County Court Judges had to discharge duties in three or four counties, and had to traverse districts in which there were a good many boroughs. He could assure the Committee that he and his hon. and learned Friend had done the best they could to solve the difficulty, and that they had not altogether abandoned the matter. If any scheme could be suggested which would prove practicable, they were quite open to give their best consideration to it.

said, he bogged to thank his right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Kent (Sir William Hart Dyke) for having devoted his attention to the subject. They had now a declaration both from the Attorney General and the Solicitor General that the subject was one which demanded the attention of Parliament. He could not help thinking—perhaps it might be an old-fashioned notion—that his right hon. Friend might have made the proposal rather more simple than he had, if he had confined himself to proposing the first paragraph of his clause—namely, that—

"Any person found guilty of a corrupt practice under the provisions of this Act shall, on summary conviction, be liable to imprisonment, with or without hard labour, for a period not exceeding three months, or to the payment of a fine not exceeding fifty pounds."

said, that several hon. Members were of opinion that the stipendiary magistrates would form a proper and suitable tribunal for the purposes of the clause. But the question was, could stipendiary magistrates be found? In his own part—namely, the county of Durham, he believed there was only one stipendiary magistrate, and he was stationed in South Shields, a very remote part of the county.

He has been done away with.

said, he believed that that was the fact; but he was not made aware of it until a very short time ago. The circumstance, however, made his case still stronger, for it would be seen that in the county of Durham, with its seven boroughs and its two large divisions—each division large enough for a separate county—there was not a single stipendiary magistrate. In the North Riding of Yorkshire there was only one stipendiary magistrate, and he was stationed in the borough of Middlesbrough. Then, in regard to the County Court Judge, that officer in his own district acted as Judge in an exceedingly wide locality, including Whitby, Scarborough, Stockton, and Darlington; and he did not see how the learned Judge could be in each of those boroughs at the same time while an election contest was going on. He had only risen to explain what the facts were in his own locality, both with regard to the stipendiary magistrate and the County Court Judge; and he imagined that the circumstances of the country generally were somewhat similar. He certainly regarded the suggestion which had been made for constituting either the stipendiary magistrate or the County Court Judge the tribunal to carry out the provisions of the clause proposed by the right hon. Member for Mid Kent (Sir William Hart Dyke) as altogether impracticable.

said, he should have brought up a new clause himself if his right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Kent had not shown him the clause he had drawn up, and which he regarded as a workable clause which was not open to objection. If the Government said they could not find a way to accomplish this object at all that was a different matter; but if the Committee made up their minds that the object was a good thing to be done they would find the means of doing it. The Solicitor General had said that they could not send a barrister down, because no salary had been provided. His right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Kent, however, had no right to put down any salary. That was a matter which must be left to the proper officers of Her Majesty's Government; and, therefore, it was idle to say that the clause was to be thrown aside because no salary had been suggested. What very often happened was that Parliament said a certain thing was to be done, and then the Executive, who were the only persons who could find the money, made provision for it. That was the proper thing to do in this case. There were very few stipendiary magistrates, no doubt; but there were a good many County Court Judges; and when County Court Judges and stipendiary magistrates were not available, he did not see any objection to the employment either of barristers of seven years' standing or of unpaid magistrates. If the Government declared that they did not want the thing done that was another matter altogether. He hoped that his right hon. Friend would carry the clause to a Division, because he thought that if it were adopted it would do more to put a stop to bribery than anything else which they could do.

said, he thought the principle of the clause should be approved. He would be perfectly willing that Justices of the Peace, who had a legal training, and who were barristers of seven years' standing, should have this jurisdiction given them. There would then be a tribunal on the spot. The clause might be amended so as to confer the power upon any stipendiary magistrate, or any County Court Judge, or any Justice of the Peace who was a barrister of seven years' standing, and in that way the difficulty might be got rid of with respect to the carrying out of the main objects of the clause. No doubt there were very strong objections to the clause as it stood.

said, he thought the hon. Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. J. G. Talbot) must have spent all his time in University elections, or he would hardly have suggested that borough Justices should be called upon to try cases of this kind. He (Mr. T. Collins) believed that if they turned to the Blue Books containing the evidence upon corrupt practices at election, they would have found that Alderman this, and Mayor that, had constantly been among the number of persons incriminated and convicted by juries of their own countrymen. Mayors and ex-Mayors were borough Justices, and he strongly objected to persons who were not infrequently guilty of corrupt practices themselves being made the tribunal to try such charges. He certainly did not think that men in that position, who were among the most influential men in the borough, would be proper persons to decide upon a charge of corrupt practices preferred against a person to whom they were opposed in politics. Nor did he think it was desirable to decide such cases without the benefit of a jury. It must be remembered that the cases themselves would occur at a time of great political excitement, and that the persons charged were liable to be convicted and sent to prison for an offence of this kind. Although he deprecated corrupt practices as strongly as any man, he thought it would be wrong to entrust such a power either in the hands of the stipendiary magistrate or the borough Justices. If there was any reasonable mode of licking this clause into shape he would not object to it; but as it had already been before the Committee for a month or two he thought it was only trifling with the Committee to endeavour at this stage of the proceedings to impose it upon the Committee.

remarked, that the hon. and learned Solicitor General had said that he and his Colleague had had several private conversations together with a view of dealing with this question since it was started. Now, considering that the subject was started last year by the right hon. Member for Mid Kent (Sir William Hart Dyke), he should like to know how many consultations had taken place between the Law Officers of the Crown upon the matter. The Government had brought forward this Bill, and it was for them to consider what was the best way to put down corrupt practices. They had also an immense advantage in the fact that they could not only make provision for the prevention of corrupt practices, but they could make provision also for the expense. He thought they would have done a very good day's work if they could provide some scheme, on the lines of the proposition now before the Committee, for practically putting down corrupt practices. He made an appeal to the other side of the House not to be actuated too much by the difficulties ingeniously raised by the Law Officers of the Crown. The object was to put down corruption at the time it was being committed. The Attorney General had said he knew of no case which had been found out during an election. His (Mr. Warton's) expe- rience was different from that of his hon. and learned Friend. He knew of many cases in which particular individuals were known to have been bribed on the day of election by a certain man. It often happened that a mysterious stranger came into the borough, probably from Birmingham, to bribe the voters in the Liberal interest; but he invariably found in the discussion of this Bill that Her Majesty's Government carefully excluded anything that was calculated to interfere with the action of the Birmingham Caucus. The Law Officers of the Crown had been guided by a fixed determination to draw the Bill in a way that would suit the purpose of their own Party, and if it had been promoted in the interest of the Birmingham Caucus alone they could not have drawn up a better Bill. The object of the Bill was to put down bribery and corruption, and he was sorry that hon. Gentlemen opposite did not seem to be sufficiently alive to the purposes of the measure. He did not think the Committee ought to allow themselves to be blindfolded, and to take the frantic professions which were made by the opposite side in regard to purity of election, when they found a rigid determination to object to every practical means of putting down corruption. He was perfectly certain that whatever tribunal was suggested the Attorney General would object to it, and, unfortunately, the hon. and learned Gentleman had a majority behind him to support his objections. Why not assert the principle involved in the matter, and then discuss the details? The principle was to put down corruption at the moment, and to catch the offender, wherever it was possible, red-handed. He believed that he could be so caught, and why should he not be hauled up before the magistrates at once and made to give an account of himself? The Attorney General talked about 400 constituencies. Of course, they knew there were 400 constituencies, but they also knew that in a great number of them bribery had never been heard of. For instance, in regard to the counties, there were never Petitions for corrupt practices. At the last General Election there were only two Petitions against counties. Therefore, they might omit counties altogether from the operation of the clause. Why should not a Schedule be made out of all the boroughs where there had been Petitions during the last 50 years—since the Reform Bill—and a barrister be sent there at election time at the expense of the borough? Let it be known that wherever there had once been corruption there would be an officer in future on the spot. Such a provision would make elections generally cheaper, and, in many instances, would prevent the expense of an Election Petition. He regarded that as an object much more valuable than mere talk about purity of election.

said, the subject of the clause he was about to move had been before the Committee on more than one occasion. In the early stage of the Committee he moved an Amendment to the same effect, and he understood then that the Attorney General did not object to the principle of the proposal, but only to its inopportune-ness. At that time a large number of Members were in favour of the principle. He had limited the appeal to undue influence, not because he thought an appeal would be objectionable in other cases, but because he thought it essential to so limit it, as bribery, treating, and corruption of other kinds were questions of fact, and provable; but undue influence was almost entirely a matter of opinion. The object of the clause was perfectly obvious, and did not require to be developed. He would therefore content himself with simply moving it.

said, that what he had stated was that it was worthy of consideration whether there should be one Judge with an appeal, or two Judges without.

said, he was in favour of two Judges rather than one; but he wished to know whether an appeal would be given in a case of agency? It was desirable to make the Law of Agency as universal as possible; but it was worth considering whether an appeal should not be given on the facts.

said, that great difficulty existed in the way of a partial appeal under certain circumstances; and he was afraid that he could not do more than say he would consider the subject.

said, he would withdraw his Amendment rather than remit it to the limbo of Report.

said, he was entirely in favour of two Judges. There were many cases of great hardship in regard to agency, and he certainly thought that when they were taking away the character of, perhaps, an honest and respectable man there should be some appeal, and he hoped the Attorney General would provide that in certain cases there should be an appeal.

asked whether it was necessary to be so particular in regard to all the details which this Schedule contained? There was a maximum of expenditure, and the real question for the Committee was whether, if that were limited to £500, it would be necessary to state exactly how it should be spent. The first paragraph stated that there should be one election agent in a borough, whilst in counties there might be several agents and polling stations; and that there should be only one clerk and one messenger for each polling place. He was quite of opinion that there should not be any colourable employment; but he thought this Schedule went too much into detail, and would very much hamper candidates. Suppose a candidate started upon an election contest, and wished to issue his address to every elector. That was necessary; and for the purpose of doing that he would require to employ a considerable number of persons in order to get the address out at once. That would require more people than would be needed at any other period of the election; but by this Schedule the candidate would be limited as to the number of clerks. He could not bring all the clerks from the various polling stations to one particular place to get out the address, because the expense would be very large, and the clerks would be wanted elsewhere. It seemed to him that, even if the maximum was limited, it was not necessary to tie the candidate down to details of this kind. The Attorney General, in the course of the debate, had said that some of these matters might be dealt with by contract. He wished to ask the hon. and learned Gentleman whether he might go to a printer in any constituency and contract with him to publish an address and circulate it amongst the electors; and whether, if he entered into such a contract, he would not be exceeding the number of persons which the Bill would allow him to employ? The printers would certainly be employed by him; and, therefore, he would be paying a certain number of persons who were practically in his employment, although nominally in the employment of Mr. Willing, or some other person. Simply to raise this question, he would move to strike out the first words in the Schedule.

said, the words which the right hon. Gentleman proposed to leave out were a proof of the necessity which existed in relation to all these details. Suppose a candidate was allowed to have as many agents as he liked, he could spend his money all in one direction, so long as he kept within the maximum; but he wanted to protect a candidate from being compelled to take people into his service during an election. If the candidate was able to say that he could not employ more than a limited number, that would get rid of many of the instances of bribery in a modified form by the employment of messengers and clerks and the relatives of voters. As to whether a candidate could go to a law stationer and contract for the issue of circulars, that did not come within the limit.

said, that, as he understood the measure, each candidate might appoint an election agent provided he kept within the maximum scale. Each candidate might appoint his own agent or agents, or the two candidates might agree in the selection of one election agent and apply their funds to his remuneration. He believed that was the scope of the Bill; but he should like to have an explanation.

replied, that each candidate might appoint a separate agent.

said, he thought it was very necessary to have words clearly showing the position of a candidate if he employed a law stationer or other person to carry out duties which had hitherto been discharged by clerks.

said, he believed a clerk in each case would be sufficient; but in times of emergency a candidate might resort to a law stationer.

said, that the practice was to get three or four persons into one room in order to get through the work quickly. It was said that there was to be great security against bribery by the employment of a number of people; but he failed to see that the real security against corruption was a limitation of the charge and the fear of penalties which would be present in the minds of the agent of a candidate.

said, unless a distinct rule was laid down limiting the number of persons to be employed, he thought it was very likely, as the Attorney General had said, that there would be a considerable amount of corruption through the employment of a large number of people. There could be no question whatever that under this Bill a candidate would have, at least, the protection of being able to say that he was restricted to the number of persons he could employ for remuneration. By this Bill an experiment was about to be tried. Matters would have to settle themselves down on an entirely different basis from that formerly existing, and he believed that political Parties would depend upon voluntary agency to a large extent. If a spirit of self-sacrifice could be introduced into this country, as well as a sense of public spirit, the political life of the country would be purified. He hoped that that would be the effect of this Bill, and that while they were limiting the number of paid officials there would be no difficulty in getting voluntary assistance.

said, he could not understand the position in which the Committee were placed by the objections to the Amendment. Surely, if a law stationer were employed to send out all the addresses and polling cards he would be a person employed for payment, and would be placed in the same position as any other person in the service of a candidate for the time being, and it was quite possible that he might employ only those persons holding the same views as himself. The objection he had to the Amendment was that control over the persons employed upon this kind of work would be loosened, and he had no doubt that half the polling cards would come back without having ever been delivered. But if the election agent, who knew whom he was employing as his clerks, undertook this work there would no risk, and the candidate would know that he got value for his money. Then there was another objection. The Amendment was wholly unnecessary if inserted to prevent bribery and the employment of a great number of persons colourably, because, as the amount was limited, it was clear that there would be no money to spend in colourably employing a single clerk who was not absolutely employed. Under these circumstances, it seemed to him that the candidate was being needlessly hampered in the management of his election.

said, he desired to amend this Schedule, in order to reduce the vast army of paid agents. He calculated that in a constituency of 60,000 electors there would be 240 paid clerks, messengers, and polling agents. Such a number was a great deal too many, and so long as this system of paid agents was maintained candidates would not get the help of people who would otherwise be willing to come forward and take part in the election, and would do away with a great part of this vast army. There being a Maximum Schedule, the payment of such people would have to be reduced in order to bring them within the Schedule. In a polling place for, say, 1,000 electors, there would be one election agent and a deputy agent, and in counties there would be one polling agent and one deputy polling agent for each station. A polling agent, in addition to the clerks and messengers, would not be wanted, and he thought it most desirable to reduce the number of these people to reasonable proportions. Then they would get men who took a real interest in politics to do the work voluntarily.

said, he had an Amendment which he was afraid would rather tend to increase than decrease this vast army of paid officials. He quite felt that it was desirable to reduce the pressure on candidates to put numbers of friends on the list of persons employed, and for that purpose it was necessary to fix a limit to the number of paid officials; but that principle might be carried too far. "Why did they have paid persons at all? The services paid for, and the services rendered voluntarily, were of a totally different character. There was a large number of persons who took an interest in political matters, or who wished to serve a friend who was a candidate, and were ready to undertake such voluntary work as canvassing and looking after the voters; but there was a vast amount of actual business—and very unpleasant business—to be carried on during an election, especially in a large constituency. There must be at each polling station two or three representatives of each candidate to watch voting throughout the whole day. That was work which was tedious and uninteresting, and the people who did it were the people who ought to be paid. Looking at this clause, he arrived at rather a different conclusion from that of the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere), because, although he was just as anxious as the hon. Member to keep down unnecessary expense, he was afraid that if they did not allow a sufficient expense to carry on the business of an election this clause would be evaded just as every enactment which was not reasonable in itself was evaded. With regard to election agents, he had great doubt whether a large constituency could be really worked by one election agent. There were two kinds of duties which an election agent had to perform. One was, to carry on the administrative business of the election, and that was one of the highest and most difficult duties; but there was also the financial part of the business to be looked after. He had found it extremely convenient to have one agent to look after the accounts, and another to advise upon the policy of the canvass, and to be responsible for anything outside finance. He quite believed that in a large constituency those two officials were wanted.

said, the hon. Member (Mr. Salt) contended, first, that there ought to be a possibility of having more paid persons than the Schedule contemplated, because several persons were needed at each polling place. By the 3rd sub-section of this Schedule one representative was allowed in each station. With regard to the necessity of having one general election agent and another financial agent, he would give the hon. Member a little personal advice. He had never got his financial business so well done as when it was done by voluntary assistance.

said, he thought it was desirable to have only one election agent, and that the number of sub-agents should be specified. He did not, however, agree in the view that the work at the head office could be carried on by one clerk, and that the arrangement contemplated in this Schedule would be impracticable. One sub-agent and one sub-cleric in each sub-district might suffice for the work; but at the head office the head agent must have a sufficient number of clerks to work with him. If the Committee adopted the suggestion of the right hon. Member for South-West Lancashire (Sir R. Assheton Cross), and allowed the work to be done by a law stationer or some publisher, how far would that carry them? If a law stationer was so employed, would he not also have to receive the answers to circulars and to register them; and, if so, did he not then become practically an election agent, together with several men in his office, by working for the purposes of the candidate?

proposed that Sub-section 3 should be left out of the Schedule. Personation agents were simply men employed to watch anybody who was suspected; but he had seen these men in very many cases absolutely doing nothing, and he found that the sole reason why they were placed at the polling booths was that they were the relatives of some electors. So long as power was given to employ a large number of these agents, electors would almost force candidates to employ then. His contention was that two clerks and two messengers in each polling station would be quite a sufficient staff, without having personation agents besides.

said, only one man was to be in each place to prevent personation. This sub-section did not require a candidate to have any personation agents at all. The maximum scale would prevent an excessive number being employed.

said, he did not wish to put the Committee to the trouble of a Division, as there was no absolute question of principle involved; but he hoped the Attorney General would allow something in the direction of the Amendment, in order to reduce this vast number of employed people; otherwise constant pressure would be put upon candidates to employ relatives of electors.

said, he thought that if there were to be these booths in polling districts, it would be found impossible to work them, except with two messengers to each booth. He had a lively recollection of elections in which there was an enormous number of surplus messengers forced on the candidate; but he thought the Government were going rather too far in restricting the number to one. There might be a large constituency with 3,000 voters to bring to the poll and pass through the booths in a day. There might be 10 stations, but, with only 10 messengers, a candidate would be absolutely helpless. He hoped the Attorney General would accept his Amendment.

said, he also proposed to substitute two messengers for one messenger. As the Schedule stood, there was to be only one messenger for every complete 500 people, and unless there was a complete 500, there would be no messenger. He should be glad to learn from the Attorney General how the election of the incomplete 500 would be worked?

said, if there were 2,100 electors, there would be four messengers. Then there would be the odd 100 to be dealt with. He was willing to provide that any such odd number should have a messenger. He wanted to keep one clerk and one messenger to each 500 people, and to avoid having a great number of these messengers, who were a perfect pest. He would, therefore, propose to omit the word "complete."

said, he wished to move an Amendment with the object of limiting the number of clerks. He had put down the number at 10; but that might be considered too few. In a large constituency there would be an enormous number of these people, and he hoped the Attorney General would consent to some limitation.

The hon. Member will not be in Order in moving that Amendment.

said, it was easy in a borough where there were 10 clerks and messengers to use them in any part of the constituency; but that was not the case in counties. A messenger in a county could not be brought up suddenly to the central office; and he wished to know whether a distinction could not be drawn between the head office and a district office in a county? In a district office, one messenger and one clerk were ample; but in a county that number would not be sufficient.

explained that one messenger was allowed to each polling district, and he should not suppose that the messengers would be required to go from one district to another.

said, the object of the clause he wished to move was to place certain boroughs in the position of counties. These were boroughs which contained very large and dense populations, and were not in the strict sense boroughs. The borough which he represented measured 13 miles east and west, and about eight miles north and south. It contained two considerable towns—one with nearly 20,000 inhabitants, and another with between 4,000 and 5,000 inhabitants—in addition to 10 villages, some of which had large and mixed populations, and some had sparse populations. If the test as to whether boroughs were to be included in counties was to be the density or the sparseness of the population, he thought he was entitled, on either of those grounds, to ask that his Amendment should be accepted.

said, this question bad been dealt with when the case of the borough of Leominster was discussed. He did not think it desirable to re-open the question.

said, the Amendment which he had to move was one in the opposite direction of that which had been moved by the hon. and learned Member for Christchurch (Mr. Horace Davey). The hon. and learned Member had moved to include Christ-church among the boroughs which were to be put in the position of counties; and his object was to exclude district boroughs within the meaning of the Ballot Act from having the provisions of each part of this Schedule applied to them as if such boroughs were in reality counties. He was quite sure that his hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General would accept the Amendment, because all those who were interested in the matter were consenting parties to it. Those who were connected with district boroughs considered that they were quite as able to conduct their elections as any other borough; and, therefore, they did not wish to have any unnecessary privilege. He begged to move the Amendment which stood in his name.

said, this Amendment raised the question whether certain boroughs in Wales and Scotland should be treated as counties, or as boroughs. As far as he could learn, both from the Welsh and Scotch Members, they wished to place these boroughs upon the lower scale of election expenses, and they ought to be at liberty to do so. Other boroughs, such as Christchurch and Leominster, desired to increase the expenditure by being treated as counties; but he found, from communications which had made to him in regard to the Welsh and Scotch boroughs, that they wished to be treated as if they were English boroughs, and not to be inserted in this Schedule. He could not see why they should not have their desire carried out.

said, the speech they had just heard from the Attorney General was very different from the one they had heard from him in the Morning Sitting. They were told in the morning that the boroughs treated as counties were historical boroughs.

remarked that in that case the expenditure was increased.

said, the Attorney General had told them that the list ought not to be changed under any circumstances; but he (Sir R. Assheton Cross) was bound to say that if he consented to the omission of these words, he would not preserve the historical list which he had been so desirous of maintaining in the case of Christ-church and Leominster. Hon. Members on that side of the House had thought that the Attorney General meant to abide by the list; but if once he opened the flood-gates upon this particular question, he would warn the hon. and learned Gentleman that he would be overwhelmed with applications on the Report from all boroughs who thought they ought to come in on the other side.

But they do not wish to come in.

said, he believed that the hon. and learned Gentleman would find not only Christchureh and Leominster, but many other boroughs, claiming to be included in the list, and that he would have a large number of applications pressed upon him when they came to the Report. In the morning the Attorney General had taken a clear and definite ground, and he (Sir R. Assheton Cross) had felt inclined to support him—namely, that they ought not to change the historical list of boroughs, which had always been treated in old Acts of Parliament as counties. He regretted to see that they were now departing from that arrangement.

Not in the slightest degree.

said, he could not understand why the hon. and learned Gentleman should say he was not departing from that arrangement. He was going to strike out one of the historical list. It made no difference whether the result would be to increase or decrease the expenditure. It was, at any rate, a borough which was included in the list, and the hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General had distinctly declared that he would not disturb that old list, which had been handed down from Act of Parliament to Act of Parliament. If the hon. and learned Gentleman did, he gave him fair warning that every one of these boroughs who thought they ought to be regarded as counties would press its claim upon him.

said, the right hon. Gentleman (Sir R. Assheton Cross) had afforded him very generous support during the time the Bill had been in Committee—a support which he should never forget—but he thought the right hon. Gentleman misunderstood the object of this Amendment. There were certain boroughs which asked for an increased scale, and preferred to be regarded as counties. That was the historical list he had referred to; but, on the other hand, there were certain district boroughs which asked to be treated as boroughs, and not as counties. Those district boroughs did not want to incur increased expenditure, and why should the Committee compel them to expend more money than they wished? He was afraid that the right hon. Gentleman did not properly appreciate the question. These boroughs were on a different principle altogether.

said, the real question was, whether or not elections could be properly conducted in certain groups of boroughs upon the scale of borough elections, or whether they ought not to be regarded as counties?

They have all agreed to be included in the lower scale.

said, his evidence was exactly to the contrary effect. He had made inquiries, and he understood these district boroughs were anxious to be placed on the higher

said, he had communicated with the Representatives of these boroughs, and they were all of them desirous of being included in the lower.

said, he was afraid that if the hon. and learned Gentleman hastily accepted this Amendment he might find himself involved in some difficulty, and that he would run a risk of establishing a bad precedent hereafter. As far as he (Mr. E. Stanhope) had evidence before him, he believed that many of those boroughs desired to be included in the same scale as counties, and not in that which applied to boroughs. He would not profess, however, to put his opinion against that of the Attorney General.

said, he hoped he might be allowed to say a word in answer to the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. E. Stanhope). He had taken the trouble, before bringing forward his Amendment, to make inquiries of all the Members who sat for district boroughs; and, surely, they ought to understand their own interests, and how they could best conduct their own elections, better than the hon. Member, who had never had anything to do with any one of these boroughs. Hon. Members who were really interested in the question had fully studied it, and they knew what they required, and they had come to the unanimous conclusion that they could conduct their elections on the lower scale of expenditure. He believed there was only one solitary Member who thought the larger scale might, perhaps, be better; but even that hon. Member allowed that it would be perfectly easy to conduct the elections on the lower scale of expenditure. If that were the case, it seemed to him to be somewhat strange that those who knew nothing about the question, and had no interest in the mutter, should decide that the boroughs which were concerned should be subjected to exceptional legislation.

said, he did not wish to prolong the discussion. He found that he had been labouring under a misapprehension. He had been under the impression that the Amendment was to strike out the borough of Aylesbury.

remarked, that the Amendment simply struck out the words from "Aylesbury," so as to exclude district boroughs.

said, he thought it was not desirable to carry the objection further; but if the facts had been as he supposed his objection would have had great force. He had no desire that either Aylesbury or any other borough should incur more expense than was necessary; but he entirely agreed with his hon. Friend the Member for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. E. Stanhope) that the evidence they had was to the contrary. He would not, however, put his opinion against that of the hon. and learned Attorney General; and, under the circumstances, he would not further oppose the Amendment.

wished to remind hon. Gentlemen opposite that the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill), when they were discussing the question of sub-agents, had expressed a desire to treat Woodstock as a county, and not as a borough. By this Amendment, Woodstock would continue to be treated as a borough. Was he to understand that the Amendment referred to the question of sub-agents?

No.

said, he had gathered that it was only in respect of the sub-agents that the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock had desired the borough of Woodstock to be treated as a county.

said, he was well acquainted with the Principality of Wales, and he was glad to hear that the Members for district boroughs in the Principality were of opinion that they would be able to conduct the elections within a smaller scale than that scheduled in the Bill, because he believed that if they referred to the Returns of the election expenses connected with the last General Election they would find a marked discrepancy, as far as some of the Welsh boroughs were concerned, between the scale fixed in the Schedule and the amounts actually expended. As far as he remembered, speaking from memory, at the last contested Election for the Flint Boroughs, the hon. Member who represented that district spent four or five times the amount of money the Schedule would allow him to spend; and although he could well understand that there would be a desire upon the part of the hon. Member under these circumstances to curtail his expenditure, he was very much inclined to think that the facts of the case were against the Schedule. He thought the Committee ought to look at the circumstances of the case, and not merely to the wishes of the Scotch and Welsh Members, who were obviously and naturally anxious—as, indeed, every Member of Parliament was—to spend as little as possible upon his election. He had the honour of being a voter in a district borough which the noble Lord opposite (Lord Richard Grosvenor) knew very well, and in which the contributory towns were at a considerable distance from each other. Probably there would be a distance of 30 miles from one place to another. The central agent could only reside in one borough, and it was necessary, therefore, to have sub-agents of considerable responsibility in various other districts. He, therefore, thought the amounts allowed on the lower scale would not be sufficient to cover the expense of elections in such districts. It was altogether impossible, in a constituency numbering 2,000 or 3,000 voters, spread over a considerable distance, to conduct the election with the small machinery and expense as if the borough was all together. Anybody who had had anything to do with such districts must be aware that the candidates had to expend money at the same rate as if they were conducting a county election, owing to the remoteness of one polling station from the other. Quite apart from any Party question in the matter, he was afraid that the Attorney General would find that he had made a mistake in accepting this Amendment, and that it would not, in every case, be either possible or practicable to conduct an election in district boroughs on the same terms and at the same expense as in an ordinary borough election.

said, they were promised a new Reform Bill soon, and he presumed that when they came to deal with that new plan of representation two or three boroughs were likely to be grouped together. He, therefore, warned the Committee against the danger of adopting this Amendment in hot haste, without due reflection or consideration. It might be found, after the new Reform Bill had been passed, that some of these grouped boroughs would be oven larger than the district boroughs which now existed.

said, he rose not to prolong the discussion, but to express a hope that the Committee would not divide. It was obvious that it would be quite useless to take up the time of the Committee by dividing upon this Amendment; but, at the same time, he was anxious to warn the Attorney General that, although he had no doubt the hon. Member for Dumfries (Mr. Ernest Noel) had acted in perfectly good faith in the matter, there was no evidence from either side of the House that the facts were as they had been stated. As far as he had been able to gather, the opinion generally was in opposition to that which had been put forward by the Attorney General. He would not, however, oppose the omission of these words; but he was afraid that it might be necessary to raise the question again.

said, he had a verbal Amendment to move to the Schedule. He desired, in line 5 of Schedule I., to leave out "each part," and insert "Parts II., III, and IV."

said, that before they left this part of the Schedule altogether, he wished to put a question in regard to the action of the election agent. He dared say the Attorney General would know that there were a great many counties in which the practice was for the election agent not to take charge of any polling district; but there was no provision of that kind in the Bill.

Does the hon. Member propose to move any Amendment?

said, he would propose an Amendment for the purpose of raising the question.

I may point out to the hon. Member that some time ago he raised a discussion upon a particular point without proposing an Amendment, and considerable confusion was created in consequence. For that reason I wish to know if the hon. Member proposes to move an Amendment now?

said, he would appeal to the hon. Member (Mr. E. Stanhope) to raise the question he desired to call attention to on Report.

said, he would do so.