THE ESSENTIALS OF 
 SELF-GOVERNMENT 
 
 ELLIS T. POWELL, LL.B., B.Sc
 
 THE ESSENTIALS OF 
 SELF - GO VERNMENT 
 
 [ENGLAND & WALES] : 
 
 A Comprehensive Survey, designed as a Critical Introduction 
 
 to the Detailed Study of the Electoral Mechanism as 
 
 the Foundation of Political Power, and a Potent 
 
 Instrument of Intellectual and Social 
 
 Evolution ; with Practical 
 
 Suggestions for the 
 
 Increase of its 
 
 Efficiency. 
 
 BY 
 ELLIS T. POWELL, 
 
 LL.B. (Lond.); B.Sc. [Econ.] (Lond.);, 
 
 Fellow of the Royal Historical Society ; Fellow of the Royal Economic Society ; 
 of the Inner Temple, Barrister at Law. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN & CO., 
 
 39, Paternoster Row, E.G. ; 
 
 New York, Bombay, and Calcutta. 
 
 1909.
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORJ01 
 bA.Yi'A BARBARA 
 
 Well roars the storm to those that hear 
 A deeper voice across the storm. 
 
 TENNYSON, "In Memorlam.' 
 
 In this, as In all other matters, It Is well to make our 
 Ideal the highest possible. If we aim at the highest mark 
 we shall, in this imperfect world, most likely not hit it, 
 but we shall assuredly come much nearer to it than if we 
 are oontent to aim at a lower mark. 
 
 _. A. fKEEMAN, " Cathedral Church of Wells," p. 68. 
 
 Hi.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 The Four Canons of Self -Government ......... vii. 
 
 Chapter I. Introduction ......... ... 1 
 
 Chapter II. Registration ............ 30 
 
 Chapter III. The Distribution of Seats ... ... 55 
 
 Chapter IV. Candidate and Candidature ... ... 95 
 
 Chapter V. The Election Agent and his Staff ; the 
 
 Question of u Agency " ... ... 121 
 
 Chapter VI. The " Outside Organisations" ... 135 
 
 Chapter VII. The Election Expenses ... ... 148 
 
 Chapter VIII. Corrupt Practices ......... 167 
 
 Chapter IX. Illegal Practices ... ... ... 201 
 
 Chapter X. The Close of the Contest ...... 222 
 
 Chapter XI. The Poll : the Act and Mode of Voting 231 
 
 Chapter XII. Election Petitions ......... 268 
 
 Chapter XIII. The Dismissal of Members ... ... 277 
 
 Chapter XIV. Conclusion ............ 297 
 
 Index ..................... 301 
 
 v.
 
 The 
 
 Four Canons of Self-Government. 
 
 First Canon : 
 
 Governing the Suffrage and the Registration of Electors. 
 
 The electoral rights and privileges of citizenship should, as 
 far as possible, be inseparably associated with its obligations, 
 and this without distinction of sex : so that the State shall not 
 proceed to enforce the discharge of the obligations, especially in 
 the shape of rates and taxes, until it has conferred the rights 
 and privileges, or furnished in each individual case a definite 
 and legitimate reason for its refusal so to do. 
 
 Second Canon : 
 
 Mainly Governing the Distribution of Seats : the Selection of 
 
 Candidates : the Nomination : the Payment of Members and 
 
 Election Expenses and Returning Officers' Charges. 
 
 The area from which the political organism may select the 
 exponents and instruments of its legislative will must be co- 
 extensive with the mature (i.e., the adult) intellectual faculties of 
 the organism itself, and the selective power must be distributed 
 and uninterruptedly maintained in strict proportion to the 
 respective development of the various constituent elements 
 which make up its political individuality, so that the expression 
 of its desires and aspirations may take place with the maxi- 
 mum of precision and freedom, and the realisation of its 
 resolutions with the maximum of efficacy. 
 
 Third Canon : 
 
 Mainly Governing the Actual Contest : the Party System : 
 
 Corrupt and Illegal Practices : the Arrangements for the Poll : 
 
 the Act and Mode of Voting. 
 
 The electoral verdict should be the superior aggregate of the 
 largest attainable collocation of deliberate individual judg- 
 ments, not the merely mechanical consensus of the majority of 
 the mass. For that reason there should be eliminated from 
 the electoral tribunal, to the utmost possible extent, all oppor- 
 tunity for the accidental predominance of the minority, and all 
 the influences that have their origin in, or tend towards, caucus- 
 control, habit, mystery, corruption, passion, coercion, caprice, and 
 individual irresponsibility, as well as all the operations of mass- 
 suggestibility. 
 
 Fourth Canon : 
 
 Mainly Governing Election Petitions and the Dismissal of 
 Members. 
 
 The electorate should possess not only the sole right of elect- 
 ing, but also the sole ami uninterrupted right of dismissing, a 
 member, subject in each case to carefully defined safeguards : 
 so that the relation between the Government and the electorate 
 may be such as to enable the latter to exert an instant, con- 
 tinuous, and irresistible influence upon the former, by way of 
 stimulus, control, and check.
 
 THE ESSENTIALS 
 OF SELF-GOVERNMENT. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Introduction. 
 
 The political thought of the present generation is still profoundly 
 influenced by the great name of John Stuart Mill. There is the 
 less likelihood of any immediate change in this attitude of respect, 
 because we have in political activity among us, and may hope to 
 have for years to come, some at least of those who drew their 
 earliest civic breath in an intellectual atmosphere which Mill him- 
 self had diffused. But Mill disliked many of the political ex- 
 pedients which the present generation has come to contemplate 
 with comparative equanimity. He criticised the ballot and dis- 
 trusted equal suffrage. He greatly feared the tyranny of majorities, 
 and doubted if reason and sound argument could always be relied 
 upon to secure ultimate predominance in the political arena. So 
 far, however, as the great philosopher carried his speculations they 
 still remain the foundation of many of the soundest conceptions 
 in political science, however variable may be the nature of the 
 superstructure which different minds may erect upon their firm 
 support. In other directions, where Mill seems to have had a 
 mistaken, or at least an imperfect, opinion of the real tendency 
 of the political phenomena which he saw around him, we, who 
 have had the opportunity of studying them on a larger scale, may, 
 perhaps, venture to add an appendix to his conclusions, and even 
 to offer the suggestion that the Representative Government which 
 he described, dissected, and criticised, did but exhibit a stage in 
 human progress destined in time to give place to a more advanced 
 development, in the shape of self-government. We are con- 
 cerned here, then, to consider what self-government, as distin- 
 guished from representative government, is, and what are the con- 
 ditions of its attainment and maintenance in efficiency that is to 
 say, what are the Essentials of Self-Government. 
 
 The Meaning of Self-Government. 
 
 The development of the political organism has proceeded at an 
 accelerated pace since Mill quitted this mortal scene, and into 
 the movement there have entered, and will enter, agencies and
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 processes whose activity doubtless he foresaw, but the operation of 
 which it would have been futile to discuss in detail in his day. 
 Looking out over the political phenomena of our time and nation 
 the question may well be asked whether the hour has not come 
 for a reaffirmation, in the light of the experience of the last 
 thirty years, of Mill's basic principles, with the addition of other 
 conclusions to which our rapidly evolving political experience has 
 conducted us, or caused to loom upon the intellectual horizon. 
 Mill's principles are now, to the utmost verge (given a 
 complete suffrage), capable of continuous application by 
 means of a popular control of representative institutions 
 which shall not slacken for an instant, or ever release 
 the movement of the central governing power from the 
 effective supervision and mastery of those in whose interest 
 it is allowed to possess its authority. Employed in this sense, 
 Mill's principles are the stepping-stones from a lower to a higher 
 form of political activity from representative government, which 
 involves periodic delegation of power, with only slight control 
 in the intervening periods, to self-government, which rids us of 
 the interregnum of greater or less irresponsibility, and enables 
 the civic body almost instantaneously to check, control, guide, 
 or dismiss the authority which is attempting to employ its dele- 
 gated powers ini a manner that does not commend itself to the 
 national mind. That organism which is capable of the con- 
 tinuous initiation, guidance, and co-ordination of its own actions 
 stands on a much higher plane than that which is only able from 
 time to time to choose some external intelligence to which the 
 direction of its movements shall be entrusted. It is true that we 
 have been accustomed to speak of representative government and 
 self-government as being practically the same thing. Up to the 
 point which our own political development has now attained this 
 is, in effect, true. Representative government is the mode in 
 which in this country self-government acts, the manner of its 
 manifestation. But it is not self-government, any more than the 
 physical man is himself the life and the individuality which find 
 in mind and muscle the more or less supple instruments of their 
 operation. If we can imagine mind and muscle, in their highest 
 and best development, freed from the restraints and vexations 
 of physical inadequacy and terrestrial limitation, we may get 
 some idea what is the difference betweeen merely representative 
 government, however highly developed, and the genuine self- 
 government which transforms the citizens from a temporarily 
 deliberative into a continuously controlling element of the civic 
 organism. 
 
 "Representative Government" Does Not Exist. 
 
 Tested by Mill's own definition, our system) does not even 
 amount to true representative government; for, says the great
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 exponent of its nature and characteristics, " the meaning of repre- 
 sentative government is, that the whole people, or some numerous 
 portion of them, exercise, through deputies periodically elected 
 by themselves, the ultimate controlling power which, in every 
 constitution, must reside somewhere. They must be masters, 
 whenever they please, of all the operations of government." 
 Neither the people, in the widest sense of the word, nor the 
 electors, are in these islands " masters whenever they please of all 
 the operations of government," except in so far as they have the 
 ultimate power to assert their mastery at any time by united 
 physical force. Apart from, that last and worst resource of 
 desperate subjects, their only real and continuous power over the 
 Government lies in the manifestation of their sentiments at bye- 
 elections. Except for such notice as it may think fit to take of 
 these phenomena, any Government in this country may, under 
 existing constitutional circumstances, pursue its course in serene 
 indifference to, or defiance of, the wishes of the electorate. It is 
 a striking and perhaps almost a melancholy fact that in the land 
 to which the world looks for its models of representative govern- 
 ment, representative government does not exist at least in a form 
 consistent with Mill's definition. 
 
 That this is the fact may, without difficulty, be shown, by con- 
 sidering, with some slight detail, a few of the central 
 and pregnant enunciations of principle which are to be 
 found in Mill's " Considerations on Representative Govern- 
 ment." " Everyone is degraded," says Mill (" Representa- 
 tive Government," Chapter VIII.), " whether aware of it or not, 
 when other people, without consulting him, take upon themselves 
 unlimited power to regulate his destiny." " He is arguing for the 
 extension of the suffrage; but is not the observation equally true 
 of a nation which, being politically adult, and endowed with an 
 unexampled experience and power, parts with its power of self- 
 control for periods of seven years at a time ? Yet, Mill tells us that 
 a form of government may be negatively defective " if it does not 
 sufficiently develop by exercise the active capacities and social 
 feelings of individual citizens." " Sufficiently " is a relative term ; 
 but if we interpret it as signifying " up to the full limit of their 
 ability for the time being," we shall immediately realise that our 
 own system is a form of government which is within Mill's definition 
 of those that are negatively defective. Further on in his argument 
 he elaborates his meaning by urging that it is also 1 a negative defect 
 in government if it does not bring " into sufficient exercise the indi- 
 vidual faculties, moral, intellectual and active, of the people." " As 
 between one form of popular government and another,"he proceeds 
 " the advantage in this respect lies with that which most widely 
 diffuses the exercise of public functions ; on the one hand, by ex- 
 cluding fewest from the suffrage ; on the other, by opening to all
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 classes of private citizens, so far as is consistent with other equally 
 important objects, the widest participation in the derail of judicial 
 and administrative business, as by jury trial, admission to muni- 
 cipal offices, and, above all, by the utmost possible publicity and 
 liberty of discussion, whereby, not merely a few individuals in 
 succession, but the whole public, are made, to a certain extent, 
 participants in the government, and sharers in the instruction ami 
 mental exercise derived from it." The allusion to jury trial 
 naturally suggests the inquiry whether there is no means by which 
 the constituencies could play as continuous, powerful, and pre- 
 dominant a part in the conduct of public affairs as a jury plays in 
 a court of justice. The idea that a jury would exercise any active 
 control if it were asked to select another jury for the actual 
 function of rinding upon the issues of fact, and to place it beyond 
 the reach of public interference for seven years, is so absurd thst 
 to formulate it is to destroy it ; . yet this is the system' which, 
 applied to the management of national affairs, we call representa- 
 tive government. And, clearly, when Mill goes on to speak of the 
 Whole public being made " to a certain extent " participants in the 
 government, he exposes the weakness of his position, for the 
 determined analyst of the constitutional blend of forces must ask 
 at once, " Why not to the whole extent ? " that is, to the whole 
 extent which their capacity justifies, and which the existing 
 machinery can sustain and perform. Doubtless Mill contemplated 
 the public capacity for receiving and exercising a share of active 
 power, " to a certain extent," as a variable function ; but whether 
 that is the case or not, variable it certainly is, and when it pur- 
 sues a course of constantly increasing potency, we must recognise 
 the change and bring the other functions into line with the 
 modified necessities of the case. 
 
 Mill's Ideals of " Kepresentation." 
 
 When he considers the effect which would be produced by the 
 larger and closer association of the citizens with the management 
 of public affairs, Mill (" Representative Government," Chapter III.) 
 refers to the effect -of the Athenian system upon the intellectual 
 standard of the Athenian citizen, and proceeds to urge that " a 
 benefit of the same kind, though far less in degree, is produced on 
 Englishmen of the lower middle-class by their liability to be placed 
 on juries and to serve parish offices, which, though it does not 
 occur to so many, nor is so continuous, nor introduces them' to so 
 great a variety of elevated considerations, so as to admit of com- 
 parison with the public education which every citdzen of Athens 
 obtained from her democratic institutions, must make them, never- 
 theless, very different beings, in range of ideas and develop- 
 ment of faculties, from those who have done nothing in their 
 lives but drive a quill, or sell goods over a counter." But is there
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 not in these considerations an overwhelming argument in favour 
 not only of training the faculties of the citizen in the minor public 
 offices, but also of stimulating his interest in the working of the 
 higher and more elaborate mechanism of statesman-ship? Certainly 
 the standard of intelligence in the lower middle-class is at this 
 moment infinitely higher than it was when Mill gave to the world 
 his " Thoughts on Representative Government." The administra- 
 tive and tactical skill displayed by the great trade unions is far 
 above anything exhibited or attained by the lover middle-class 
 with which Mill was acquainted. But, if anything, the actual 
 machinery of government has been moved further away from this 
 section of the community, and not nearer to it, during the last forty 
 years. Yet, when Mill comes toapply these comparatively enlightened 
 principles, we find him arguing that, " since all cannot, in a com- 
 munity exceeding a single small town, participate personally in any 
 but some very minor portions of the public business, it follows," 
 {"Representative Government," Chapter III.) "that the ideal type 
 of a perfect government must be representative." It can hardly 
 be do-ubted that the conception which had been formed in Mill's 
 mind, and to which expression was given in the word " representa- 
 tive" in this sentence, was that of continuous representation, as 
 distinguished from the intermittent representation which (even 
 assuming it to be representative at all) is the leading characteristic 
 of our present system as we see it in operation in this country. 
 " There are no methods of combining these benefits/' Mill 
 asserts, the reference being to the combination of popular control 
 with skilled legislation) and administration:, " except by separating 
 the functions w T h!ch guarantee the one from' those which essentially 
 require the ether, by disjoining the office of control and criticism 
 from the actual conduct of affairs and devolving the former on 
 the representatives of the Many, while securing to the latter, under 
 strict responsibility to the nation, the acquired knowledge and 
 practised intelligence of a specially trained and experienced Few." 
 All this, as an enunciation of general principle, is profoundly true; 
 but if the attainment and majnitenance of these conditions be an 
 essential of representative government, we are again brought face 
 to face with the truth that representative government does not exist 
 in England. 
 
 Periodical Delegation of Sovereignty. 
 
 The truth is that at every point the measure of control exercis- 
 able by the nation, fails to come up even to the modest standard set 
 by Mill. " Instead of the function of governing, for which it is radi- 
 cally unfit," says he, "the proper office of a representative assembly 
 is to watch and control the Government, to throw the light of 
 publicity on its acts, to compel a full exposition and justification 
 of all of them which anyone considers questionable, to censure
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 them if found condemnable, and, if the men who compose the 
 Government abuse their trust, or deal with it in a manner which 
 conflicts with the deliberate sense of the nation, to expel them 
 from office, and either expressly or virtually appoint their suc- 
 cessors. This is surely ample power and security enough for the 
 liberty of the nation." Yes, if it were capable of being exercised 
 by the nation, or even if the nation could always count upon its 
 representatives to exercise it. But under our present system the 
 nation itself cannot exercise the power of control or dismissal; 
 and the interests of the majority of the nation's representatives are 
 almost always opposed to the power being exercised at all. For 
 we must bear in mind that the present electoral machinery is 
 adapted to a complete delegation of the sovereign power, by the 
 people in whom it ultimately resides, for seven years at a time. 
 Strictly speaking, even this limit is not absolutely final, for the 
 Septennial Act is itself the enactment of a Parliament whose dele- 
 gated power had been conferred upon it only for a triennial term. 
 The only existing barriers to the indefinite extension of its own life 
 by a Parliament elected under the Septennial Act lie in the House 
 of Lords, or in the veto of the extending measure by the sovereign, 
 or in the sovereign's exercise, in spite of it, of the prerogative of 
 dissolution. Assuming that the sovereign assented to the extend- 
 ing Act, and that he was willing to abstain from the use of his pre- 
 rogative, the unfaithful and mutinous House of Commons could 
 only be got rid of by the slow process of the infusion of new blood 
 resulting from by-elections, and even these might be prevented by 
 a refusal to issue the writs. 
 
 Political Acquiescence. 
 
 It was doubtless a realisation of the almost unsuspected exist- 
 ence of these menaces to national freedom which led Mill up to 
 the declaration, early in Chapter IV. of " Representative Govern- 
 ment," that " representative institutions necessarily depend for 
 permanence upon the readiness of the people to fight for them in 
 case of their being endangered. If too little valued for this, they 
 seldom obtain a footing at all, and, if they do, are almost sure 
 to be overthrown as soon as the head of the Government, or any 
 party leader who can muster force for a coup de main, is willing 
 to run some small risk for absolute power." This may be true; 
 but at the same time no student of political psychology can have 
 failed to note that as a nation advances in its experience of settled 
 existence, and has a greater stake in the uninterrupted exercise 
 of the arts of peace, the prospect of armed resistance to Govern- 
 ment becomes more and more remote. As Froude says, in allu- 
 sion to the impossibility of interference, except by armed force, 
 with the horrors of the Marian persecution, " a successful rebellion 
 is at best a calamitv : and the bravest and wisest men would not
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 hinder an illustrious cause by conduct less than worthy of it, 
 as long as endurance was possible." Nothing but dire necessity, 
 keenly pressing on a vigorous nation, drove England into the great 
 civil war ; and, even when its battles were as yet comparatively fresh 
 in the public memory, and many a veteran of the Cromwellian 
 army was still alive to tell their story, the public instinct against 
 rebellion made Monmouth's enterprise a failure, though, as the 
 events of the next few years demonstrated beyond all contradiction, 
 his ideas were in full accord with those of the people, and his 
 prima -facie title to reign was better than that which had, in earlier 
 cases, supported a successful claim to the throne. In our own 
 days the fear of armed rebellion (in Great Britain, at all events) 
 does not enter into the calculations of British statesmen, and it is 
 largely for this reason that they are prone, and able, to treat with 
 indifference the clearly-expressed opinion of very large sections 
 of the electorate, upon whom, the shadow of a seven-years' im- 
 potence has fallen. The state of things which Mill contemplated 
 as almost necessarily calling for the armed remonstrance of the 
 governed does but tend to lull them into a deeper torpor of 
 apathetic acquiescence. Within the most recent political memory 
 the electorate received, with hardly a flutter of dissatisfaction, the 
 proposal that, under an Official Secrets Bill, it should be made 
 a punishable offence to communicate to the nation a knowledge 
 of the proceedings of its own servants, in the conduct of its own 
 affairs. 
 
 Sidgwick's Opinions Analysed. 
 
 If we seek further illustration, all the more forcible because 
 undesigned, of the fact that representative government has ceased 
 to furnish the nation with an instrument adequate to the expres- 
 sion and enforcement of its will and its needs, we may find it in 
 the words of an observer who stands much nearer, even than 
 Mill, to the political phenomena which are actually contem- 
 poraneous with ourselves. The late Professor Sidgwick, 
 urging that the electorate should choose skilled men for 
 the skilled work of the Legislature, pointed out that 
 ("Elements of Politics," p. 374) "most men value highly 
 the control that they acquire by the free choice of their physician 
 over .the 'Operation of applying drugs to the curej of their diseases, 
 though they know themselves to be wholly unable to prescribe 
 medicines for themselves. We cannot exactly imitate this in 
 the case of government." The fact is that we are at present 
 scarcely trying to imitate it. The free selection of the physician 
 would be made with considerable hesitation if the patient knew 
 that his choice was irrevocable for seven years, during which 
 period he would be compelled to take whatever medicine his 
 ndviser chose to send him, and to submit to whatever operations 
 be suggested, even if it had become clear, long before the
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 expiration of the septennate, that the treatment was doing far more 
 harm than good. This is an unthinkable state of things in rela- 
 tion to a human being. Surely it should be the aim, of modern 
 legislative evolution to confer upon the body politic the same 
 power of terminating a course of treatment, and of manifesting 
 its consciousness that the legislative diagnosis is erroneous, as 
 is enjoyed by the 'body physical, even of the humblest social rank. 
 The necessity for struggling towards the attainment of this ideal 
 will be seen to be all the greater if we lememiber that a physician 
 is not given the control of his patient's finances, whereas the legis- 
 lative practitioner not only secures so much, but may, if the 
 control prove insufficient for his purposes, increase it to any extent 
 short of that which would produce armed rebellion among the 
 victims of the process. As Professor Sidgwick himself remarks : 
 "What has just been said of laws applies with especial force 
 to the rules under which taxation is levied. Such compulsory 
 taking of private property for public purposes is a part of govern- 
 mental interference which Governments not adequately controlled 
 are specially tempted to overdo, and it is a procedure of which the 
 excess is specially formidable to the governed. As we have seen, 
 the liability to be" deprived of an unknown portico of one's wealth 
 by the tax-gatherer is an insecurity against which it is impos- 
 sible to give complete constitutional protection to the individuals 
 governed ; but the insecurity is importantly reduced if the body 
 that regulates taxation is periodically elected by the community 
 at large, and is thus effectively responsible to them/' That is to 
 say, ProfessoT Sidgwick indicates the " insecurity," but fears that 
 our best mode of insurance against its risks is to> be found in the 
 periodic election of the governing body, and in the imposition, 
 which he imagines to be the necessary result, of " effective re- 
 sponsibility '' to the electoral authority. The irresponsibility of 
 the interregnum, and the possible obviation of any appeal at all 
 for the approval, or even the toleration, of the sovereign electoral 
 power, are contingencies which do> not seem to have been brought 
 home to the mind of this acute critic of men and things. 
 
 Electoral Impotence Illustrated. 
 
 It will not be difficult to demonstrate by means of concrete 
 instances from recent political history the absence of any 
 real national control of the House of Commons, such as ought 
 to be possessed under any " representative " system worthy of 
 the name, and is essential to the very existence, nay, the very 
 idea, of self-government. A good instance of the kind of political 
 misconduct which the electorate is, under the existing system, 
 powerless to punish can be found in the early days of Mr. Glad- 
 stone's last administration. It is recent enough to be illustrative 
 of present conditions, while at the same time the circumstances 
 themselves are out of the arena of current controversy. On the
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 consideration of the Railway Servants' Hours of Labour Bill, 
 as amended by the Standing Committee on Law, Sir John Gorst 
 moved the insertion of a clause providing that hours exceeding 
 eight for signalmen and ten for other servants were to be deemed 
 printa -facie excessive. The Government objected, and the motion 
 was rejected. In the majority there were members who had 
 pledged themselves to the principle which the motion embodied. 
 Some of them owed their seats in the House to their election 
 promises of support for the very proposal against which they 
 voted. To the inquiry, from their constituents, why they had 
 flatly violated their campaign professions before the new Parlia- 
 ment was a year old, some of these gentlemen answered that had 
 they voted for the motion they might have defeated the Govern- 
 ment. That was not the case, as the figures (257 to 71) clearly 
 showed ; but even if it had been, the fact should afford, in the 
 rase of a House of Commons properly and effectively controlled 
 by the constituencies, no excuse whatever for a defiance of the 
 electoral authority by the repudiation of solemn engagements 
 entered into as the price of the bestowal of electoral confidence. 
 A self-governing and self-respecting people has the right to 
 expect, and to insist, that under such circumstances as these 
 the Government, and not the representatives, shall yield. If the 
 Government realises that the representatives, by giving, in oppo- 
 sition to it, the votes which they have solemnly pledged them- 
 selves to give, will terminate its existence, it must either resign 
 itself to the inevitable, or bring its policy into line with the 
 opinion of the constituencies. The careful observer of political 
 phenomena will easily believe that had there existed a power 
 (the nature and character of which we shall discuss at a later 
 stage) to compel the immediate resignation of a member \vith 
 whom his constituents had grave cause to be dissatisfied, some, 
 at all events, of the votes cast against Sir John Gorst's motion 
 would have been cast in its favour. As it was, the indignant 
 electors were powerless : and if their recalcitrant representatives 
 had gone on to affirm that not eight but eighteen hours a day 
 constituted the reasonable period of labour for railway workers, 
 they would have been equally incapable of any interference beyond 
 the holding of futile meetings and the issue of impotent protests. 
 That is a state of things which certainly does not amount to 
 " representative " government, properly so called, much less to 
 self-government. It means that the electorate is in such cases 
 41 represented " by the expression of an opinion which it does not 
 hold, and by the record of a vote which is given in opposition 
 to its wishes. 
 
 Where Modification is Justifiable. 
 
 There are, no doubt, rare instances in which the representative 
 must modify his policy in order to meet the requirements of political 
 
 9
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 conditions which were not contemplated either by himself or his 
 constituents at the time of his election. That is, or should be, 
 the position of every intelligent agent who has prima -facie ex- 
 ceeded or disregarded his instructions. If he can satisfy his 
 principals that his actions were inspired by pertinent considerations 
 superior to the literal fulfilment of their injunctions, he has justi- 
 fied himself. An illustration which is fairly, though not quite 
 fully, in point is to be found in the debate of January 27, 1902, 
 with reference to the agreement between the Post Office and the 
 National Telephone Company. A hostile amendment, moved by 
 a supporter of the Ministry, found many supporters in the Minis- 
 terial ranks. The Government at once warned its supporters 
 that a defeat would be regarded as a vote of censure. The result 
 was that the mover of the amendment voted against it, and 
 many more of the recalcitrant Ministerialists did the same. But 
 in this case we still had the Boer War on our hands, and a 
 consideration of the consequent critical position of public affairs 
 may well have influenced those members of the House who sub- 
 ordinated their opinions as representatives to their duty as Party 
 units. It must be said, however, that even if there had been no 
 Boer War to consider, the threat of resignation would have brought 
 many of the rebels into the Government lobbies; and, again, that 
 is precisely the state of subordination and sequacity which the 
 electorate ought to have the power to visit with its instant and 
 severe displeasure, when, in its opinion, the censure and the punish- 
 ment have been merited. The Government must yield to the 
 electorate, not the electorate to the Government. Business could 
 not be 'carried on in the mercantile world if every agent were at 
 liberty to act in flat defiance of his instructions and promises, and 
 at the same time to claim, and insist upon, the power to retain 
 his office, and to embarrass his principal by further irresponsibility 
 and faithlessness. There is no valid reason why that which would 
 be intolerable in the business world should come to be permissible, 
 and even customary, in the political. 
 
 A Waste of National Time. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone's last Parliament affords another instance of 
 the waste of national time and toil which results from persistence 
 in a course of policy that is unwelcome to the electorate, and is 
 only possible because of the lack of the electoral power to with- 
 draw, as well as to delegate, the exercise of the sovereign autho- 
 rity. Mr. Gladstone came into office in 1892 with a majority of 
 forty, including the Irish vote. His Government proceeded to 
 the introduction, discussion, and passage through the Commons 
 of the Home Rule Bill, though the "predominant partner" was 
 hostile to the Home Rule scheme, and .although the House of 
 Lords was certain to reject it. The spectacle of this futile misuse 
 
 10
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 of Ministerial power over the voice and vote of its following pro- 
 duced the wave of electoral indignation which ended in the disas- 
 trous debacle of 1895. Doubtless the Ministry knew what it had 
 to expect, and, at all events towards the end, rode for a fall. What 
 is certain is that if there had existed a power to force the resigna- 
 tion of a member of Parliament, its threatened or actual exercise 
 would have stopped the waste of Parliamentary time oiipon the 
 Home Rule Bill long before it had passed through the Commons, or 
 else would have intervened, after its rejection by the Lords, to 
 compel an appeal to the country. It may be urged that the 
 Liberal Government had no alternative but to proceed withi the 
 Home Rule Bill, since any 'hesitation would have involved the 
 loss of the Irish vote upon which the continued existence of the 
 Ministry absolutely depended. That may be. To say so much is 
 only to indicate that either by the withdrawal of the IrisTm vote, or 
 by the compulsory resignation of a proportion of the Liberal 
 members elected for English seats, the Ministry must have been 
 compelled to exchange an undignified existence, on sufferance, for 
 the opportunity of obtaining a larger and decisive majority in 
 which case it could proceed with the programme thus deliberately 
 endorsed by the electorate or else of suffering defeat and ac- 
 cepting its consequences. A Government which can only retain 
 its position by the constant employment of the arts of the whip and 
 the wirepuller is simply a constitutional abnormality tricked out in 
 the semblance of an authority which it does not possess. Into 
 the merits or demerits of tihe Home Rule scheme itself there is 
 no need to enter. What is certain is that when the electorate haj 
 committed the sovereignty to Parliament, it should be in a position 
 to see that it is actively and intelligently used as tool and weapon, 
 and not as plaything ; or, in the alternative, to remove it from 
 hands that will not wield it seriously. A business house whose 
 managers devoted the whole of many months to the discussion and 
 elaboration of schemes which they well knew themselves to be 
 powerless to adopt, while other and more immediate matters were 
 thrust aside, would soon begin to exhibit the unmistakable stamp 
 of neglect, even if it did not :cast the shadow of coming bankruptcy. 
 It is difficult to see why the prerogative of threatened or actual 
 dismissal, which would be capable of exercise against these un- 
 profitable servants by the proprietors of the business, should not 
 be possessed also by the civic intelligences who are, in a very real 
 and true sense, the proprietors of the huge business partnership 
 that is managed from the House of 'Commons. 
 
 The Reproach of Impotence. 
 
 The simile may lead us naturally to another curious develop- 
 ment of this impotence of the electorate to control the exercise of 
 the power which it is compelled to delegate and of which it is 
 
 ii
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 itself the source. From time to time we are told that large 
 sections of the nation fail to impress their political desires or 
 aspirations upon the contemporary movement of legislation. The 
 income-tax payer is reproached because he only grumbles. But 
 that is the extent of his power. At a general election the question 
 of taxation is involved with innumerable other issues, so that the 
 income-tax payer is unable to pick out and emphasise the par- 
 ticular abuse from which he suffers. But if, in the interval be- 
 tween general elections, the income-tax payer were competent to 
 make his displeasure effectively felt, he would not admonish in 
 vain, and Chancellors would less lightly disregard his claims to 
 relief. The case is the same with the more democratic elements 
 of the community. After the Trade Union Congress of 1908 its 
 methods were criticised as those of impotence.* Part of the 
 criticism was directed against the manner of discussion; but the 
 critic proceeded to* say : " There is something wrong about it, a 
 sort of paralysis which condemns it to a weary round of stereo- 
 typed and worn-out common-places, or fallacies, petty squabbling, 
 and impracticable proposals. . . . There is no life, no fresh- 
 ness, no movement." But how can there be when the trade unions 
 which the Congress represents, like the rest of the electorate, have 
 irrevocably parted with their share of the sovereign power to a 
 Legislature which, when once the transfer has been completed, 
 turns a deaf or, at least, an inattentive ear to their appeals ? 
 Whether the schemes and proposals of the Trade Union Congress 
 are sound or not, we may well feel assured that if, having pledged 
 itself to some measure of social reform, it were in a position to 
 intimate to the Government that unless the question received im- 
 mediate legislative attention fifty Government seats would be 
 emptied forthwith, we should hear no more of paralysis or im- 
 potence. It is the political system, the effete mechanism, that is 
 at fault, not the Trade Union Congress or the electorate as a 
 whole. 
 
 The Aloofness of Government. 
 
 The absence of a power to dismiss a disloyal or mutinous repre- 
 sentative, which has been brought into prominence in these illus- 
 trative instances, is by no means the only, though it is one of the 
 most serious, flaws in the constitutional machinery, as an instru- 
 ment purporting to be adapted to> the contemporary needs of the 
 nation. Not only are the constituencies practically powerless to 
 stimulate, to> control, or to check, but the whole machinery of 
 government tends to> 'become more and more aloof from those by 
 whose authority and power it moves, and who* are taxed directly 
 and indirectly to provide the expenses of its operation. 
 This seclusion, or perhaps we may say this aloofness, of 
 
 * See The. Times, September 14, 1908. 
 
 12
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Parliament is one of the most disquieting features of the present 
 constitutional outlook. It is all the more disturbing because the 
 nation is almost entirely unaware of it. Extended reports of the 
 proceedings in Parliament, and the recurring excitement of by- 
 elections and an- occasional general election, keep up the idea 
 that the nation exercises a continuous supervision over the pro- 
 ceedings of Parliament, whereas in truth it is coming to be more 
 in the position of the spectators at a theatre, who may indeed 
 applaud or hiss, but, except by the application of physical 
 violence, cannot stop the performance. The nation is merely 
 the spectator, when it ought to be the manager; and, what is 
 worse, it has not even the powers of a spectator to discourage the 
 play, and end its run, by telling other people that it is not worth 
 seeing. The public may refuse to give any serious attention 
 to what is going on in the legislative theatre, but the play proceeds 
 all the same, at the public expense, and possibly to the public 
 detriment. Modern political conversation turns largely upon 
 'the question what "they" are going to do, what "they" will 
 attempt, and where succeed. It does not occur to the speaker 
 that " we," and not " they," is the proper pronoun, and that if he 
 were as politically effective and articulate as he should be, his 
 disapproval or his satisfaction might cease to be a merely 
 academic echo, and become a living voice and influence, in- 
 stantly heard, felt, and responded to 
 
 Not the least important of the tendencies which are operating 
 in the direction of this greater seclusion of the central executive 
 powers is the formation of a nucleolus within the nucleus which 
 we know as the Cabinet. The Cabinet is a committee of the 
 Government, and within the Cabinet itself a little group of three 
 or four strong men take the lead. Between them and the senti- 
 ment of the nation there is a great gulf fixed. A great deal of 
 the data upon which they form their judgments is never com- 
 municated to the people, nor even to its representatives, though 
 the fate of the nation, for better or for worse, may be profoundly 
 influenced thereby. With them are the mainsprings of legislative 
 activity, the power to choose which of many embryo statutes shall 
 be .placed prominently before the House of Commons and pressed 
 forward into the dignity of an Act of Parliament. The House, 
 as we have already seen, has no effective opinion in the matter. 
 Many of the members dread the appeal to the constituencies which 
 might result from, such a resistance to the Government programme 
 as should produce a Ministerial collapse. The country is power- 
 less. So it is that the nucleolus of the Cabinet, the group of three or 
 four men who really wield the supreme .power, may employ the time 
 of Parliament in passing measures for which there is no national 
 demand, and the discussion and ultimate enactment of which only 
 awakens the feeblest echo of interest in the constituencies; or 
 
 13
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 even in the preliminary and prolonged elaboration of measures 
 which, whether intrinsically good or bad, are known to have 
 no chance of passing the House of Lords. 
 
 The Menace of the Inner Cabinet. 
 
 The existence of the Inner Cabinet places the exercise of the 
 actual governing power at a distance of three " removes " from the 
 electorate in whom the sovereignty technically resides ; and the 
 process of seclusion goes on so unobtrusively that even otherwise 
 acute critics of constitutional developments discuss it without, ap- 
 parently, grasping its real significance. The electorate irrevo- 
 cably delegates the sovereignty for a period which the Septennial 
 Act (so long as no ambitious Ministry repeals it) has fixed at seven 
 years. The House of Commons becomes in that way the deposi- 
 tary of the sovereignty and exercises, by its means (as Mr. Dicey 
 has shown us), a technical predominance. But the House of 
 Commons is not permitted to retain in its own hands the power 
 entrusted to it by the electorate. In its turn it must delegate to 
 the Cabinet, with whom the power of initiative and restraint at 
 this stage of a process which we may perhaps describe as one cf 
 restrictive devolution ultimately rests. The House of Commons, 
 as we shall see as, in fact, we have already seen keeps in 
 its own control only the merest remnant of the vast power com- 
 mitted to it by the electorate ; and even that exiguous modicum it 
 can generally be debarred from using by a Cabinet threat to treat 
 its action as an expression of want of confidence. The House 
 of Commons, however anxious to strike at an obnoxious measiue 
 or an incompetent Minister, will generally stay its hand if it knows 
 that the result of its action will be to send a fair proportion of its 
 members to that bourn from which so many of them will not 
 return. But even the Cabinet, masterful as it appears, can keep 
 no permanent possession of the power which, by the electorate, 
 acting through the House of Commons, has been committed to it. 
 The devolutionary operation proceeds, till the sovereignty rests in 
 the hands of the Inner Cabinet, a body which, among all the 
 multitudinous political phenomena of our age, stands out in single 
 prominence as the most unwelcome, the most disquieting, and the 
 most pregnant with menace to the progress of the nation on the 
 path to complete self-government. 
 
 The Destruction of Independence. 
 
 In order to assure the uninterrupted exercise, by the Inner 
 Cabinet, of the power which, by repeated processes of delegation, 
 it has secured, it is necessary to keep the House of Commons in 
 the mood of constant compliance with the demands made upon it. 
 Therefore, discussion, both by opposition and by supporters, is 
 suppressed. It is quite true that the legislative mechanism runs
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 at a pace which tends ever to become slower ; that its wheels are 
 clogged by the multiplicity of enactments which the growing com- 
 plexity of the modern social fabric and the minuter sub-division 
 of party and sectional interests, causes to be thrust into the 
 machine. It is not suggested that the House of Commons has 
 no right to expedite the pace of its own procedure, in order, if 
 possible, to bring the output into coincidence with the national 
 necessities. What is -here insisted upon is the utter indifference to 
 national opinion which is manifested in all these efforts to sup- 
 press discussion, call them by what name you will. However un- 
 popular, however menacing, the measure, the Government can be 
 certain of the support of its followers, no matter what their per- 
 sonal opinion, or what the unmistakable sentiment of their con- 
 stituents. The great majority of the members may dread that 
 opinion when they know it to be adverse to them and to the pro- 
 gramme which they support; but under existing conditions they 
 are enabled to thrust the fear away into the distance of years. 
 '"Support our scheme for the suppression of discussion," says the 
 Government, in effect, " and we will take care that your con- 
 stituents have no chance of condemning your action by getting 
 rid of your services, however strongly they may resent the policy 
 upon which we have embarked." The result is that the obedient 
 legionaries, convinced that the majority of them will not survive 
 a battle, fall into line for the carrying out of evolutions which 
 may, indeed, save them the necessity of a conflict, though they 
 may be of the most serious import to the country, which has no 
 opportunity of making any effective pronouncement upon them. 
 To some extent our system of party government is itself the source 
 of this invertebrateness in the units of the party. The man who 
 is returned at the head of the poll as Liberal or Conservative con- 
 ceives that he has done all his duty if he has given continuous and 
 unswerving support to the party leaders; and they, in their turn, 
 having secured their obedient following, are only too apt to fall 
 under the spell of its suggestibility, and to take the sycophancy of 
 the member as an indication of the approval of his constituents. 
 We are, of course, proceeding on the assumption that the suppres- 
 sion of debate and discussion, in the given case, fails to command 
 the approval of the constituencies. Under existing circumstances 
 the silence of the constituencies may mean approval on the one 
 hand, or apathy or a consciousness of impotence on the other. 
 The first is the best authority that a Government can possess; 
 but both the latter are detestable symptoms in a great organism 
 which should be awake, alert, puissant. 
 
 Scarcely less disquieting is the system under which the opinion 
 of the nation is qudetly ignored, when the Government and the 
 leaders of the Opposition happen to take the same view on a 
 given question. All that the nation knows is that the front 
 
 15
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Opposition bench is in. harmony with the Government. Certain 
 communications have passed, and there, as far as the national 
 knowledge goes, the matter ends. It may be said that if the 
 nation felt deeply it would manifest its feelings; but perhaps it 
 would be quite as true to reply that the nation refrains from mani- 
 festing them because it realises the utter futility of the display. It 
 has delegated its powers, and cannot resume them, however 
 deeply its sentiments may be at variance with the arrangements 
 made between the leaders of its representatives. " But it has 
 confidence in its political leaders," says the objector; "its senti- 
 ments should not be at variance with theirs. They know -the 1 
 inner workings, and the nation does not. If the question at 
 issue is critical, they take the opinion of those who are in touch 
 with the constituencies, and are guided by what they hear." But 
 the opinion of those who are " in touch " with the constituencies 
 may not be the opinion of the constituencies themselves. It 
 may be consciously or unconsciously warped in passing through 
 the intermediate mind. And even if this is not actually so, and 
 this constitutional reconnoitring process were conducted with 
 the utmost measure of good faith, it does but yield one form, 
 and that an inferior and imperfect one, of representative govern- 
 ment. It certainly does not give the higher product, the self- 
 government which comes of actual contact between the electoral 
 hand and the constitutional meohanismi, exhibited in a power over 
 the State machinery as close and constant as that which is 
 established by means of the regulator of a locomotive. 
 
 The "Capture" of the Electorate. 
 
 There is all the more force in these considerations when we 
 reflect that a Parliamentary majority, even of great magnitude, is 
 not necessarily a majority of the nation. That is a possibility 
 whose nature, as well as the mode of its origination, we shall 
 at a later stage examine in detail. For the present we may accept 
 it as a powerful argument against our present mode of election, 
 and in favour of the adoption of a scheme of proportional repre- 
 sentation. The Government which is conscious of representing a 
 minority of the nation might easily be tempted into the adoption of 
 expedients for the improvement of its political prospects and the 
 transformation of temporary into permanent control. The peril 
 is not fanciful. It is only occasionally, when the lair of some 
 great interest is threatened" by the advance guard of reform, that 
 the nation wakes up to the realisation of the giant forces which 
 still bestride the dim pathway that leads up the steeps of national 
 aspiration on to the bracing uplands of sound and permanent 
 political liberty. Those interests are too daring, and the struggle 
 is for therm too vital, to admit of the existence of any compunction 
 on their side as to the means of defence which they shall employ. 
 In their menacing existence, as they lie encamped across the path 
 
 16
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 of progress, there is a very strong reason why the electoral pro- 
 cesses should be secured from accidental, artificial, and capri- 
 cious interference. The control of popular government .will fall, 
 said Maine, into the hands of him who can unite into a following 
 the greatest number of the units into which political power is 
 minutely divided; and the method of union will be to rally the 
 units to the sound of a sordid party cry, or else to rouse them into 
 passion by some dexterous appeal to antique prejudices, playing 
 upon primeval instincts not yet effaced by centuries of life under 
 law. Periodic outbursts of political inebriation would seem to be 
 the necessary concomitants of the maintenance of government, if 
 this view of the future be a correct, or even a plausible one. The 
 civic organism is to be maddened by the excitation of any nerve 
 that can be madie to react to this kind of stimulus, and while it 
 is under the spell it is to be deluded into delegating its inherent 
 powers of self-government, for a lengthened time, to the leader 
 who has had sufficient skill to select precisely that nerve which 
 will give him the reaction that he wants. Plainly, if this be true 
 and up to a point it may be regarded as fairly representing the 
 dangers of the situation the electorate is under -all the greater 
 necessity to interpose obstacles between.' him who is desirous of 
 administering these enravishing potions, and the " subjects " wtho 
 may be flung into frenzy by their flavour. Therein is a strong 
 reason, then, for surrounding the electoral processes in the manner 
 and by the means which we shall in due course discuss, with re- 
 serve and restraint, and for shutting out, to the utmost limit which 
 is consistent with the jealous conservation of freedom in its 
 highest and best sense, all that can disguise, distort, and delude. 
 
 Let it be remembered, also, that even the rousing of some giant 
 interest from the lair where it has lain for centuries is not neces- 
 sarily undertaken, by a Government, in the furtherance of the 
 common weal. It would not be difficult to point to forces which 
 are capable of being exerted with tremendous effect in the nation's 
 political life, though their aims are not invariably or essentially 
 inconsistent with the national -well-being. A Government on 
 tyranny bent might well desire the preliminary destruction of 
 such a force, but only for the purpose of removing a menace and 
 an obstacle from the track of its own sinister schemes. The 
 nation which had given a majority for the beneficial aim might 
 desire to withdraw its mandate when the real nature of the scheme 
 unfolded itself; but the present working of the electoral system 
 offers no opportunity for the withdrawal, given a compliant House 
 of Lords, and a sovereign who lacked either the desire or else 
 the courage to employ his personal veto. When it is recollected 
 that the House of Lords, as it at present exists, is inclined to 
 regard with more than average favour the legislation of one of 
 the great parties in the State, while there is no guarantee that the 
 c 17
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Royal House will maintain in unbroken sequence the consummate 
 political knowledge and ability of Queen Victoria and King 
 Edward, even a mind which is capable of only moderate insight 
 can realise that the successful appeal to the nation to rally for 
 the attack on .a great interest may really, in the absence of a 
 continuous check upon Parliament, only leave the national herit- 
 age with one less defender, and to that extent render it more 
 helpless to resist the onslaught of some sinister scheme for the 
 plundering of the political treasure-house. 
 
 The House of Lords. 
 
 The electorate itself may be, unwittingly, an original partici- 
 pant in such a scheme as this. It is always possible that the 
 nation, in a powerful revulsion of feeling, or in consequence of 
 the glittering fascination of some untried policy, may move 
 violently towards an extreme programme. In that way it com- 
 mits its destinies, for seven years, to the hands of men with 
 whom it early discovers that it has no deep and lasting sympathy. 
 The attempted realisation of the schemes thus momentarily en- 
 dorsed by the constituencies must in any case involve a huge 
 waste of Parliamentary time, and may possibly, if the House of 
 Lords be compliant, lead to the actual passage of measures 
 which have, upon closer scrutiny, revealed their obnoxious charac- 
 ter to an electorate that is by that time thoroughly on the alert. 
 As things stand with us, however (and if it be true that the Royal 
 Veto is obsolete), the House of Lords would be the only hope of 
 the nation in a crisis of that kind, and there can be no doubt that 
 the failure which has always attended any endeavour to stir the 
 nation into anger with the House of Lords* is the consequence 
 of a natural fear of the uncontrolled and uncontrollable proceed- 
 ings of a single chamber endowed with power under circumstances 
 such as these. The nation realises its own liability to be misled 
 into giving an adventitious but temporarily omnipotent majority, 
 whose acts its better judgment, on reflection, would disapprove, 
 but at a time when it could not withdraw the irrevocably-committed 
 sovereignty, nor yet compel a second appeal to itself. Therefore 
 it declines to be stirred into anger against the one barrier which, 
 under existing conditions, it supposes to stand between itself and 
 a despotism. 
 
 This view found confirmation, while the present essay was in 
 active preparation for the press, in some observations of the 
 Manchester Guardian on the rejection of the Licensing Bill 
 of 1908. "If we had a referendum," said this newspaper,t "the 
 
 * The reader is asked to remember that what is here being discussed 
 is a constitutional question, not the problem whether or not the House 
 of Lords has deserved the national anger, or whether or not " cam- 
 paigns " against it are profitable. 
 
 t Manchester Guardian, November 25, 1908. 
 
 18
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Government would be able to meet the claims of Unionist peers 
 to represent the will of the people without the risk of a general 
 election which might alter the general policy of the country in 
 a sense directly opposite to the country's wishes. Unfortunately, 
 we have no -referendum, to check the claims of the House of Lords." 
 Suppose, however, that instead of the referendum we had a care- 
 fully defined and safeguarded power entrusted to the individual 
 constituencies of dismissing their members when, in their de- 
 liberate judgment, there were circumstances that called for the 
 severity. This potentiality of compliance with the requirements 
 of the Fourth Canon would afford a comparatively simple and 
 readily available mode of demonstrating the power of the lower 
 House to the House of Lords, or to any other chamber, or modified 
 form of the present chamber, which may ultimately take its place. 
 An Opposition which was certain of popular dis^pproval of a 
 Government measure could strengthen the hands of the House 
 of Lords by forcing by-elections in 20 or 30 constituencies re- 
 presented by supporters of the Government, and by winning the 
 seats. On the other hand, a Government which had the senti- 
 ment of the electorate at its back, but which might not feel 
 justified, nevertheless, in precipitating a general election, might 
 convey a very timely and effective warning to the House of Lords 
 by using the machinery of dismissal to empty 30 or 40 Opposi- 
 tion seats, and by replacing their former holders with Minis- 
 terialists. There would, in effect, be a power to bring about 
 a miniature general election, and so to present an unmistakable 
 manifestation of electoral opinion, to act as tonic or caution, to 
 Government, or Opposition, or House of Lords, as the case might 
 be. 
 
 The Powerlessness of the Electorate. 
 
 This compulsory and irrevocable delegation of the sovereignty 
 by the electorate, to a power which year by year retires into 
 deeper aloofness from the touch and control of the nation, is 
 clearly the weak spot in the wall which the zeal and fore- 
 sight of many generations has built around a precious and ma- 
 jestic civic inheritance. In what way are we to repair it? 
 Clearly, by giving to the constituents some well-defined and 
 effective means (capable only of use by large bodies 
 of electors, under conditions which compel responsibility and 
 seriousness) of forcing the representative, at any time, either to 
 quit his position finally and altogether, or else to face the ordeal 
 of another election. Under the existing system the representative 
 (who may possibly be the choice of a minority) is placed! in a 
 position of impregnable irresponsibility for seven years. Even if, 
 out of an electorate of 10,000, 9,500 meet in solemn 
 conclave to denounce him, they cannot move him. Elec- 
 tion promises may have been flung to the winds, and 
 
 19
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 the most sacred pledges ruthlessly trampled upon; but 
 so long as the dissolution is postponed, the faithless 
 servant is safe from the displeasure of his masters, .and may con- 
 tinue to give votes in their name and to assist in guiding national 
 policy into channels which are utterly inimical to thedr interests 
 and flatly contrary to their desires. It is in circumtances such a 
 these that a member who knows .that he can never secure the 
 renewal of his constituents' confidence is tempted to support the 
 existing Government through thick and thin, because their fate is 
 linked with his, and he must sink when they cease to swim. So 
 is it that, where a general election gives a huge (and it may be 
 an utterly disproportionate) majority to one party (and even where 
 the majority in the House represents a minority in the country) 
 a large number of its members know of the imminence and 
 certainty of tihe .recoil, and are fully aware that within a few 
 months they and! their whilom supporters will be separated by a 
 gulf which hourly waxes wider. Then are they tempted to cease 
 utterly to be representatives, and to become the mere pawns of 
 party, unwilling under any circumstances to do that which will 
 bring down the Government. Rather would they be requested 
 to rise to any heights of compliance, to practise any sinuosity of 
 accommodation, than to witness the precipitation of that appeal 
 which is the unmistakable token of the approaching end. 
 
 The "Frivolous" Spirit. 
 
 At the time when these constitutional phenomena are marshal- 
 ling themselves in unobtrusive menace, we are told by moralists 
 that they detect an increasingly frivolous spirit, a keener craving 
 for unnatural excitement, in the community. They have dis- 
 covered these disquieting forces at both ends of the nation, so to 
 speak, among the idle rich, and among the working men. The 
 one class spends its time and energies in a ceaseless round of 
 gaiety and indulgence; the other seeks artificial excitement in 
 betting and 1 gambling upon the contingencies of sporting and 
 athletics. These diversions are pursued more for the excitement 
 of the bet than for the enjoyment of the event itself. May not the 
 growth of this frivolous spirit, this craving for excitement, for 
 colour in drab lives, and for variety in the story of monotonous days, 
 be also, in part at least, a consequence of that which we have called 
 the aloofness of the administrative power ? As a race we are supposed 
 to have a special talent for government. On both sides of the 
 Atlantic, and at the Antipodes, we have raised great commomi- 
 ties into being, and provided them with constitutional machinery 
 which outlasts revolution and defies the assaults of time and 
 reckless ambition. We are almost the only race which carries on 
 the royal and the republican experiment simultaneously, so as to 
 offer to the student of government the opportunity of compara- 
 tive study on a scale of unprecedented and unparalleled magni- 
 
 20
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ficence. We are proud of saying that we have tamed kings, that 
 we saved Europe in its day of dire need. Can it be that we 
 have tamed kings merely to enhance the glory of those who 
 shall in turn reduce the king-tamers to helpless and apathetic 
 acquiescence; that we have saved Europe and lost England? 
 Certain it is that the self-governing vigour, skill, and enterprise 
 of this nation ought to-day to be at its highest, a star of the first 
 magnitude in the political firmament of the world. But we can 
 only hope to assume, and to maintain, that position if political 
 vigilance flourishes unchecked and unhypnotised, and if the deft 
 self-governing hand, which has never yet been allowed to display 
 the full power of its skill and "touch," is kept in training and 
 urged to nobler trials by actual contact with the realities of 
 administration. That /cannot be done if the processes of govern- 
 ment are withdrawn more and more from public cognisance and 
 supervision. The nation, imperfectly informed, or wholly ignorant 
 of the trend of these things, may seek outlets for its energies in 
 the study of racing odds and in athleticism run mad, leaving its 
 political leaders to employ the constitutional machine for party 
 aggrandisement and personal ambition. But it is surely a plain 
 duty to put the facts before it to ask if it is really willing to 
 abrogate the position of master and to take up the duties ot 
 servant. 
 
 Our National Conservatism. 
 
 The greatest obstacle to the bringing home of these truths to 
 the mind of the electorate is to be found in the mental trait which 
 is the worst element in our national equipment as a practical and 
 progressive people. Have we not an ineradicable tendency to 
 assume and, unless our dream is rudely broken, to go on 
 assuming that the political phenomena which, just at any 
 given period, we see around us are essential and neces- 
 sary? That, at all events, has been our habit for nearly 
 a thousand years. When there is forced upon us the con- 
 viction that some ancient mode of action is no longer capable 
 of doing that Which it is expected to do, we modify or adjust it 
 as slightly as we can, and persuade ourselves that it is still the 
 same. We even resort to elaborate fictions to effect our purpose, 
 and in these late dlays we have satisfied ourselves of the existence 
 of what we call " conventions of the constitution," under which 
 name we dignify certain elementary necessities of our present con- 
 stitutional mechanism, the existence of which we are anxious to 
 render as unobtrusive as possible, because they seem, almost to 
 offend us with the air of novelty. But although these expedients 
 will serve for a time to disguise from us the fact that even the 
 most ingenious patching will not suffice to make the old consti- 
 tutional garment cover our large national limbs, there comes at 
 last a time when the seams burst, and then, as has happened not 
 
 21
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 once nor twice in our rough island story, a new garment has to be 
 hurriedly put together to meet the altered needs, and, like its 
 predecessor, soon displays the imperfections of its texture and 
 structure. Meanwhile, however, the nation has congratulated 
 itself on what it supposes to be finality has settled down, with a 
 fair amount of satisfaction, to enjoy the prospect of uninterrupted 
 freedom from the anxieties incident to its growth. This appears 
 to be our present mood. We have a constitutional government, 
 which, though it is of fairly recent make, has long ceased to fit 
 us. If the fact be doubted, a perusal of the remarks on Re- 
 distribution will re-solve incredulity. The age when we thought 
 of our kings as beings of a race apa,rt, and when we seriously 
 discussed their Divine Right, has long since passed away, and 
 with it a system under which we were governed in .spite of our- 
 selves. There was, indeed, a period when we shared the govern- 
 ment. We made our own choice of men to assist in the work, and 
 we assured ourselves that this was representative government 
 Nay, we still think so. We have not yet awakened to the fact 
 that the absolute Government of the early Normans, the qualified 
 absolutism of the Angevins, the deferential administration of the 
 Lancastrians, the dexterous manipulation of the constituencies to 
 which the rising power of the Commons had reduced Elizabeth, 
 the premature experiment of the Commonwealth, the comparatively 
 advanced constitutional doctrines of the Revolution, the rise of 
 Cabinet Government, the doctrine of Ministerial responsibility 
 that all these are steps, gradations of political development, whose 
 end is not the permanent establishment of merely representative 
 government, but the evolution of that which is an infinitely higher 
 form of politically corporate sagacity, to wit, self-government. 
 
 It is possible that the reiterated demand for the devolution of 
 some of the work of an overburdened Parliament upon other, and 
 subordinate authorities, is a symptom of the awakening national 
 consciousness of maladjustment. But the remedy for the malaise 
 does not lie in devolution. As we have learnt from all the rigid 
 constitutions, as well as from the flexible specimen under which 
 we are governed, there are a multitude of legislative subject- 
 matters with regard to which the interference of no subordinate 
 body could be tolerated by the House of Commons. But if we 
 can reinvigorate the House of Commons itself, by means of the 
 infusion of new and enthusiastic social elements, as well as by 
 means o the unremitting supervision of keenly-interested critics, 
 themselves endowed with no common share of political instinct 
 and alertness ; and if we can enable these to exercise such a control 
 as shall exclude the frivolous and sterilise the vain, confronting un- 
 worthy ambitions with the stately mien of unanswerable dispraise, 
 and stimulating real political and social prospicience with the 
 assurance of unfailing and invincible support if we can do this, 
 
 22
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 who shall set bounds to the puissance of the magnificent Excalibur 
 of self-government, thus flashing in an ancient nation's resolute 
 hand ? 
 
 The Attainment of Unintermitted Control. 
 
 It remains, then, to attempt OUT task, to outline, be it ever so 
 dimly, the Essentials of Self-Government. For that purpose the 
 writer has ventured to frame his Four Canons of self-government 
 upon the pattern of the four great canons of taxation) laid down by 
 Adam Smith. He has then proceeded to an exhaustive examina- 
 tion of the entire mechanism by which the will of the sovereign 
 people is capable of impressing itself upon the executive. 
 The central purpose of this prolonged scrutiny is the de- 
 tailed examination, in the light of the soundest modern political 
 ideals, of the whole electoral mechanism as it at present exists ; the 
 criticism of the machinery where it is perverse, inefficient, or effete ; 
 and the suggestion of practical methods for its elaboration into an 
 efficient, adequate, lissom, rapidly adjustable, and continuously 
 operative instrument of control over the executive and legislative 
 elements of the political system, so that the political power of the 
 nation shall only be delegated to the smallest possible extent, and 
 for the shortest possible period, that is compatible with its 
 unimpaired and legitimate activity, and so that every citizen shall 
 feel that he is not only called to exercise his electoral power of 
 decision from time to time, but that the idommunity demands of 
 him a continual intelligent supervision of its affairs, and commits, 
 to his hands a means of making his criticism or judgment instantly 
 heard when, in his opinion, there are circumstances which call for 
 its utterance. 
 
 Under the system, which has now found final acceptance with 
 us, and is established for a period of /which the present generation 
 and its children will not see the end, the last test of the sound- 
 ness of all political sentiment and aspiration in this country is 
 that which is furnished by the ballot box. Thither go the dreams 
 of the idealist, the hopes and experiments of the reformer, the 
 sordid ambitions of the place-hunter. There they are tested : 
 and there they find the acceptance or rejection which seal 
 their fate. Involved with these, and streaming with them 
 towards the same ordeal, are supposed to go the home and 
 foreign policy of the country, and all the time-honoured consti- 
 tutional doctrines, all the great legislative experiments, all the 
 social dogmas, wherewith each generation plays cm the shores of 
 Time, like children with the pebbles on the beach. The main 
 <x>ncern of this study is toi indicate how the ballot-box test can 
 be rendered adequate, and! maintained in adequacy ; how it can 
 be made to express and enforce the opinion of the nation, not 
 intermittently, at intervals of years, but continuously and un- 
 interruptedly, so that an insurgent statesman shall hear the deep 
 
 23
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 diapason of the national anger at the very moment when he . 
 stretches out ihis hand to touch the ark of the constitutional 
 covenant, and shall find it swell into articulate and majestic 
 harmony if he do not instantly draw back; how the imposition 
 of the test shall be protected from caprice, intimidation, and all 
 the influences that are alien to its spirit and formidable to its 
 healthy activity; how there shall be flung around it more of the 
 antique dignity of a great and hoary nation, conscious that in its 
 political liberties it has received a, stately and splendid inheritance ; 
 how it shall, in very truth, ever express the unshackled 
 popular will, train the popular mind in habits of public care, pre- 
 serve, as an unstained and undiminished 'heirloom, all that our 
 forefathers won', and 'brace their sons with skill and strength for 
 further conquests, firmer consolidation, a profounder political 
 insight, and an ever nobler ideal of liberty, progress, and zeal 
 for the welfare not merely of the national, but of the cosmic 
 organism. For if the rapid advance in the intellectual and 
 assimilative power of the social organism renders necessary a con- 
 tinual restatement of principles and a constantly repeated effort 
 to materialise them in statute and custom, surely it is obvious that 
 the process and mechanism of materialisation itself stand in need 
 of equally continuous adaptation to the task. 
 
 Subject and Method. 
 
 In his consideration of the subject the writer has drawn upon a 
 wide, practical experience of the working of the electoral 
 mechanism, reinforced by a collateral scrutiny of all those in- 
 fluences legal, political, economic, psychological, sociological, 
 and tactical, which play their part in the formation of its product. 
 The inspiration of this attempt at an examination of the very 
 foundations of government has in truth been the belief that, as a 
 real, intelligent, robust, and penetrative interest in national affairs 
 is extending every day to a greater proportion not only of the 
 electorate, but of the whole adult population, and as problems of 
 ever deeper import and complexity confront this great tribunal, 
 a distinct purpose would be served by a close inspection of the 
 means by which its judgments are obtained. The Monarchy, the 
 Constitution, the Cabinet, the Executive, and the Legislature have 
 all 'been subjected, at the hands of some of the most distinguished of 
 modern students, to this detailed inspection, from every point of 
 view except that perhaps certain subtle tendencies, plainly visible 
 among the higher constitutional phenomena, have not received due 
 appreciation with regard to their possible menace to the firm esta- 
 blishment and unassailable perpetuation of the sovereignty in the 
 people. But the mode by which the popular sovereignty of the 
 British eleictorate is exercised in its own domestic sphere; the 
 manner in which its expression is evoked, stimulated, and 
 
 24
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 directed ; how it is sometimes defeated and distorted ; how, finally, 
 it is recorded and within what limits it is supreme this, so far 
 as the present writer is aware, has not formed the subject of any 
 exhaustive treatise. The time is ripe for a first attempt in that 
 direction. 
 
 To render the survey in any sense adequate, even as an introduc- 
 tion to tihe subject, it has been necessary to interpose some brief 
 historical notes, exhibiting the development of the various in- 
 fluences, good and bad, which have from time to time been exerted 
 upon the electoral machinery. In that way, for instance, the early 
 records of bribery and treating have been briefly summarised, so 
 as to bring before the mind of the reader the enormity and shame- 
 lessness of these corrupt influences, in quite recent years. Only in 
 that way can he be made to see the necessity for the very severe 
 and sweeping enactments against these offences, which still stand 
 upon the Statute Book, and seem out of all proportion to the 
 actual and palpable evidences of corruption, in this form, that 
 present themselves to an observer of our comparatively austere 
 electoral methods in the twentieth century. Where it could profit- 
 ably be done, the other elements of the electoral mechanism have 
 been succinctly, but it is hoped lucidly, treated in the same way 
 as, for instance, canvassing. 
 
 An Outline of Election Law. 
 
 At every point of the discussion, however, the student of the 
 electoral system is confronted by the various Statutes, and by the 
 decisions of the judges (and occasionally of the old Election Com- 
 mittees) upon them. This aggregate of statute and case law re- 
 presents the persistent effort of the Legislature to bring the habits 
 and methods of its creators more into line, in the first place, with 
 common decency, as in the abolition of the disgusting orgies of 
 eighteenth century treating; in the second place, with common 
 honesty and with the ordinary ideals of fair play and political 
 freedom, as in the abolition of the pocket borough, and the sup- 
 pression of bribery, as well as in the establishment of the ballot; 
 and, in the third place, with common sense a process which is as 
 yet by no means complete. The effect of these efforts has been to 
 surround the electoral mechanism with, a perfect maze of techni- 
 calities, the broad outlines of which must be understood before 
 the detailed study of the machinery itself can be entered upon with 
 any reasonable hope of intellectual achievement. The distinction 
 between cormpt practices and illegal practices; the precise nature 
 of the noxious psychological element whose presence turns an ap- 
 parently sympathetic shilling into a bribe ; the legal meaning,' if it 
 be discernible, of the term " candidate " all these, and' many 
 more problems, face every student of our electoral system who 
 desires to thrust aside the superficial, and to come to handgrips 
 
 25
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 with the serious and the deep. For these reasons it has been 
 necessary to state the law with some particularity, though not, 
 of course, with the minuteness which characterises the indispensable 
 " Rogers," " Fraser," or " Ward by Lushington." The reader may 
 be assured that these statements of the law have in every case been 
 extended only just so far as will enable them to embody that which 
 is essential to the adequate treatment of the subject from the point 
 of view of the inquirer into the working of a potent mechanism 
 which is capable of smoothing or of obliterating the path of justice, 
 of stimulating the prosperous evolution of the political organism, 
 or of staying its progress and precipitating it upon the fatal slopes 
 of degeneration. 
 
 The Minutia; of Election Work. 
 
 But while it has been possible to avoid following the legal defini- 
 tion and description into their remotest ramifications, without sacri- 
 ficing their substantial accuracy, the very purpose of the present 
 essay must have been jeopardised by any attempt to treat with 
 brevity the social, tactical and mechanical concomitants of the 
 electoral process. These are the special subjects of the study; 
 and to these it is desired to especially direct the eager and pene- 
 trative scrutiny of those stalwart, venturous intellects, whom the 
 keen observer of contemporary political life and activity may see 
 rising in grateful plenitude around him. But such direction must 
 largely fail of its purpose if it could only point to an arid waste of 
 uninstructive generalities and repellent technicalities the thing 
 must be treated in detail, and not in the mass.. For that reason 
 even such minutiae of our electoral system as the provision of con- 
 veyances oni election day, and the quantity and quality of the cam- 
 paign bill-posting, have been discussed with fulness and candour. 
 And if the fulness and candour be criticised, the 'writer avows 
 himself wholly unrepentant in the presence of the vast importance 
 of the various topics, as actively operative parts of a tremendous 
 national mechanism that may make or mar the destiny of a 
 people. There is, in truth, all the greater need for this detailed 
 treatment, because of the amount of ignorance and misconception 
 which prevails with regard to the working of this most vital ele- 
 ment of the national life. The electoral process is regarded by 
 many people as nothing more than a kind of political boxing con- 
 test. Its colossal issues are obscured by the idea of the " sport." 
 But the element of " sport " as a supposed factor of the electoral 
 mechanism is in the wrong place. The problems which have to 
 be decided by means of the ballot box are too serious in their 
 bearing on the life and growth of the nation for their considera- 
 tion to be tinctured by the intervention of chance or caprice. 
 When the electorate has discharged its electoral duties, it may 
 legitimately amuse itself (subject to the due care of other in- 
 
 26
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 terests) in the recreations and trivialities that are in some ways 
 the spice of life. The preservation and enlargement of its leisure 
 for these diversions does, in fact, depend upon the use which it 
 makes of the electoral machinery : but the same frame of mind 
 cannot properly form the intellectual concomitant of both duty 
 and diversion. Again, even when the element of " sport " is not 
 forced into prominence, the great majority even of otherwise com- 
 petent observers, as a result of a mischievous and misplaced con- 
 centration of attention, bestow their entire lively interest upon the 
 ballot box. That, indeed, conveys to the public the final verdict; 
 but it is only an outward and visible sign of what ought to be the 
 aggregate of inward and deeply-pondered individual judgments 
 upon the political affairs of the nation. The whole process, and 
 not merely its results, ought to be studied. Just as a sound geo- 
 logical knowledge is unattainable by a person who devotes his at- 
 tention merely to the phenomena as they exist, without regard to 
 the history of their origin and development, so no adequate 
 knowledge of the realities and tendencies of political evolution 
 can be obtained merely by watching the breaking of the seals of 
 ballot boxes. Yet the study of the many processes which have 
 their consummation in the ballot box is so difficult, and so sur 
 rounded with technicalities, as to daunt all but the most deter- 
 mined of investigators. Certainly its aspect, as of a forest dense 
 with undergrowth, deters the great majority of those whose politi- 
 cal interest is keen, and who are infected with the ever-increasing 
 desire to know something of the mainsprings of that political 
 action which is concerned with affairs that are so important, with 
 a national heritage which is so majestic, with an organic destiny 
 whose sublimity breaks at last upon the patient observer like the 
 glories of an Alpine sunrise. 
 
 There is no reason why the subject of election organi- 
 sation and practice, or the still wider study of the 
 working of the electoral mechanism as a whole, should 
 not be accepted as an optional subject for the degrees in Economic 
 and Political Science which are now granted by various Univer- 
 sities. It certainly cannot be said that the study is unimportant or 
 uninteresting, or that it is not valuable as an intellectual exercise, 
 or that it has no bearing on the social and political problems of 
 the day. It is, in truth, one of the questions in which public 
 interest has recently been stimulated to an extraordinary degree, 
 as was shown by the thronging audiences who attended Professor 
 Masterman's lectures on the House of Commons. All that is re- 
 quired to place it in a permanent position as an element in the 
 intellectual equipment of the citizen is the definition of a stan- 
 dard of acquirement in its study as one of the qualifications for 
 
 27
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 the numerous distinctions towards which modern educational 
 ambition is directed. 
 
 It will be understood that the criticism which is here offered 
 of various election methods does not necessarily involve any cen- 
 sure of a candidate or election agent who at present uses them. 
 A candidate or election agent must employ the best weapons that 
 are permissible under the accepted contemporary rules of election 
 warfare and the statutes which enunciate election law. He can 
 no more afford to refrain from employing an objectionable, but 
 prevalent, device than the general of an army can be expected to 
 dispense with high explosives, because he himself considers them 
 a method of barbarism. We censure the system, not the man. 
 We remedy by elevating the general ideal, not by the act of 
 unilateral self-abnegation. 
 
 The Psychological Limitation. 
 
 The limitation to England and Wales, to which the attention of 
 the reader is called on the title page, is an essential preliminary. 
 The machinery of self-government can only be adequately sur- 
 veyed if the psychological and sociological aspects of its working 
 are brought within the range of vision; and it were idle for a 
 writer who has no intricate knowledge of Scottish and Irish 
 electoral methods, and no deep acquaintance with the mental 
 characteristics of the Scottish and Irish peoples, to attempt their 
 inclusion within the limits of this essay. " The errors which im- 
 pede the scientific study of the history of man," said 
 Professor Ridgway at the meeting of the Anthropological 
 Section of the British Association in 1908, " led to our 
 maladministration of alien races and gave rise to blunders 
 fraught with the gravest consequences in our social and 
 educational legislation. As the physical type varied from 
 zone to zone and latitude to latitude, so the institutions 
 and religious ideas also varied, and consequently it was folly 
 to seek to govern our great dependencies on the principles of the 
 English Constitution and English law." For the same reason it 
 would be folly to suppose that the electoral mechanism in Scot- 
 land will manifest precisely the same idiosyncrasies (and conse- 
 quently that it will be susceptible of the same mode of analysis) 
 as it exhibits south of the border. As for Ireland, the impossi- 
 bility of successfully adapting the same machinery of government 
 to peoples who are psychologically sundered by a gulf far wider 
 than St. George's Channel is the reason why the Irish Question is 
 always with us. The writer is the more anxious to define his posi- 
 tion in this respect, lest the omission of Ireland should be inter- 
 preted as the evidence of a lack of interest in her struggles, or of 
 want of sympathy with the courageous men who fight her Parlia- 
 mentary battles. 
 
 28
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Venturing, then, upon the exhaustive treatment of a subject that 
 is of transcendent importance for the political welfare of his 
 countrymen, the writer desires to quote the remarks with which the 
 Professor of Sociology in the University of Wisconsin explains his 
 own sense of the responsibility under which he put forth the primary 
 treatise in " Social Psychology," and to add that they are a com- 
 plete expression of his own diffidence and his own consciousness of 
 many faults, negligences, and ignorances. " It requires some 
 hardihood," says Professor Ross, " to put forth this . . . 
 treatise ... In spite of infinite pains, ... I feel 
 sure the book is strewn with errors. The ground is new, and 
 among the hundreds of interpretations, inferences, and generalisa- 
 tions I have ventured on, no doubt scores will turn out to be 
 wrong. Of course, I would strike them out if I knew which they 
 are. But . . . the time has come to hand over the results of 
 my reflection to my fellow- workers, in the hope of provoking dis- 
 cussions which will part the wheat from the chaff and set it to 
 producing a hundredfold."
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Registration. 
 
 The suffrage itself forms no part of the present study. To dis- 
 cuss it in any detail must have involved the opening up of con- 
 troversial questions, one of which, at least, has in recent times been 
 the subject of extensive and varied debate. It was thought 
 desirable, therefore, to exclude the suffrage itself, and to com- 
 mence the analysis and exposition of the electoral problem at the 
 point where, the existing suffrage being before us, we may consider 
 how best it can be made and kept continuously effective up to 
 the limits of its power of expressing the national will. The ex- 
 clusion is the less to be regretted since the existing suffrage is 
 broad enough to afford a sound basis for the enunciation of all the 
 electoral principles which would be applicable even to a much 
 wider franchise; so that we are enabled to study the political 
 mechanism which has its foundations in the suffrage, not only as 
 it is, but as it will be when those foundations have been extended 
 and strengthened. We begin, then, with the registration system 
 with the question, How is the prima -facie title to the exercise of 
 the vote tested and certified, so that the voter may present himself 
 at the polling booth in the full confidence that none can say him 
 nay ? 
 
 A detailed examination of the method by which the electorate 
 seeks to form and guide the legislative and executive powers 
 must necessarily begin with an inspection of the machinery by 
 which the composition of the electorate* itself is determined. The 
 process, as we know, is described under the general term "regis- 
 tration." The Overseers, on August i in each year, publish a list 
 of qualified householders and occupiers, as the first step in the 
 formation of the new register, which is to come into force on 
 January i following. Freeholders, copyholders, and leaseholders 
 will have had to send in to the Overseers, before July 20, their 
 claim to be placed upon the electoral list, but they need not renew 
 their claim when it has once been admitted. Lodgers, however, 
 are compelled to make an annual claim as a condition of remain- 
 ing on the register. Within a limited period from the publication 
 of the lists any qualified person omitted therefrom may give notice 
 of his claim to be included; and, conversely, objections may be 
 lodged to persons who are wrongfully admitted. These claims 
 and objections will be considered and adjudicated upon by the 
 
 * The present essay is concerned with the Parliamentary electorate 
 only, although many of the principles laid down have an equal applica- 
 tion to the municipal electorate. The reader is asked to bear in mind 
 the limitation.
 
 REGISTRATION. 
 
 Revising Barristers (in the presence of the political party agents, 
 who are the real mainsprings of the majority of the claims and 
 objections) at annual sittings held in the early autumn. Finally, 
 the new list goes into force on January i following. 
 
 No Really Responsible Authority; 
 
 The singular ineffectiveness and imperfection of this process 
 can easily be exhibited to the casual and non-technical observer ; 
 but it is brought home with terrible force to all those who, in an 
 official capacity, are concerned with the operation of the electoral 
 mechanism'. There is, in the first place, no authority which is 
 subjected to any real and serious responsibility with regard to the 
 continuous accuracy and completeness of the register. Every 
 election reveals to the election agent and his assistants the ex- 
 clusion from the list of large numbers of persons who are fully 
 qualified for inclusion, but who are, in fact, not included as a 
 result of the carelessness which is ever the result of irresponsi- 
 bility and the absence of a continuously operative check and 
 stimulus. It will be found that, although the existing machinery 
 of Imperial and local government rapidly and effectively discovers 
 and enforces the liabilities of the citizen, it does not operate with 
 the same celerity and efficiency with regard to his privileges and 
 rights. For instance, the citizen whose income is. or is supposed 
 to be, over ^160 per annum, will not escape the vigilance of the 
 income-tax authority at any period of the year. He will be re- 
 quired to furnish particulars of his income. If they are inade- 
 quate, he will be asked for further detail; and if he claims 
 " abatement," he must state the grounds of his claim, with facts 
 and figures to support it. If he neglect any of these obligations 
 he will be again and again reminded of them, until at last very 
 drastic measures will be adopted to force them upon his attention. 
 When he has complied with them he will (if liable) receive a de- 
 mand note for his taxes, which, if it does not gain his early atten- 
 tion, will be followed by peremptory reminders of his indebtedness 
 to the State. Ultimately, if he still remain careless or obdurate, a 
 higher official will take the case in hand, will give him seven days' 
 notice to pay, and will, if payment be not made, proceed to enforce 
 it by distress. The same process will, mutatis mutandis, be em- 
 ployed by the rate-collecting authorities. If one-half, or one- 
 fourth, of the vigilance and persistency thus displayed in the com- 
 pulsion of the citizen to discharge his duties to the State were 
 also utilised in defining and protecting the rights and privileges 
 which the State owes to the citizen, there would be no need to 
 enter upon a criticism of the system of the registration of Parlia- 
 mentary electors. It is, indeed, quite true that many of the people 
 who are annoyed to find themselves wrongfully excluded from the 
 exercise of the franchise, at a period, it may be, of great political 
 excitement or of national crisis, could have secured, their vote by
 
 REGISTRATION. 
 
 making a claim at the proper time. In practice, however, it will 
 be found that not only is the machinery cumbrous and difficult to 
 move, but that all the resources of party warfare will often be 
 invoked to keep off the register, by technical objections of the 
 greatest subtlety, a citizen who has every right to be there. 
 
 The "Removal" Question. 
 
 Another obstacle to the smooth and rapid working of the 
 registration system is to be found in the crudities with which the 
 " removal " question is surrounded. Thus, a registered voter who 
 changes his residence from one side of the road to the other will 
 not lose his vote if both sides of the road are in the same con- 
 stituency, nor yet if they are in different constituencies, provided 
 that both are a portion of the same borough. But a voter who 
 removes from the east side of the Kilburn High Road (which is in 
 Hampstead) to the west side (which is in Willesden) will, at the 
 end of the current electoral year, lose his vote, and (though his 
 liability for .rates and taxes will not cease in the meanwhile) will 
 not regain it until he has resided in Willesden for a period of 
 nearly eighteen months beginning from July 15 in any year. If he 
 entered upon the new occupation on any day previous to July 15, he 
 will (assuming that he is in other respects qualified) be placed 
 upon the register in the autumn of the next year, and will become 
 entitled to exercise the franchise on and after the following New 
 Year's Day, when the new register comes into force. If his new 
 occupation begins on or after July 16 he will lose his vote for 
 nearly two and a half years. Thus, if he changed his residence 
 on July 1 6, 1908, he cannot claim to go on the register for 1909, 
 nor yet for 1910. His earliest possible appearance on the list as 
 an effective voter will take place on January i, 1911. The case 
 of a lodger who becomes a householder (and who, since this altera- 
 tion doubtless implies the assumption of domestic responsibilities, 
 has probably made himself in that way a more valuable member 
 of society) is even harder, for the period during which he was a 
 lodger forms no part of the time which he is entitled to reckon 
 in the establishment of his claim as a householder. He begins 
 all over again, so to speak. - These, and the allied instances which 
 must be marshalled were the subject further pursued, are monstrous 
 anomalies monstrous in that they surround an elementary civic 
 right with the web of bewildering technicality and superfluous 
 delay, and equally monstrous in that they hamper the expression 
 of the electoral opinion of that which is, economically speaking, 
 among the best and most capable elements of the community the 
 element, that is to say, whose very removal from one place to 
 anothei marks, in the great majority of cases, that attempt at a 
 better accommodation to environment which is, in all organisms, 
 the signal of advance. 
 
 32
 
 REGISTRATION. 
 
 The Partisan Element. 
 
 These considerations bring us to what is perhaps the most 
 prominent weakness of the present registration system the fact 
 that it leaves the adequacy of the register largely dependent upon 
 the party agents, so that the register, such as it is, is never up to 
 date. The word " never " is used advisedly. The register re- 
 vised in the early autumn dbes not come into force until the 
 commencement of the following year, when death and the ceaseless 
 flux of the population have alreatly vitiated it to an enormous 
 extent. By the end of its year of validity it is so stale that if an 
 election is held upon it in the" December, the task of rectifying its 
 imperfections by tracing deaths and removals becomes gigantic, 
 and the expense of performing it will make serious inroadte upon, 
 the financial resources which by statute represent the fighting fund 
 of a Parliamentary candidate. This latter complication will be 
 partly the result of the inextricable confusion between registra- 
 tion work and the work of the election. The election agent: 
 cannot earmark the registration work even if (as is impossible 
 to suppose) it were done without regard to the election which is 
 contemporaneous with it. He must, therefore, include the whole 
 or part of its costs in his return of election expenses. But, of 
 course, under normal circumstances bona-fide registration work is 
 no part of the election expenses of a candidate, and need not 
 figure in his return. None the less is it undignified on the part 
 of the State to leave the maintenance of the efficiency of the 
 Parliamentary register largely in private and partisan hands. 
 As matters stand, the position is that a man actuated by what 
 is, in the majority of cases, the very laudable ambition of repre- 
 senting his fellow-citizens in the national assembly is not only 
 required to pay the very heavy expenses of operating the machinery 
 by which they may signify their opinion of his offer, but is even 
 required) to keep the machinery itself in order. That is an un- 
 gracious and reprehensible position of affairs. 
 
 By this time we shall easily comprehend how it is that, even 
 if the citizen's claim to vote is legally and morally inde- 
 feasible, it does not necessarily follow that his name will appear 
 in the list of voters. If it does not, and he fails to notice 
 its absence within the specified time, he will be excluded from, the 
 polling booth for at least a. year, andi possibly for a longer 
 period. If he notice the absence of his name, he has still to 
 consider ways and means of remedying the omission ; and although 
 his claim may be morally andi politically quite sound, the slightest 
 technical flaw in its nature or form will be employed by the registra- 
 tion agents of the side opposite to that with which he is politically 
 identified in order to defeat his right to exercise the franchise. 
 Under such circumstances he is at the mercy of a revising bar- 
 rister, appointed by virtue of an authority which is generally 
 conferred in return for partisan) services. So uncertain is the 
 
 D 33
 
 REGISTRATION. 
 
 operation of the tribunal that many electors resort to various 
 dodges no other word will adequately describe them to elude the 
 opposition of the party registration agents. A, a Radical, disarms 
 opposition by claiming his vote through the Conservative regis- 
 tration agent. The Radical agent, privately acquainted with the 
 <lrift of the stratagem, will not oppose the claim. It requires no 
 specially keen political vision to see how undignified those 
 manoeuvres are, how utterly unworthy of employment as processes 
 for the formation of the tribunal to which great national problems 
 must be referred. But we have not told the whole miserable 
 story. The Conservative agent was aware of the tactics which 
 were being pursued. He, as a matter of fact, omits to send in 
 the claim which was handed to him, and thus succeeds in dis- 
 franchising the citizen for at least twelve months; and of that 
 achievement he may, according to the existing code of party ethics, 
 legitimately boast. In fact, every autumn, as long as the present 
 haphazard system maintains itself, will bring its crop of charges 
 and counter charges. A canvasser, eager to " earn his money," has 
 forged the signatures to a score of claims; another has put for- 
 ward claims which he well knows to be baseless; a third has 
 obtained information by means of circulars from which all refer- 
 ence to their partisan origin is omitted. All these things, genera- 
 ting mutual recriminations and official censure, tend to envelop 
 this portion of the electoral mechanism in an atmosphere of sterile 
 strife or trumpery triumph, instead of impressing the electorate 
 with the imperishable ideals of dignity and responsibility. 
 
 Electorate and Population. 
 
 One result of the imperfection' and the complication of the system 
 is seen in the low percentage of electorate to population. Another 
 result, not quite so palpable, is the comparatively low percentage of 
 the effective electorate. The following table of the percentage of 
 registered electors who actually cast their votes is taken from 
 Professor Lowell's " Government of England " : 
 
 1895. 1900. 1906. 
 
 English counties 81.0 ... 77.2 .. 83.5 
 
 Welsh counties 76.5 ... 62.5 
 
 Scotch counties 79-4 75-7 
 
 Metropolitan boroughs .... 70.1 ... 65.1 
 
 English provincial boroughs 82.6 ... 78.8 
 
 78.4 
 
 79-9 
 77-8 
 85.2 
 
 85-7 
 82.9 
 
 Welsh boroughs 86.6 ... 72.3 
 
 Scotch burghs 71.9 ... 72.0 
 
 The lower percentage at the 1900 election was the consequence of 
 the abstention of many Liberal voters from polling in opposition 
 to the then Conservative Government, owing to the simultaneity 
 of the Boer War. The corresponding German figures, at the 
 Berlin elections, vary between 71.5 and 84.8 in different dis- 
 tricts. The present ratio of electors to population is about one in 
 six: whereas, according to Professor Lowell,* the normal 
 * The Government of England, p. 213. 
 34
 
 REGISTRATION. 
 
 proportion of males above the age of twenty-one years (making no 
 allowance for paupers, criminals, and other persons disqualified by 
 the laws of all countries) is somewhat less than one in four. 
 Naturally, the ratio of electors to population varies widely in 
 different constituencies, and corresponds to the difference of their 
 character. In London, for instance, it is highest in the Strand 
 division (17.6 per cent.) and in Battersea (17-4); while it sinks 
 to its lowest percentage in Whitechapel (5.0), St. George's in 
 the East (7.0), and Stepney (7.8), as the direct result of the very 
 large alien element in the population of these districts. Among 
 the great provincial cities the highest percentage is attained in 
 Birmingham (16.1) and Leeds (15.8), while it is smallest in 
 Liverpool (12.9). In the County of London electorate (which in- 
 cludes such spinsters and widows as would, if they were males, 
 be entitled to the Parliamentary franchise) the percentage of elec- 
 torate to population rises as high as 23.1 in the Strand, while 
 Westminster shows 22.5 and Battersea 21.3. In Whitechapel the 
 inclusion of 'women voters only raises the proportion from 5.0 to 
 6.5, while in St. George's in the East and Stepney the figures are 
 8.6 and 9.1 respectively. In the City of London the percentage of 
 electorate to population is no less than 160.9, a paradox which 
 results from the livery vote and from the extreme smallness of, 
 the resident population. In the other instances, whether we con- 
 sider the percentage of electorate to population, or the effective 
 percentage of the electorate itself, we are very far indeed from 
 satisfying the requirements of the First Canon as to effective 
 registration, or the Third Canon in the matter of the largest pos- 
 sible aggregate of individual judgments. 
 
 Public Machinery Required. 
 
 The most recent attempt to place the registration system on a 
 sound basis was Mr. Asquith's Registration of Electors Bill, in- 
 troduced in 1893. Some of Mr. Asquith's proposals, such as the 
 three-months qualification and the provision of public registration 
 officials, are embodied in the scheme which we are about to dis- 
 cuss. But, on the one hand, public opinion and electoral require- 
 ments have both advanced in a very marked degree since 1893; 
 and, on the other, some of the objects which Mr. Asquith pro- 
 posed to attain in one way can be quite as adequately attained in 
 another, as we shall see. The magnitude of the registration pro- 
 blem is inevitably exaggerated if it is contemplated as a thing 
 apart. If registration is to be raised to a level of practical per- 
 fection and maintained there, by means of a system of public 
 mechanism which is devoted to that and to that alone, it is clear 
 that only a very complicated and expensive organisation will be 
 able to cope with the requirements of the scheme. The existing 
 mechanism, created and worked by and for party interests, is 
 
 35
 
 REGISTRATION. 
 
 extremely expensive,* although reinforced to an enormous extent by 
 just that class of enthusiastic voluntary assistance which a public 
 authority would utterly fail to command. If it is going to be 
 taken out of party hands the natural idea is that the expense will 
 be colossal and will show itself very conspicuously in the budget 
 of local or Imperial charges, wherever its weight is made to fall. 
 The two phantoms of complication and expense range over the 
 whole area in which registration reform is the subject of discus- 
 sion, and have done much to scare away those who realise the grave 
 need which exists for some attempt at the solution of the question, 
 though they are appalled by its vague and vast appearance. 
 
 The truth is, that while registration problems can only be solved 
 by the creation of special and public machinery, not a great deal 
 is required. No vast expense is involved. If it were, it would 
 surely be worth the nation's while to face a financial self-sacrifice 
 that would so greatly enlarge the area of political interest, broaden 
 the basis of political power, and stimulate its exercise by means 
 of the consciousness of its possession. In reality, however, the 
 machinery is ready for an immediate start, and the student of our 
 political mechanism who will carefully follow the present argu- 
 ment will be less astonished at the excellence of the implement 
 ready to the reformer's hand than at the blindness which has 
 allowed us to overlook its availability for so many years. There 
 exist in this country two enormous bodies of highly-trained 
 officials, whose duty it is to keep the citizen informed of his 
 liabilities to the State and to see that he discharges them. So 
 close and instantaneous is the supervision of these organised 
 official forces that the citizen will seek in vain for a 
 means of livelihood, valued at more than ^160 a year, which 
 will leave him free from the insistence of the income-tax collector, 
 or for a dwelling, however humble in size and position, which 
 he may occupy at liberty from the demands of the rate-collector. 
 So thorough is the scrutiny exercised by the Inland Revenue 
 officials within their various areas of activity that, for Instance, a 
 man cannot open a fifth-floor office in the City of London without 
 being " discovered " within a few days by the document which re- 
 quires a statement of his income, or a claim for exemption or 
 abatement. Given a three months' qualification, a special and 
 permanent registration official or officials in each constituency, and 
 the stimulus of the income-tax and rate-collecting organisations, 
 employed in the manner which is described below, and we shall 
 
 * The revising barrister at Bermondsey said that the cost of registra- 
 tion work in London in 1007 for 790,000 voters was ^18,000, of which 
 the London County Council paid one-half. But these figures relate only 
 to so much of the cost of registration work as is paid for out of public 
 funds. As the sum provided from private and party sources was pro- 
 bably twice as great as that which came from public funds, the annual 
 cost of London registration must be about ,50,000. 
 
 36
 
 REGISTRATION. 
 
 have an effective and continuous registration mechanism which 
 will never produce, or even tolerate, a stale register. 
 
 The Scheme Outlined. 
 
 What is here proposed, then, is that the registration work should 
 in each constituency be placed in charge of a specially-appointed 
 skilled official, devoting his whole time to the work. The salary 
 would vary according to the size of the constituency, but men with 
 the best qualifications, and dealing with the registration work in 
 the largest electoral areas, need not be paid more than ^750 a 
 year, while in the constituencies with an electorate of 10,000 to 
 15,000 a salary of ^500 would be ample. In the smaller corv- 
 stituencies (assuming that these are suffered to prolong their ab- 
 normal existence) even less than that amount would suffice. It is 
 very desirable if, indeed, it is not essential that the public con- 
 fidence in the registration official should not be destroyed at the 
 outset by his appointment, or the appointment of any of his staff, 
 as a reward for political services. His knowledge of registration 
 law will originally correspond to that of the present revising 
 barristers, though constant practice will soon raise it to a far 
 higher level than they attain. His decisions will be subject to 
 appeal in the same way, and to the same tribunal, as those of a 
 revising barrister; but he will be under a greater pressure to 
 expedite the rendering of the final decision. He will require a 
 staff proportionate to the size of the constituency, but its total cost 
 need never exceed an amount equal to his own salary, seeing that 
 its members require to be endowed with no greater skill and dis- 
 cretion than are involved in making inquiries as to the qualifica- 
 tions for the franchise which are possessed by persons who desire 
 to exercise it, and intelligently reporting their result to the chief 
 official. In a constituency, for instance, where the chief official 
 received ^750 a year, five assistants at ^150 each, or four at 
 ^200 each, would constitute an absolutely sufficient auxiliary 
 staff. 
 
 The Registration Officials and their staffs would form a large 
 body of highly-skilled public servants, pledged to carry on their 
 labour regardless of party considerations. The apparent diffi- 
 culty of discovering so large a number of men qualified to dis- 
 charge duties so technical and so complicated could doubtless 
 be solved by selecting them originally from the ranks of the party 
 registration agents. It is a mistake to imagine that these men are 
 actuated 1 largely by party zeal so as to bring them within the range 
 of the stipulation already laid down, that the registration officials 
 should not be merely partisans rewarded with place. The regis- 
 tration agents are mainly in the position of counsel 
 or solicitors, doing their utmost to serve the party from whom 
 they receive their brief, but qualified, by the very nature of their 
 task, to see both sides of a case*. They possess a unique and 
 
 37
 
 REGISTRATION. 
 
 extraordinarily minute acquaintance with the mode of discovering 
 the existence of legitimate claims to a vote and of analysing the 
 subterfuges by means of which illegitimate pretensions to the same 
 privilege are supported. They are, by the rivalry which the pre- 
 sent system generates, stimulated into a rapidity of apprehension 
 and a celerity of operation which would start the new national 
 machinery with an unexampled vigour, freshness, and adequacy. 
 They know how to deal with those large classes of citizens who 
 are entitled to the franchise and yet shrink from its possession and 
 responsibility because of the belief that their claims will be made 
 an instrument for the imposition or the extortion of fresh taxation. 
 That such ideas should exist, and that to some extent, even in the 
 twentieth century, our local and Imperial revenue system generates 
 them, are facts that may come home to the public mind with 
 something like a shock. Finally and this is by no means the 
 least of the considerations the electorate ought not lightly to 
 deprive of their means of livelihood a class of men who have, for 
 many years, carried on the comparatively thankless work of making 
 the Parliamentary register as perfect as the chaotic legislative 
 provisions would permit it to become who have, in fact, under- 
 taken, in a private capacity, to discharge a public duty, and 
 should not now be penalised because their sphere of labour will 
 in future be a part of the public system. 
 
 Vast and Powerful Machinery. 
 
 Up to the limit of the needs of his work, the whole of the 
 Imperial and local machinery would be at the service of the 
 Registration Official and his staff. The Tasmanian Electoral Act 
 contains some excellent provisions with regard to the co-operation 
 of other departments of the public service : 
 
 - " All officers in the service of the State, and all constables, and all 
 officers in the service of any local governing body, are hereby authorised 
 and required to furnish to the Chief Electoral Officer for the State, or 
 any Electoral Registrar, all such information as he requires to enable 
 him to prepare or revise the rolls. 
 
 " All constables are hereby enjoined to assist any Electoral Registrar 
 by making inquiries, collecting information, and otherwise, as he re- 
 quests." 
 
 These provisions might well be adopted into our own system when 
 it is remodelled. The Registration Official's offices would be in, or 
 near, the offices of the local authority, and he would have free 
 access (subject to proper provisions for the safeguarding of con- 
 fidential matters) to the vast mass of information accumulated by 
 the Inland Revenue officials. He would have the free use of the 
 whole of the postaj. facilities. This is a very important 
 element. Under the existing mode of operation, a very 
 considerable portion of the privately-incurred registration 
 expenses is spent with the Post Office. The postage 
 of an " objection " to a vote, for instance, costs 3d., for it must 
 
 38
 
 REGISTRATION. 
 
 be registered. (The " objector," too, is generally paid, since he 
 us .ally signs a very large number of objections, and may incur 
 a certain amount of odium.) The Post Office affords the best 
 means of " testing " a register, by means of a communication sent 
 to every elector at his registered address, because the return of the 
 missives through the dead-letter office will indicate the inaccuracies 
 of the register and the starting point of inquiry as to the where- 
 abouts of the voter, if he has " removed." This valuable mode of 
 " test," expensive to a private organisation, would be always 
 available to the Registration Officials as a part of the public 
 service. 
 
 The Registration Officials would be in inter- communication with 
 each other throughout the country. The movements, the status, 
 and the existence of a voter could in that way be made the 
 subject of immediate official inquiry, from Haverfordwest to 
 Folkestone and from Penzance to Berwick-upon-Tweed, as an 
 essential part of a system of operations which covered the whole 
 land a completely as the Post Office itself. Under present cir- 
 cumstances the registration agent must rely upon the esprit d& 
 corps of his party colleague in another and perhaps a distant 
 constituency, or upon the chance of knowing some person who 
 resides there and will make a local inquiry, for information of 
 this kind. Under a public system the information would be re- 
 quired as of public right and rendered as a public duty, and with 
 a much larger sense of responsibility than is now the case. 
 
 The Register and Supplements. 
 
 The Registration Official and his staff would be provided at the 
 commencement of their work with a ready-made register, the 
 fruit of the labours of the revising barristers, the overseers, and 
 the party agents. The new official would maintain it in con- 
 tinuous efficiency by the issue, each year, of a new register, and 
 of three quarterly supplements, each in two parts, one containing 
 the names of persons whose names had been added to the list, 
 the other composed of the names of those who* had ceased to 
 retain their qualification and whose names were to be expunged. 
 By means of these supplements the agents of political organisa- 
 tions could correct their original copies of the register, and from 
 them there would be compiled the registers which would be 
 employed by the returning officer at a Parliamentary election, at 
 whatever period of the year it intervened. The register would be 
 published punctually on the ist of February, May, August, and 
 November in each year, the February issue being always the entire 
 and complete register of the whole of the electors in the constituency 
 made up by the collation and) revision of the previous annual 
 issue and the subsequent supplements. The complete register, or 
 the supplement (as the case might be), would include the names 
 of all persons entitled to be registered as electors up to the last 
 
 39
 
 REGISTRATION. 
 
 day of the month next but one preceding the date of issue the 
 February issue being complete to the end of the previous Decem- 
 ber, the May issue to the end of the March quarter, the August 
 issue, to the end of the June half year, and the November issue to 
 the end of the September quarter. The period intervening between 
 completion and publication would be required for printing and 
 binding, and for obtaining judgments upon appeals against the 
 Registration Officer's decisions. If these judgments were not ob- 
 tained in time for any given pending issue of the register or its 
 supplements, the judge would make an order for the insertion or 
 the expunging forthwith of the name of the voter whose claim 
 had been the subject matter of the proceedings, in the same way 
 as if it were the case of a shareholder asking that his name be 
 removed from the register of a company. The Registration Officer 
 would give public notice of the facts and communicate them to 
 the returning officer in case of an election between the date of the 
 judge's order and the issue of the next register or supplement. There 
 would be no other intermediate modification of the register. Except 
 on a judge's order made under such circumstances as this, each 
 re^ster, or supplement, would remain in force until modified by 
 the next. Thus, an elector whose name appeared in the August 
 supplement, but who ceased to be qualified before September i, 
 could not be objected to as a voter at an election in October, but 
 his name would be expunged from the register by notice in the 
 November supplement. Under the present system he would be a 
 qualified voter up to the end of the next year that is to say, for 
 thirteen months longer than the present scheme would permit, and 
 for nearly eighteen months after he had ceased to be qualified. 
 
 The Proposed New Auxiliaries. 
 
 Copies of the register and its supplements would be delivered 
 immediately on their issue to the Inland Revenue authorities and 
 the rate-collecting authorities within the constituency and there 
 would be a provision that : 
 
 (a) Every demand note for property tax, land tax, inhabited house 
 duty, or income tax, or for any rate collectable by a local govern- 
 ment authority, and every form, issued by such revenue or rate-collecting 
 authority, requiring the recipient to furnish to such authority the par- 
 ticulars upon which claims for taxes or rates are intended to be based 
 (including notices relating to establishment licenses and dog licenses), 
 shall bear upon its face the words : 
 
 " (i) You are a registered Parliamentary elector of the borough (or 
 county) of , and your registered number is ; 
 
 Or else the words : 
 
 " (2) Your name is not on the register of Parliamentary electors for the 
 
 borough (or county) for the reason specified on the back 
 
 hereof." 
 
 " The Registration Officer for your constituency is Mr. , whose 
 
 office is at ." 
 
 The tax or rate official would, in sending out these notices, 
 strike out either (i) or (2) as the case might be, and would fill 
 
 40
 
 REGISTRATION. 
 
 up the uncancelled portion by means of the register and supple- 
 ments, or by means of other particulars furnished to him by the 
 Registration Officer. Any demand note not bearing one or other 
 of these paragraphs, duly filled up, would be invalid. 
 
 The various incapacities would be briefly classified on the back 
 of the notice, each under a separate letter, for instance, thus : 
 
 A. On account of your alienage. 
 
 B. On account of your minority. 
 
 C. On account of your being a peer. 
 
 D. On account of your possessing no qualification, or no sufficient 
 qualification. 
 
 E. Because you are a joint stock company.* 
 
 F. On account of certain matters which will be explained to you on 
 personal application to the Registration Officer. 
 
 This last provision (F) is intended to meet the case of a rate- 
 payer or taxpayer who is also a convict on ticket-of -leave, or a 
 person found guilty of corrupt or illegal practices, and is 
 thereby debarred from inclusion in the register of voters. The 
 reason (A) might be treated in the same way if it were thought 
 desirable. 
 
 An Effective Automatic Stimulus. 
 
 It will have been observed that the notice printed on the de- 
 mand note, with reference to the inclusion or non-inclusion of 
 the recipient's name in the list of electors, contemplates only two 
 cases (i) the presence of the name on the register or (2) its 
 absence in consequence of a definable cause. But this classifica- 
 tion, it will be said, is not exhaustive. There is a third class, 
 composed of those persons who are not on the register though 
 possessed of an unassailable qualification. Their names, let us 
 assume, have been omitted either as a result of accident, inad- 
 vertence, or more or less culpable negligence on the part of the 
 Registration Officer and his staff. What is the consequence? 
 The tax or rate-collecting official, under such circumstances, will 
 not be able to state that the given person is a registered elector, 
 for he is not; nor yet to define the disqualification which ex- 
 cludes him from the register, since none exists. He will, there- 
 fore, be unable to issue a valid demand note ; and as he himself 
 is the subject of pressure from his superiors with regard to the 
 punctual and effective discharge of his duties, he will begin to 
 cast about for a means of escape from the impasse in which he 
 finds himself. He will report to his superiors that he is pre- 
 vented from serving A B with a demand note for income-tax 
 because, for instance, owing to the inadvertence or negligence of 
 the Registration Officer the name of A B, although he is a fully 
 qualified elector, has been omitted from the current register or 
 quarterly supplement. These representations will necessarily 
 
 * Joint stock companies, although they pay rates and taxes, are at 
 present refused any voice in the expenditure of the money. An unsuc- 
 cessful attempt has been made to confer the franchise upon them. 
 
 41
 
 REGISTRATION. 
 
 lead to the calling of the attention of the Registration Officer to 
 the state of affairs for which he is responsible and, as the remon- 
 strances will reach him from authorities who cannot be ignored or 
 trifled with, his prompt and serious activity in the matter will be 
 ensured. In a word, the whole force of the revenue-collecting and 
 rate-collecting organisations throughout the country will be in con- 
 tinuous automatic operation in stimulating and, in fact, compelling 
 the unintermitted vigilance of the Registration Official and his 
 staff, and this without any immediate contact between these 
 organisations and the electoral mechanism itself. To the objec- 
 tion that this scheme would occasionally have for its conse- 
 quence the bringing of the revenue-collecting machinery to a 
 standstill, the answer is that, if the State will neither give the 
 citizen his vote nor render him a reason for its refusal to do so, 
 its means of enforcing pecuniary claims upon him ought, in very 
 truth, to be brought to a standstill until it arrives at a clearer 
 realisation of its duty. 
 
 No Real Obstacle to Revenue Collection. 
 
 There is here, indeed, no menace whatever to the rapid and 
 facile collection of the Imperial or local revenue. Every indi- 
 vidual who becomes liable to the payment of any of the rates or 
 taxes contemplated in the present scheme must fall into one of 
 three classes. 
 
 (1) That composed of registered electors. 
 
 (2) That composed of persons who, although liable for rates 
 and/or taxes, are subject to a definable electoral disqualification 
 arising from sex, status, or other cause. 
 
 (3) That composed of persons omitted from the register in con- 
 sequence of accident, or of the inadvertence or negligence of 
 those who are responsible for its maintenance in accuracy and 
 completeness. 
 
 What the present scheme contemplates is that the State should 
 take the earliest possible opportunity of removing a person from 
 this third class, whose very existence is a sign of State obligations 
 imperfectly discharged, into the first or the second, and that until 
 it has done so the State should refrain from requiring the citizen 
 to discharge the pecuniary civic claims which it makes upon him. 
 What the State now does is to maintain a mechanism of singular 
 elaboration, persistence, and power for reminding the citizen of 
 his liabilities to itself and of compelling practical attention to 
 them ; but the citizen's claims to recognition by itself, and to the 
 rights and privileges of citizenship, it leaves to be dealt with in 
 haphazard fashion, refusing to allow its own neglect to operate 
 as any excuse whatever for a similarly careless attitude on the 
 part of the citizen. Under the propositions here offered there 
 will be a real reciprocity between State and citizen. On the 
 missive which requires the fulfilment of his duties as a rate- 
 
 42
 
 REG1 SI RATION. 
 
 payer or a taxpayer he will be reminded of his civic powers, or 
 informed, in a precise and definite way, what is the disability 
 which prevents his possession of them. Civic obligation and 
 civic power will be inseparably associated, and the authorities who 
 define and enforce the one will only do so when the other has 
 been called into effective existence and when the citizen can be 
 reminded of it as often as the State requires a pecuniary con- 
 tribution at his hands. 
 
 Check and Counter Check. 
 
 After their use by the Inland Revenue and rate-collecting autho- 
 rities, the registers and the supplements (or duplicates of them) 
 would be returned to the Registration Official, annotated with the 
 results of their employment and scrutiny in the other official 
 departments. In this manner we should bring into activity another 
 check upon the accuracy of the register. There are under the 
 existing system frequent instances of names remaining on the 
 register for years sometimes for many years after the death or 
 disqualification of the voter. This is especially the case with 
 distant outvoters, into the continuance of whose claims to the 
 vote once conferred upon them there is no adequate means of 
 inquiry. Inter-communication and inter-responsibility will do 
 much to remedy this, as we have already seen. The return of 
 the annotated lists will do more. The revenue official will have 
 discovered, for instance that, although a certain voter appears to 
 reside at a certain address and to be qualified by his occupation, 
 he pays no taxes and is totally unknown, as a revenue-paying 
 element of the community, to those officials whose duty it is to 
 remind him of his obligations. The removal of the name from 
 the register will follow as a matter of course. 
 
 It may be convenient to briefly indicate at this point (though 
 the subject is more fully discussed in the chapter on " Persona- 
 tion ") how these obsolete components of the register offer most 
 favourable opportunities for personation. The attention of an enthu- 
 siastic, but unscrupulous, partisan is called to the name, and a 
 rapid inquiry shows that the person is quite unknown. Nobody nas 
 ever seen him, or can give any information about him. The 
 personation' agents hesitate to challenge the applicant for a ballot- 
 paper in the name of this mysterious electoral entity, lest he 
 should prove, after all, to be the right man. Hence arises an 
 abuse of the electoral process which may conceivably change the 
 political complexion of the constituency. The proposed new 
 mechanism would go far to abolish these dangers. 
 
 There still remain a number of expedients by which the 
 "sweep" of the registration mechanism might be rendered wider 
 in area and more certain in operation. By their means the actual 
 or potential voter would be continually reminded of the existence 
 of his electoral power, or of his right to have it recognised. For 
 
 43
 
 REGISTRATION. 
 
 instance, every applicant for a dog license, game license, gun 
 license, or any other privilege to which the State has attached 
 the requirement of a payment in money, might be required to 
 give on his application form the name of his constituency and 
 his number on the register, or else to state that he is not a 
 registered elector. If he is registered, the fact has in this way 
 been brought to his immediate cognisance. If he is not, the atten- 
 tion of the Registration Official will be called to the fact by 
 means of a return made to him of the names and addresses of 
 persons who have applied for licenses but have stated that they 
 are not registered electors. 
 
 Some Difficulties Reviewed. 
 
 This is necessarily only the barest outline of a scheme which 
 would require to be carefully elaborated in detail before incor- 
 poration in an Act of Parliament. Along these lines, however, 
 and on these basic principles the solution of the registration 
 problem can be worked out. Difficulties may raise themselves 
 or be raised by others; 'but difficulties only exist to be combated 
 by the energy and skill of strenuous minds. One obstacle, for 
 instance, will no doubt have occurred to the expert reader of 
 these proposals as arising from the fact that the address at which 
 income-tax is demanded is frequently not that at which the voter 
 is qualified, nor is it even in the same constituency. The refer- 
 ence is not to the familiar outvoter, but to the enormous number 
 of persons who throng into the business centres of a large city and 
 are there assessed to incojne-tax, although their Parliamentary 
 electoral qualification is in the suburbs or neighbouring county 
 constituencies. 
 
 In this position are the staffs of the great banks and joint-stock 
 companies in the City of London, whose numbers can only be 
 expressed in tens of thousands. In the application of the pro- 
 posed registration principles to these, however, no real difficulty 
 arises. Their rate demand notes will be received at the suburban 
 or other house address which confers their electoral qualification. 
 Their inhabited house duty and property tax demand notes will 
 go to the same place ; and all that is required to bring the income- 
 tax demand notes into line with the new requirements is the regu- 
 lation that they shall not be despatched from the City revenue 
 centres, where the assessment takes place, but shall, after pre- 
 paration there, go down to the various local offices ; and then, 
 after being completed by the insertion of the registered number or 
 the assignment of disqualification, shall be returned to the City 
 centre for distribution, or despatched direct from the local 
 revenue offices to the City addresses through the post, as usual. 
 The income-tax payer is always required to furnish his private 
 address in order that local inquiries may be made with regard to 
 the correspondence of his style of suburban establishment with 
 
 44
 
 REGISTRATION. 
 
 the income which he says he receives. All that is necessary, 
 therefore, is that the City income-tax demand notes shall be 
 sorted into sections corresponding with the suburban and county 
 constituencies indicated by the private addresses and sent down 
 to the local revenue officials for completion from the register, the 
 supplements, and the information supplied by the Registration 
 Official. So easily do supposed difficulties vanish when they are 
 subjected to a scrutiny which is at once critical and practical ! 
 
 The Lodger Vote. 
 
 The lodger vote, so far as it consists of persons whose income 
 is within the income-tax limit, will be automatically maintained 
 in completeness by the expedient which has been suggested in 
 connection with the demand notes. This will be the case in a 
 very special degree where a large number of men, employed in 
 the central business districts of great cities, reside in the suburbs as 
 lodgers. Unless they claim registration on their own initiative, or 
 in consequence of the suggestion of the partv agents by whom 
 they have been discovered, there is at present no mechanism which 
 will secure the vote for this very large and intelligent class. But 
 although their claims to civic right and privilege will be over- 
 looted, there exists a very efficient mechanism for ensuring their 
 discharge of civic obligations. They will not be forgotten by the 
 income-tax officials : and as, under the scheme here proposed, 
 these gentlemen could not serve a valid demand note till the 
 income-tax paying lodger had either been registered or had been 
 rendered a reason for his non-registration, the completeness of 
 the register of lodger voters would be automatically secured, so 
 long as the individual lodger's income exceeded ^160. 
 
 There remains the class of lodger voters whose income is not 
 such as to bring them within the observation of the revenue 
 officials. These form by far the greater part of the aggregate. 
 Apart from their numbers, they are worthy of the serious atten- 
 tion of the State, because the lodger is generally undergoing his poli- 
 tical and civic apprenticeship, in preparation for the wider respon- 
 sibilities of marriage and a separate home, and the State will be 
 serving its own highest aims in seeing that he has the fullest 
 opportunity for the exercise of the functions which will train him 
 in the ideals of citizenship. The difficulties of securing a con- 
 tinuously complete register of lodger votes arise from various 
 causes: 
 
 (1) Many members of the class are, as young men, just 
 starting in life, politically immature, with no definite knowledge 
 either of the existence or of the value of the vote which rightly 
 belongs to them. 
 
 (2) Many belong to a "shifting" class, which, in consequence of 
 the exigencies of changed employment, the ebb and flow of trade, 
 and personal caprice, is constantly moving about. A three 
 
 45
 
 REGISTRATION. 
 
 months' qualification will not reach this class, nor is it wholly 
 desirable that it should. 
 
 (3) There is no effective machinery for registering the lodger 
 vote. The lodger comes and goes, and there is none whose 
 unmistakable duty it is to see that he is registered. He must 
 either do it himself, or leave it to the party agents, or other external 
 influences. 
 
 Except the work of the party agents, the most valuable influence 
 at work upon the lodger vote is the formation of numerous reli- 
 gious, social, and political associations, into many of which (the 
 social and political, perhaps, rather than the religious) the poten- 
 tial lodger voters are drawn, and are made anxious to exercise 
 their political power by the discovery that they can in that way 
 further the purposes of the association which they have joined. 
 But every election agent knows that these influences, stimulated as 
 they are in so many instances by the tireless enthusiasm of the 
 younger, men who organise the various societies, only operate 
 partially and spasmodically. At a contested election scores and 
 in a large constituency hundreds of men who are fully entitled 
 to registration become aware of the fact that they are politically 
 impotent; and the sentiments of disgust, disappointment, and 
 irresponsibility generated by the discovery are adverse to the 
 universal dissemination of an electoral pride of conscious power, 
 which is of the very essence of self-governing ambition and 
 capacity. 
 
 Clearly, then, any sound scheme of registration must provide 
 the means of seriously grappling with the problem presented by 
 the lodger vote. Mr. Asquith's Registration of Electors Bill 
 dealt with this problem in what is really the only effective way, 
 drastic though it appears to be. The Registration Officials were 
 to be empowered to require all persons rated as occupiers to 
 furnish lists of their lodgers, and penalties were to be imposed 
 for failure to furnish the particulars within the requisite time. 
 It is, however, an essential condition of the adoption of any 
 system of compulsory information that the person upon whom the 
 duty is imposed should be furnished with a clear idea what is 
 required of him. The lodger qualification (Franchise Acts of 
 1867 and 1884) contemplates the occupation of lodgings "of a 
 clear yearly value, if let unfurnished, of ;io or upwards." 
 Perhaps no more vivid idea can be given of the complications 
 grafted, by the various decisions of numerous revising barristers 
 and by the higher courts, upon this provision, than will be con- 
 veyed by the assertion that if a judge of the High Court were 
 required to compile a list of the persons in a given dwelling who 
 were qualified to be registered as lodgers, he would have to give 
 a very careful and serious consideration to the task. How, then, 
 is it to be discharged by the ordinary tenant occupier, much less 
 by the uneducated widow-woman whose lodgers are her livelihood, 
 
 46
 
 REGISTRATION. 
 
 unless the terms of the qualification are 'SO simplified as to 
 make it capaible of comprehension, by the simplest of lay minds ? 
 Clearly this primary obstacle must be surmounted, unless the 
 lists compulsorily transmitted to the Registration Officials are to 
 be mere replicas of the census paper, only available for registra- 
 tion purposes after they have been subjected to a long process 
 of " sifting " by a huge staff of officials. 
 
 The " Service " Franchise. 
 
 The so-called " Service " franchise, like the lodger franchise, 
 is so surrounded with technicalities as to be only obtainable under 
 the greatest difficulty. The expression " Service franchise " is in 
 itself misleading and, although the discussion may carry us 
 slightly into the problems of the suffrage (which, in the main, lie 
 outside the scope of this essay), it seems desirable to briefly indi- 
 cate what are the questions here arising. The " Service " franchise 
 was intended to confer the right to vote upon persons who 
 separately occupied a dwelling-house, not independently on their 
 own account, but by virtue of any office, service, or employment. 
 A grocer's manager, for instance, who occupies the upper part of 
 the building of which the grocer's shop forms the ground floor, and 
 who has the benefit of that accommodation as part of his wages, 
 is such a person as is contemplated by the provision for the 
 " Service " franchise. The " Service " qualification is destroyed 
 if the employer lives on the premises. On the other hand, 
 there is a small army of persons who* ought to exercise any " Ser- 
 vice " franchise worthy of the name, and who are generally sup- 
 posed to exercise it, though they are in truth entirely excluded 
 from the electorate. Butlers, footmen, valets, coachmen, and 
 male servants of every description who sleep under the same 
 roof as their employer are not qualified for the " Service " vote. 
 Yet, inasmuch as these men enjoy their accommodation under 
 their employer's roof as part of their remuneration for their ser- 
 vice, they are as clearly possessed of a residential qualification as 
 any lodger or tenant occupier, and their exclusion from the 
 franchise is an illogical and unfair state of things. There is no 
 difficulty in the framing of a qualification for this class of potential 
 voters, which shall be consistent alike with the justice of their 
 claim and the purity of the register. The whole class could be 
 brought within the observation of the Registration Official by the 
 provision that all applications for establishment licenses shall not 
 only specify, as at present, the capacity in which the male servant 
 is employed, but shall add his name, age, and the date from which 
 his service began. As every employer of a male servant is at 
 present under an obligation to apply to the Inland Revenue autho- 
 rities for an establishment license, only a very small additional 
 obligation would be imposed by this requirement; while at the 
 
 47
 
 REGISTRATION. 
 
 same time the forms, handed to the Registration Official from the 
 Inland Revenue offices, would automatically supply, without the 
 expenditure of a shilling of public money, all the preliminary par- 
 ticulars which were necessary for the inclusion of this large class 
 of voters in the Parliamentary register. 
 
 " Removal " Should Not Disfranchise. 
 
 As we have seen, an elector who ceases to have a qualification 
 in a given constituency may be for months, and possibly for years, 
 deprived of his vote, though he will not cease to be liable for rates 
 and taxes. We require some facile and simple mode of transfer, 
 so that an elector who " removes " will rapidly recover his civic 
 status in his new constituency. The three months' qualification 
 and the quarterly supplements will greatly facilitate this process, 
 and by the incorporation, in any new legislation, of the provisions 
 of the Tasmanian Act we shall at once make the transfer easy 
 and guard it against abuse. The Tasmanian Electoral Act pro- 
 vides that : 
 
 30. Any elector whose name is on the roll for any Assembly District 
 [i.e., constituency], and who has lived in any other Assembly District 
 for one month, may transfer his name to the roll for the Assembly Dis- 
 trict in which he lives. 
 
 ' 31. Every transfer shall be made by application to transfer in the 
 Form (C) or (D) in Schedule III. (see below). 
 
 32. The application to transfer shall be signed by the elector and 
 witnessed by an elector and sent to the Electoral Registrar keeping the 
 Polling-place Roll to which the elector's name is to be transferred. 
 
 33. The -Electoral Registrar shall 
 
 (i.) Note, on the application to transfer, the date of its receipt, and 
 file it in his office; 
 
 (ii.) If it appears that the applicant is entitled to the transfer, register 
 it by placing the elector's name on the roll ; 
 
 (iii.) Give notice of the transfer to the Electoral Registrar keeping the 
 Polling-place Roll from which the elector's name has been transferred, 
 who shall thereupon remove the elector's name from the roll. 
 
 The form of " Application to Transfer " is quite a model of sim- 
 plicity and directness : 
 
 FORM (C). 
 " The Electoral Act, 1906." Application to Transfer. Assembly Roll. 
 
 Surname 
 
 Christian names at full length 
 
 Sex 
 
 Present place of living 
 
 Occupation 
 
 formerly living at [here insert place] in the electoral district of 
 [here insert name of district] and enrolled for 
 
 polling-place having bona fide changed my place of living and lived 
 within the electoral district of [here insert name of district] for not less 
 than one month, do hereby claim to have my name transferred to the 
 Electoral Roll for polling place for the last-mentioned 
 
 district. 
 Dated this day of , 19 
 
 (Signature.) 
 
 I, , an elector enrolled for polling-place, 
 
 in the electoral district of , certify that I have seen the 
 
 4
 
 REGISTRATION. 
 
 above-mentioned applicant sign the above application, and that I am 
 satisfied that the statements contained therein are true. 
 
 Witness to Signature 
 
 Note. Any person who witnesses the signature of the applicant with- 
 out being personally acquainted with the facts or satisfying himself oy 
 inquiry from the applicant or otherwise that the statement's contained in 
 the application are true, is guilty of an offence and liable to a penalty 
 of 50. 
 
 Some Difficulties Considered. 
 
 There are some classes of qualification which would require 
 special treatment under any scheme of registration reform. The 
 most conspicuous is that which is composed of tenants whose 
 rates are included in their rent and are paid by the landlord. As 
 the law at present stands, default on the part of the landlord has 
 the effect of disfranchising the tenant, although the latter has 
 actually paid to the landlord the money which represents his 
 quota of the rates. It must be added, since a candid treatment 
 of the subject demands it, that there are instances where the 
 default is wilful and calculated. The whole matter requires 
 careful and drastic treatment, since it is intolerable, in a well- 
 ordered State, that a man. should be deprived of his electoral rights 
 by the neglect, to say nothing of the corrupt machination, of 
 another. What is required is a provision that all persons to 
 whom rent is paid under an arrangement by which it includes 
 rates (whether they receive it on their own account or on behalf of 
 another) shall, within the first week of every month, furnish to 
 the Registration Official a list of the persons making such pay- 
 ment, with such other particulars as the Registration Official may 
 require ; that in all such cases the rates shall be paid to the proper 
 authority within seven days of their receipt, included in the rent, 
 by the person, or persons (including a firm or company), entitled 
 or appointed to receive them, such seven days to run from the 
 date when the tenant parts with the money to the collector or other 
 person acting in the matter; that no person shall, unless per- 
 sonally licensed by the Registration Official, collect rents which 
 include rates ; and that where a default in the payment of the rates 
 within the stipulated seven days has of itself prevented the in- 
 clusion of the name of the ratepayer in the issue of the register 
 (or supplement, as the case may be) next after such payment was 
 made to the collector, the Registration Official shall initiate a 
 prosecution of the collector, unless satisfied that the collector 
 duly paid the money over to some other person (such as a firm or 
 estate agent, or the landlord himself) entitled to receive it from 
 him, in which case he shall prosecute such firm or landlord. The 
 penalty for the collector should be a fine in the first instance and 
 the cancellation of the license in the second ; for the firm or land- 
 lord, whose conduct is utterly inexcusable, it should be a fine in 
 the first instance, imprisonment in the first division for the next 
 offence, and with hard labour for the third. 
 
 E 49
 
 REGISTRATION. 
 
 An alternative provision might confer upon the Registration 
 Official a power exercisable upon the written request of the 
 tenant to require the rating authority to apportion the tenant's 
 rent, rates, and taxes ; and might give the tenant the right, upon 
 such apportionment, to elect to pay the rates direct to the rating 
 authority, all agreements with the landlord to the contrary not- 
 withstanding. Seven days, it may be argued, is a short time 
 within which to pay the rates to the local authority. The answer 
 is that a short electoral qualification can only be maintained in 
 adequacy if there is the utmost promptitude of action on the part 
 of those agencies upon whose operation the evidence of its 
 existence dep'ends. A perfect register evolved by a sluggish 
 mechanism is unthinkable. 
 
 These difficulties were not met in this way in Mr. Asquith's Bill 
 of 1893. It was there proposed to abolish the payment of rates 
 as a qualification for the franchise on account of the instances of 
 hardship and oppression which arise under the existing system. 
 But the principle of insisting upon the payment of rates as a 
 qualification is, after all, only a corollary of the principle of "no 
 taxation without representation." The man who is in default with 
 his contribution to the public funds ought not to be allowed to 
 share in the management of that system of co-operative provision 
 and protection which those funds maintain. His default may be 
 only the consequences of his misfortune, but that is a question 
 into which the financial machinery of a local authority is in- 
 competent to inquire. To distinguish between payment and non- 
 payment is the limit of its capacity and its obligation in matters 
 of this kind. Even in the Socialist State we are told that the 
 Pauline maxim " If any will not work neither shall he eat "- 
 would be ruthlessly enforced. " He that will not pay, neither 
 should he vote," is surely a reasonable application of that maxim 
 to a system under which civic obligation and civic privilege go 
 hand in hand. The way to meet the difficulty is not to allow the 
 civic privileges to be exercisable by the man who refuses to dis- 
 charge their concomitant obligations, but, where the co-existence 
 of obligation and privilege is imperilled or destroyed, to strike at 
 those who are responsible for the menace or the loss, and to strike 
 hard. 
 
 Application to a Wider Franchise. 
 
 Can these principles be applied when, as must inevitably be the 
 case before the world is many years older, the franchise is based 
 upon adult suffrage? There is no reason to doubt it. Adult 
 suffrage would not mean that any and every person who passed 
 the door of the polling booth on election day would be able 
 to enter and record a vote, much less that he should be able to 
 do so at every polling station in the constituency. Some quali- 
 fication other than the mere possession of the aspect and garments 
 
 5
 
 REGISTRATION. 
 
 of humanity must be required under the widest and most liberal 
 franchise that it is possible to devise. Whatever that qualifica- 
 tion is, it will be capable of association at some point or other 
 with the duties and obligations of citizenship, and at that point 
 the principles here enunciated can be brought into active opera- 
 tion. Incidentally, however, this scheme, working on adult suffrage, 
 would transfer the principle of " no taxation without representa- 
 tion " from the ideal tot the practical, at least as far as direct taxa- 
 tion was concerned. If we consider the increased ingenuity of 
 modern Governments in the discovery of new modes of taxation, as 
 well as the constant addition which is made to the burdens of the 
 ratepaying portion of the community, we shall see that this is 
 clearly a consummation worth striving for, whether we regard the 
 increase of public demands as an evil, or take the converse view 
 of it. 
 
 Law Reform an Essential Preliminary. 
 No provision for a three months' qualification can, however, be 
 adopted, in the present antiquated and disorganised condition of 
 the election law, without opening the door to the gravest abuses. 
 It is not too much to assert that if the measure were carried into 
 effect without a preliminary and thorough reform of the election 
 law, on drastic lines, manipulation of the most flagrant character 
 would supervene and could not be counteracted by any of the 
 preventive measures that the existing legislation provides. For 
 instance, where an election could be foreseen a few months ahead 
 (as in the case of a general election known to be pending, or 
 where a member is rapidly declining in health, and the end cannot 
 be long deferred) it would be possible for a powerful outside 
 organisation, at no very great expense, to put 300 or 400 voters 
 on the register in preparation for the contest. All that would be 
 necessary would be to send down, or select in the neighbourhood, 
 that number of persons and to provide them with the qualification 
 for the occupation or lodger franchise. Ostensibly they would be 
 employed in " organisation " and preparation for the election : 
 and when the contest finally took place, there would be no effec- 
 tive means, as the law stands, of preventing their exercise of the 
 franchise. As persons employed, for payment, at the election, they 
 might be disqualified : but the disqualification can only be enforced 
 with anything like real effectiveness as the outcome of 
 a scrutiny, which would take place long after the misleading 
 result of the election had done its work as a psychological influ- 
 ence upon the minds of other electorates, and only then at an 
 enormous cost of money and labour. Even this slender modicum 
 of satisfaction could probably be rendered unattainable by the 
 simole expedient of dispensing with the services of these electoral 
 auxiliaries during the period of three weeks or a month in which 
 the actual fighting was done. It would then be feasible to argue 
 
 5 1
 
 REGISTRATION. 
 
 that whatever they were paid for, it was not election work: and 
 as none of them would be in the employment of any candidate, the 
 legitimacy of their position could only with difficulty be assailed, 
 and with still greater difficulty brought under judicial condemna- 
 tion. To place 300 persons on the register in this way. and to 
 provide them, pending an election, with a weekly wage for the 
 kind of " organisation " or " inquiries " in which they were osten- 
 sibly engaged would cost no more than ^25 to ^30 a head, or 
 ^7,500 to ,9,000 for the entire band. Such a sum as that is 
 but as the small dust of the balance in comparison with the 
 immense resources available to some of the gigantic interests with 
 which the electorate, unless it strengthen the constitutional position 
 by new and strong entrenchments, may find itself confronted and 
 
 borne down. 
 
 Official Neglect of Duty. 
 
 Mr. Asquith's Bill provided that any person aggrieved by the 
 alleged neglect of the Registration Official could complain to the 
 revising barrister, whose powers extended to the imposition of a 
 403. fine for each instance of proved neglect. The money was 
 payable to the complainant by way of reimbursement of his costs. 
 Inasmuch, however, as the revising barrister only sits once a 
 year under the present conditions .(and the scheme outlined in 
 this essay contemplates the discharge of his duties by the Regis- 
 tration Official), this remedy would have the fault of extreme slow- 
 ness. For that reason it seems desirable to confer the power of 
 inquiry and fine in response to complaint upon courts of sum- 
 mary jurisdiction, or at least on county courts. Further, no Registra- 
 tion Official would be effectively punished for neglect if the 
 local authority paid his fines; and therefore a power should be 
 conferred on the court of inquiry (whether it were a court of sum- 
 man' jurisdiction or the county court) to order the Registration 
 Official to pay the fine personally, if, in the opinion of the court, 
 there was personal fault. After a third fine the local authority 
 (assuming that the power of appointing the Registration Officials 
 were conferred on the local bodies, such as the county councils) 
 would presumably arrange to relieve the negligent official of his 
 duties. These provisions, added to the continuous pressure of the 
 Inland Revenue and local taxation authorities, would render im- 
 possible an inefficient official, and would transform a stale register 
 into an electoral antique. 
 
 An Indexed Register. 
 
 Any improvement of the registration system should provide an 
 alphabetical index to the voters, all combined in one local index, 
 and with the reference made to their consecutive number on the 
 register. This would obviate the troublesome search for the 
 name which often results from the present compilation of the 
 register on .the "street" system, with separate divisions for the 
 
 52
 
 REGISTRATION. 
 
 lodgers and service voters. It might also enable accidental per- 
 sonation, of the kind described in Chapter VIII., to be more easily 
 prevented. The compilation of such an index is almost mechani- 
 cal labour, and if it were printed in nonpareil or minion type it 
 would, except in the case of the very largest constituencies, only 
 add a few pages to the bulk of the register. 
 
 The Register Generally Conclusive. 
 
 Broadly speaking, the register is conclusive evidence of the exist- 
 ence of a right to vote. That is to say, the returning officer, or 
 presiding officer, cannot refuse to give a ballot paper to an appli- 
 cant, on the ground that, although his name is on the register, 
 it ought not to be there. Of course, if the officer in charge of a 
 polling station has reasonable grounds for supposing that the 
 applicant is not, in fact, the voter whom he claims to be, the 
 case is, apparently, one of attempted personation. This is fully 
 dealt with elsewhere (Chapter VIII.). But where the regis- 
 tered voter, although his identity is not challengeable, is really 
 not entitled to be on the register at all, there appears to be one 
 small class of cases to which the register has no conclusive appli- 
 cation, and with regard to which the officer in charge of the 
 polling station has not only a discretion, but a duty. These cases 
 arise where a person, although registered as an elector, is sub- 
 ject to an inherent, inalienable, irremovable personal dis- 
 qualification, which could not possibly have been shaken 
 off so as to remove the obstacle to the right of voting. 
 Stated in the technical terms of logic, the rule is this that 
 where the possible source of disqualification sounds in a property, 
 the returning officer is competent to inquire into it ; but where 
 it sounds in an accident, the register is conclusive.* Such a dis- 
 qualification, sounding in a property, for instance, is the fact of 
 being a peer or a woman. An eminent constitutional authority has 
 assured us that not even, the apparent omnipotence of the Legisla- 
 ture suffices to transform a woman into a man,; and hence the 
 presiding officer, knowing that women are at common law incap- 
 able of voting, t and being aware also that this incapacity is irre- 
 mediable, except by the statutory grant of the franchise to women, 
 is empowered (if not required) to refuse a ballot paper, although 
 the applicant is actually on the register. The rule is otherwise 
 where the alleged incapacity is not inherent and irremediable. In 
 such instances, the register is conclusive. The alleged, or even 
 the demonstrated, fact that a registered voter is an alien affords 
 no valid reason for refusing 'him a ballot paper. But all these 
 
 *It is submitted that this is the effect of Stowe v. Joldffe (9 L.R., C.P. 
 734), and the writer, in so stating it, has the support of the learned 
 editors of the last edition of Ward's " Practice at Elections." 
 
 t The writer is here stating a legal fact, not expressing an opinion 
 with regard to the political capacity of women. 
 
 53
 
 REGISTRATION. 
 
 questions as to qualification, whether inherent or accidental, can 
 be investigated and determined on a scrutiny, which is the usual 
 mode of challenge. And the percentage of such cases is so small 
 that not one election in a hundred turns upon it. Moreover, in 
 the vast majority of instances a presiding officer is actuated by a 
 desire to maintain a high standard cf judicial impartiality, and 
 will take no serious step without consideration, and only then, it 
 may be, after conference with the returning officer. Greater 
 efficiency and care in the preparation of the register must ulti- 
 mately cause the disappearance of practically the whole of these 
 sources of polling-station disquietude. 
 
 Summary of Proposals. 
 
 Registration work to be in the hands of a public official, per- 
 sonally punishable for neglect. 
 
 The qualification period to be three months. 
 
 The register to be issued annually, but to be maintained in con- 
 tinuous completeness by quarterly supplements. 
 
 Demand notes for certain Imperial taxes (especially the in- 
 come-tax) and local rates not to be valid unless they specify either 
 (a) the registered number of the elector upon whom the demand is 
 made, or (b) give a definite and legitimate reason for the absence 
 of his name from the register. Civic duty and civic privilege are 
 thus made inter-dependent, in accordance with the requirements of 
 the First Canon. 
 
 Provisions for (i) the rapid transfer of names from the register 
 of one constituency to that of another; (2) compulsory returns of 
 the names of all lodgers, so as to ensure their inclusion in the re- 
 gister; (3) the prompt payment to the local authority of rates 
 which are included in the rent (with severe penalties in case of 
 neglect) so as to prevent the disfranchisement of the elector by the 
 neglect of his landlord, or the landlord's agents. 
 
 54
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Distribution of Seats. 
 
 If we assume the existence of an electorate, with its qualifica- 
 tions properly checked and its members exhaustively enumerated, 
 it would seem at first sight as if the simplest way to arrive at its 
 decisions on great questions of national policy would be the ascer- 
 tainment of the predominant opinion of the mass. This was, in 
 fact, the earliest mode of legislation in Teutonic communities.* 
 In its original form it has ceased to be practicable, but there 
 have been recent endeavours to revert to the principle and to 
 translate it into practice by means of the mechanism known as 
 the Referendum. The scheme which is outlined ,in the present 
 essay contemplates what is in effect a continuous Referendum as 
 an essential component of the electoral machinery, and explains at 
 a later stage how it might be created and put in operation with a 
 minimum of risk and irresponsibility and a maximum of dignity 
 and precaution. It will be convenient, however, to state briefly 
 what the Referendum is, especially in view of the fact that its 
 adoption as an intermittent factor of our electoral scheme has 
 been more than once proposed in recent years. 
 
 The Referendum. 
 
 Under the Swiss Constitution there exists what may be called 
 an initiatory referendum, or, more briefly, the Initiative. It con- 
 fers upon 50,000 citizens, or any greater number, the right to 
 make certain legislative proposals and to require that they shall 
 be submitted to the whole electorate. But if the legislation ha.s 
 not originated in an> exercise of the Initiative, there exists a right, 
 which is called the Facultative Referendum, under which 30,000 
 (not 50,000) may require that the new law, although passed by 
 the Federal Legislature, shall within ninety days be submitted to 
 the political judgment, exercised ad hoc, of the entire electorate. 
 Finally, there is an Obligatory Referendum, which secures the 
 reference to the entire electorate, without any auxiliary or pre- 
 liminary demand, of proposed changes in the Constitution; and 
 unless the suggested alterations are endorsed not /only by a 
 majority of the electors, but by a majority of the cantons, they 
 cannot take legal effect. The analogous provisions with regard 
 to the approval of changes in the Constitutions of the United 
 States, Canada, and Australia by specified proportions of the 
 
 * An interesting account of an actual instance of its practice in recent 
 years will be found in Freeman's " Growth of the English Constitu- 
 tion," Chapter I. 
 
 55
 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF SEATS. 
 
 electorate will readily occur to the reader's mind. In curious 
 contrast to these safeguards in other lands, we may place the pos- 
 sibility of utterly unconstitutional legislation, enacted in our 
 own country by a Parliament which represented, and had been 
 elected! by, a minority (and possibly a small minority) of the elec- 
 torate. The poll at a meeting of shareholders or at a parish meet- 
 ing, and the test of the electoral opinion, ad hoc, under the Free 
 Libraries Act, afford instances of the .English operation of the 
 Referendum, though on a modest and limited scale. 
 
 The consideration of the advantages and disadvantages of these 
 processes may reinforce our study of the continuous referendum 
 which is an element of ,the present scheme of self-government as the 
 fruit of electoral efficiency. It will suffice for the present, therefore, to 
 indicate if, indeed, the reader needs the indication that what- 
 ever may be said in support of the Referendum as a method of 
 occasional test applied to the aggregate electoral opinion, it 
 would be impracticable to have the whole electorate occupied, as 
 it were, in continuous -session, and charged with the duty of con- 
 sidering and voting upon every detail of executive business. We 
 must, therefore, entrust the power, and convey the desires, of the 
 electorate to other persons, selected for the purpose, and we must 
 divide the electorate into larger or smaller groups for their exer- 
 cise of the selective function. 
 
 The Problems of Redistributidti. 
 
 In a community which had a stationary and evenly-distributed 
 population, the most obvious method of providing for the exer- 
 cise of the selective function would be the division of the country 
 into as many divisions as there were seats in the Legislative 
 Chamber and the allotment to each division of the right to elect 
 one member. But here, on the very threshold of the problem 
 (and ignoring the possibility of the manipulation of the electoral 
 areas for .party purposes), we .are ^confronted with the fact that 
 an electorate arranged with this apparently mathematical exacti- 
 tude might find itself represented by a Legislature which was at 
 variance (and perhaps very wide variance) with its own desires, 
 and might, indeed, discover that it had delegated its own sove- 
 reignty to a group of legislators with whose political views and 
 programme a large majority of its own aggregate had no sym- 
 pathy whatever. Let there be, for instance, four divisions, each 
 of equal superficial area and v each with 15,000 electors. Let 
 division A return a Radical member by a majority of 5,000, and 
 let the divisions B, ,C, and D return Unionists with majorities of 
 1,000 each. The representatives would then consist of three 
 Unionists and one Radical, and might proceed to legislate right 
 in the teeth of an electorate which, by an aggregate majority of 
 2,000, had pronounced in favour of Radical measures. If the 
 
 56
 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF SEATS. 
 
 reader supposes that he is being conducted into the realm of the 
 imaginary and the theoretical, he may be reminded that the votes 
 recorded at the last general election in the four divisions of the 
 county of Warwickshire were as follows : 
 
 Division. 
 
 Conserva- 
 tive Votes. 
 
 Liberal 
 Votes. 
 
 Conserva- 
 tive Majority 
 
 Liberal 
 Majority. 
 
 T.-im worth 
 
 7,;6i 
 
 4.842 
 
 2,7iq 
 
 
 Nuneaton ... 
 
 
 7677 
 
 
 1,828 
 
 Kugbv 
 
 4.Q >7 
 
 5 181 
 
 
 274 
 
 S'.ratford-on-Avon ... 
 
 4,173 
 
 4,321 
 
 
 
 148 
 
 Total 
 
 22,490 
 
 22.021 
 
 469 
 
 
 
 Here the Conservatives constitute a majority of the voters in the 
 county, but only hold one seat against the three which are in the 
 control of the minority. 
 
 Equal Electoral Districts Impossible. 
 
 Inasmuch as the phantasmagoria of equal electoral districts 
 will exercise their fascinations as long as they are able to elude 
 a rigorous analysis, it may be desirable at this point to show 
 whither they would lead us. We may premise that the House of 
 Commons is quite large enough. If, indeed, the question of 
 its numbers involved no other problem but that of mere physical 
 management and convenience as legislative instruments, the 
 numbers might be advantageously reduced. But the reduc- 
 tion of the numbers would raise a multitude of other problems. 
 It would be more difficult to redistribute a reduced number, 
 and the disproportion between the representation of Eng- 
 land and Ireland would become more striking still if the Irish re- 
 presentation were left untouched. Moreover, the difficulty of 
 securing representation, and a voice, for all the multiplicity of 
 interests and sentiments which jostle each other in our modern 
 social and political system would become almost insuperable if 
 the number of representatives tended to equal, or even to fall 
 below, the aggregate of multifarious and varied sentiments and 
 aspirations which must find expression on the floor of the House 
 of Commons if the " safety-valve " principle is to be maintained. 
 Taking the present number of the House of Commons as the basis 
 of investigation, we may find a provision which has a prima -facie 
 attractiveness in the existing Constitution of the Dominion of 
 Canada. The distribution of the seats in< the Lower House in 
 Canada is based upon the continuous representation of the 
 province of Quebec by 65 members. The total population of 
 the province is, after each census, divided by 65, and the quotient 
 gives the number of electors which entitle to one member. That 
 
 57
 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF SEATS. 
 
 number, as divisor, applied to the total population of any other 
 province as dividend, yields as quotient the number of electors 
 to which that province is entitled. If the remainder is less than 
 half the divisor, it is disregarded; if more, it entitles to another 
 member. 
 
 If we endeavoured to apply this method to England and Wales, 
 as an advance in the direction of equal electoral districts, we 
 shbuld require to obtain a basis of operation by dividing the elec- 
 toral population by the number of members in the House of Com- 
 mons, and let the nearest round thousand to .the quotient be the 
 number of electors which entitles to one member. Applying 
 this process to England and Wales, to which, for the sake of 
 compactness in the investigation it will be convenient to 
 confine it (especially as Ireland, partly as a result of the pro- 
 visions of the Act of Union and partly because of its smaller popu- 
 lation, would require a differently adapted scheme) we shall see 
 that as the total electorate of England and Wales at the 1906 
 election was, in thousands, 4,905,000, while the number of seats 
 was 49=5, the number of electors per seat was 9,909. This is a 
 remarkable and suggestive figure, and will probably induce us to 
 suppose that we might probably pursue the further investigation 
 on a basis of 10,000 electors per seat. The idea, however, is 
 fallacious. For the strict application of that principle of distri- 
 bution which is mathematically deducible from the number of 
 constituencies, and the aggregate voting strength of the English 
 and Welsh electorate would (if applied on the basis of electorate at 
 the 1906 election) fcave the effect of " wiping out " an extra- 
 ordinary array of seats, many of them typical and important. 
 They can be seen, between No. 300 and the end, in the list of 
 constituencies which illustrates this chapter a few pages forward 
 from this point. 
 
 Even if we could contemplate with equanimity such sweeping 
 changes as these, and could proceed to the mapping out of mathe- 
 matically exact electoral fractions, we should still discover that 
 i he equal electoral district, whether the equality 'be in the 
 superficial area or in the electoral numbers, or in both, is an 
 impossible ideal. If it could be realised, at the cost of infinite 
 labour and adjustment, on the ist of January in a given year, it 
 would have ceased to exist by Midsummer Day; and the equal 
 electoral district 'would be open to another and far more serious 
 objection viz., that it ignored those subtle elements of national 
 life and character which are to be found in varying shades of 
 temperament, in local pride and habit, in the conservatism of the 
 bucolic mind and the alertness of the metropolitan intellect, in 
 historical tradition, and even in the very interaction of racial 
 forces, as where Saxon and Celt rub shoulders in South Wales and 
 each is, in a manner, the physical and intellectual complement of 
 
 58
 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF SEATS. 
 
 the other. These innumerable variations ought each to exert its 
 influence, great or small, upon the Legislature. They mark the 
 wholesome natural tendency of the organism to accommodate itself 
 to its environment, and this is a propensity whose source and sub- 
 sistence it were foolish, even if it were feasible, to destroy. They 
 distinguish and help to perpetuate a thousand subtle grades of 
 temperament, character, method, and aim, whose place in the 
 national mosaic is essential to the completeness and distinction of 
 the design, and whose share in the cosmic programme is as impor- 
 tant as the first obscure " sport " which opens the way to a spe- 
 cialised function and a higher life. 
 
 The Electorate as an Organism. 
 
 The illustration employed in the closing words of the previous 
 paragraph may form a fit prelude to the introduction of a striking 
 fact the fact that the problem which confronts us in the distribu- 
 tion of seats is only to be adequately solved by the application 
 of the central and dominant principle of progress which grants 
 survival and advancement to the organism that adapts itself to its 
 environment and inexorably refuses the benison where the condi- 
 tion is not fulfilled. There is an organism in the realm of politics 
 as truly as in the realm of biology, and it cannot be perfectly 
 adjusted to its environment by a process which is undertaken at 
 irregular periods and on the stimulus of variable motives. This 
 may secure a brief coincidence between the facts and the necessi- 
 ties of the case ; but when the coincidence has passed away, the 
 effects of a warping and distorting limitation early show them- 
 selves as the organism struggles towards self-adaptation and is 
 remorselessly beaten back by the pressure of the antique shell in 
 which its labouring limbs are confined. The result is one-sided 
 development, unsymmetrical growth, a maddened impatience of 
 the obstruction, mingled with a consciousness of a higher destiny 
 thwarted by an alien sway. If the obstruction is a rigid constitu- 
 tion, the insurgent organism will perhaps burst its bands in a con- 
 vulsion which may or may not be fatal to its corporate existence ; 
 and even where there is no rigid constitution to baulk organic 
 effort and ambition, there may be minor impediments which in 
 their aggregate are almost as fatal as the incubus of a dead con- 
 stitution overlying a living state. 
 
 These considerations gain immensely in force if Gierke is right 
 in the suggestion that the legal creations which we call corpora- 
 tions really possess separate entities that there actually is an in- 
 dividual existence of that which up to now it has been the fashion 
 to contemplate as nothing more than a convenient legal fiction. 
 " Our German Fellowship " (Genossenschaft), says the distin- 
 guished German jurist, " is no fiction, no symbol, no piece of the 
 State's machinery, no collective name for individuals, but a living 
 
 59
 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF SEATS. 
 
 organism and a real person with body and -members and a will of 
 its own. Itself can will, itself can act ; it wills and acts by the men 
 who are its organs, as a man wills and acts by brain, mouth, and 
 hand. It is not a fictitious person : it is a Gesammtperson, and 
 its will is a Gesarnmtwille : it is a group-person, and its will is a 
 group-will.''* 
 
 This idea is greatly extended by Mr. Bernardt when he says that 
 " as the specialisation of the eagle is the wings with which he 
 soars over the most inaccessible mountain crags, the specialisation 
 of both human society and of the human unit is the Mind with 
 all its wealth of subtle feeling, expressing itself in so many ways, 
 each more amazing than the other in Music, Art, Literature, 
 and in all the subtleties of human intercourse. These, like 
 eagles' wings, soar into the mysteries of the Psyche. This energy 
 and development of Mind are to form the essence of the a'dult life 
 of human societies. . . ." And " for what," he asks later, " will 
 the new adult society organise itself ? For that psychic life that 
 \ve have indicated. All the evidence points to this, and every 
 recognisable human movement is rapidly evolving in this direction." 
 And a vista of even greater depth and beauty is opened out by 
 the speculations and investigations of Wallace, Crookes, Lodge, 
 Gurney, and Myers. If they are right in the belief that com- 
 munication can be established between this plane of existence 
 and that discarnate world whither the great leaders of humanity 
 have gone ; if the psychic entity which animates the political or- 
 ganism on this side can be made to receive, to sustain, and to 
 respond to the promptings of the psychic entity on that side then, 
 verily, \ve are in the presence of potentialities whose utmost verge 
 lies far beyond the range of incarnate vision. But these are the 
 unsounded deeps of political speculation to be measured, indeed, 
 by plummets which the political thinker of the future will have 
 ready to his hand, but for our immediate day, and perhaps for our 
 immediate generation, fathomless. They have been briefly in- 
 dicated in this survey only in order that the student may be pre- 
 pared for the wider vision which the future will inevitably bring, 
 and may, in the meanwhile, be saved from the delusion that 
 when he has seen the visible machinery he has seen all. 
 
 Thus, almost at the very starting-point of our inquiry, do we find 
 ourselves, as we approach 'the problem of the distribution of seats, 
 face to face with the inexorable demands of the evolutionary law. 
 For that reason it will be 'desirable, and, indeed, essential, for us 
 to survey the evolutionary struggles of the political organism which 
 is the subject of our scrutiny, during as long a period as will enable 
 
 * The quotation is from Professor Maitland's introduction to his own 
 translation^ of Gierke's " Political Theories of the Middle Ages " (Cam- 
 bridge University Press), where (page xxvi.) the references to Gierke's 
 further treatment of the theory will be found in detai 1 . 
 
 t" Scientific Basis of Socialism." (New Age Press.) 
 
 60
 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF SEATS. 
 
 us thoroughly to grasp the character, and corrprehend the scope, 
 of the movement which is going on. For that purpose we must 
 bring all the political, 'social, and economic tendencies of the elec- 
 torate, over a period of years, within the limits of a field of 
 view an electoral microcosm which is 'not too large for the 
 intellectual vision of the observer ; and in that way we shall enable 
 ourselves to see in what 'direction the struggles of the organism 
 tend, what are the lines upon which its most potent forces move, 
 in what manner they are thwarted and confined, and, finally, 
 how we may relieve them of the injurious pressure and restraint 
 and confer upon the organism itself the persistent and uninter- 
 mdtted power of self-adjustment. 
 
 The Organism in Evolution. 
 
 This survey is offered in the statistics which follow. The names 
 of the English and Welsh constituencies appear in the order of the 
 heavy type of column (B), according to the size of their electorate 
 at the General Election of 1906 (the last expression of the opinion 
 of the whole voting strength of the country), the largest (Romford, 
 with an electorate at that time of 45,579) at the top, and the 
 smallest (Durham City, with a total voting strength of 2,580) at 
 the bottom. This arrangement is the basis of comparison. In 
 this heavy type column (B) to the right of the names 
 of the constituencies will be found the number of their 
 1906 electorates; and in the corresponding column (B) to the 
 left of the names of the constituencies are 'consecutive figures 
 showing their strict numerical order, when arranged, as in the 
 table, according to the number of their electorate. Thus Romford 
 is No. i, while the tenth place is occupied by the Cardiff District, 
 and the fifteenth by the Tottenham division. The (A) column 
 exhibits, to the right of the names of the constituencies, their re- 
 spective electoral strength in 1886, twenty years before the 1906 
 election, but after the redistribution of seats. In the (A) column, 
 to the left of the names of the constituencies, there is exhibited 
 the position which each constituency would occupy if all were 
 arranged according ito their electorates at this period (1886), 
 With the strongest ,at the top. The contrast between this column 
 and the (B) column is striking and their juxtaposition throws into 
 bold relief the ceaseless, rapid, and extensive changes which are 
 produced by economic forces acting upon the strength and distri- 
 bution of the electorate. The first position, with the greatest elec- 
 toral strength, held by Romford in 1906, was in 1886 the distinc- 
 tion of Newcastle-on-Tyne, while the second, attained in 1906 by 
 Newcastle itself, was held twenty years before by the City of Lon- 
 don. We said that these changes were rapid. It remains to dis- 
 play evidence of their rapidity. This is furnished by the (C) 
 columns, in which total 'electorate and the numerical rank which 
 
 61
 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF SEATS. 
 
 it confers are again adjusted to the 1908 registers. Two years, 
 it will be noticed, had increased the Romford aggregate by over 
 4,000, and carried the electorate of this constituency up to nearly 
 50,000. Newcastle fell to the third place, and the second wa:s 
 assumed by the Walthamstow division, as the result of an aug- 
 mentation of its electorate due to precisely the same causes as 
 have raised the Romford division from its thirty-ninth place 
 in 1886 to the premier 'position in 1906 and 1908. With these 
 explanatory observations, the survey is placed before the reader. 
 
 The Process of Electoral Evolution. 
 
 ABC 
 
 (i885) (1906) (1908) 
 
 39 1 1 
 1 2 3 
 
 78 
 
 3 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 145 
 
 5 
 
 4 
 
 2 
 
 6 
 
 8 
 
 5 
 
 7 
 
 7 
 
 128 
 
 8 
 
 6 
 
 6 
 
 9 
 
 9 
 
 38 
 
 10 
 
 16 
 
 16 
 
 11 
 
 12 
 
 4 
 
 12 
 
 17 
 
 84 
 
 13 
 
 15 
 
 37 
 
 14 
 
 16 
 
 99 
 
 15 
 
 11 
 
 297 
 
 16 
 
 13 
 
 264 
 
 17 
 
 14 
 
 233 
 
 18 
 
 20 
 
 19 
 
 19 
 
 18 
 
 11 
 
 20 
 
 30 
 
 148 
 
 21 
 
 27 
 
 8 
 
 22 
 
 24 
 
 18 
 
 23 
 
 37 
 
 58 
 
 24 
 
 28 
 
 7 
 
 25 
 
 25 
 
 382 
 
 26 
 
 32 
 
 33 
 
 27 
 
 33 
 
 219 
 
 28 
 
 22 
 
 280 
 
 29 
 
 31 
 
 232 
 
 30 
 
 21 
 
 10 
 
 31 
 
 36 
 
 9 
 
 32 
 
 40 
 
 90 
 
 33 
 
 35 
 
 Essex (Romford) 
 Newcastle - on-Tyne 
 
 (2) 
 
 Essex(Walthamstow) 
 Oldham (2) 
 Wandsworth - 
 London (City) (2) - 
 Portsmouth (2) 
 Middlesex (H arrow) - 
 Sunderland (2)- 
 Cardiff District 
 Stafford (Handsw'th) 
 Leicester (2) - 
 Lanes. (Stretford) - 
 Croydon - 
 
 Middlesex (Tott'h'm) 
 Middlesex (Enfield) - 
 West Ham (South) - 
 Lewisham 
 
 Surrey (Wimbledon) 
 Merthyr Tydvil (2) - 
 Leeds (North) - 
 Blackburn (2) - 
 Brighton (2) - 
 Durham(Chest.-le-S.) 
 Lancashire (Bootle) - 
 Fulham - 
 
 Lanes. (Clitheroe) - 
 Essex (South East) - 
 Glamorgan (South) - 
 Middlesex (Baling) - 
 Norwich (2) - 
 Bolton (2) 
 Lanes. (Blackpool) - 
 
 62 
 
 A 
 
 B 
 
 c 
 
 (1886) 
 
 (1906) 
 
 (1908) 
 
 12,591 
 
 45,579 
 
 49,065 
 
 30,314 
 
 36,909 
 
 37,389 
 
 11,233 
 
 35,321 
 
 39,285 
 
 25,600 
 
 32,387 
 
 34,050 
 
 10,150 
 
 31,398 
 
 35,678 
 
 29,152 
 
 31,030 
 
 30,982 
 
 20,341 
 
 30,754 
 
 31,894 
 
 10,438 
 
 28,327 
 
 32,104 
 
 18,078 
 
 27,650 
 
 29,895 
 
 12,605 
 
 27,057 
 
 28,760 
 
 14,908 
 
 26,243 
 
 27,554 
 
 21,671 
 
 25,129 
 
 25,281 
 
 11,140 
 
 24,326 
 
 25,675 
 
 12,619 
 
 23,858 
 
 25,629 
 
 10,887 
 
 23,409 
 
 28,243 
 
 8,621 
 
 23,386 
 
 26,575 
 
 8,942 
 
 22,753 
 
 25,700 
 
 9,281 
 
 22,243 
 
 23,897 
 
 14,086 
 
 21,899 
 
 24,967 
 
 15,196 
 
 21,438 
 
 21,934 
 
 10.128 
 
 21,196 
 
 22,076 
 
 16,329 
 
 21,127 
 
 22,191 
 
 14,848 
 
 20,976 
 
 21,060 
 
 11,830 
 
 20,910 
 
 22,053 
 
 16,663 
 
 20,721 
 
 22,169 
 
 6,500 
 
 20,620 
 
 21,595 
 
 12,698 
 
 20,613 
 
 21,519 
 
 9,367 
 
 20,591 
 
 22,732 
 
 8,806 
 
 20,541 
 
 21,762 
 
 9,283 
 
 20,436 
 
 23,444 
 
 15,323 
 
 20,320 
 
 21,225 
 
 16,063 
 
 20,388 
 
 20,907 
 
 11,093 
 
 20,339 
 
 21,377
 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF SEATS. 
 
 A 
 
 B 
 
 c 
 
 
 A 
 
 B 
 
 C 
 
 (1886) (1906) (1908) 
 
 (1886) 
 
 (1906) 
 
 (1908) 
 
 305 
 
 34 
 
 26 
 
 Glamorgan (East) - 
 
 8,544 
 
 20,338 
 
 22,086 
 
 21 
 
 35 
 
 34 
 
 Middlesbrough 
 
 13,864 
 
 20,322 
 
 21,457 
 
 63 
 
 38 
 
 39 
 
 Hull (West) - 
 
 11,517 
 
 20,192 
 
 20,941 
 
 80 
 
 37 
 
 38 
 
 Kent (Dartford) 
 
 11,173 
 
 19,741 
 
 21,051 
 
 109 
 
 38 
 
 29 
 
 Middlesex (Hornsey) 
 
 10,648 
 
 19,651 
 
 22,011 
 
 93B* 
 
 39 
 
 45 
 
 Yorkshire (Barnsley) 
 
 11,000 
 
 19,564 
 
 19,572 
 
 14 
 
 40 
 
 44 
 
 Derby (2) 
 
 14,925 
 
 19,543 
 
 19,633 
 
 179 
 
 41 
 
 42 
 
 Cheshire (Wirral) - 
 
 9,772 
 
 19,388 
 
 20,729 
 
 82 
 
 42 
 
 43 
 
 Lanes. (Prestwich) - 
 
 11,156 
 
 19,267 
 
 20,575 
 
 212 
 
 43 
 
 23 
 
 Clapham - 
 
 9,434 
 
 19,180 
 
 22,248 
 
 328 
 
 44 
 
 41 
 
 Worcestershire (E.) - 
 
 8,187 
 
 18,769 
 
 20,893 
 
 28 
 
 45 
 
 46 
 
 Yorkshire (Doncaster) 
 
 13,157 
 
 18,682 
 
 19,547 
 
 17 
 
 46 
 
 47 
 
 Preston (2) 
 
 14,876 
 
 18,626 
 
 19,264 
 
 26 
 
 47 
 
 52 
 
 Gateshead 
 
 13,206 
 
 18,614 
 
 18,804 
 
 51 
 
 48 
 
 55 
 
 Leeds (West) - 
 
 12,058 
 
 18,518 
 
 18,673 
 
 107 
 
 49 
 
 48 
 
 Yorkshire (Rother- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ham) - 
 
 10,730 
 
 18,482 
 
 19,256 
 
 56 
 
 50 
 
 19 
 
 N'umberland (Tyne- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 side) - 
 
 11,852 
 
 18,460 
 
 24,358 
 
 147 
 
 51 
 
 66 
 
 Plymouth (2) - 
 
 10,130 
 
 18,186 
 
 18,113 
 
 55 
 
 52 
 
 65 
 
 South Shields - 
 
 11,928 
 
 18,106 
 
 18,136 
 
 27B 
 
 53 
 
 51 
 
 Yorks. (Hallamshire) 
 
 13,176 
 
 18,085 
 
 19,040 
 
 114 
 
 54 
 
 59 
 
 Lanes. (W.Houghton) 
 
 10,625 
 
 17,984 
 
 18,470 
 
 173 
 
 55 
 
 50 
 
 Nottingham (Mans- 
 
 9,862 
 
 17,931 
 
 19,052 
 
 
 
 
 field) 
 
 
 
 
 181 
 
 56 
 
 54 
 
 Woolwich 
 
 9,769 
 
 17,870 
 
 18,676 
 
 86 
 
 57 
 
 64 
 
 Nottingm. (Rushcliff) 
 
 11,132 
 
 17,863 
 
 18,164 
 
 50 
 
 58 
 
 61 
 
 Southampton (2) 
 
 12,061 
 
 17,613 
 
 18,413 
 
 12 
 
 59 
 
 62 
 
 Huddersfield - 
 
 14,991 
 
 17,568 
 
 18,249 
 
 15 
 
 60 
 
 78 
 
 Dudley - 
 
 14,918 
 
 17,564 
 
 17,447 
 
 131 
 
 61 
 
 67 
 
 N'umbrlnd(Wansb'k) 
 
 10,392 
 
 17,529 
 
 18,016 
 
 45 
 
 62 
 
 68 
 
 Hampshire(Fareh'm) 
 
 12,240 
 
 17,398 
 
 17,964 
 
 91 
 
 63 
 
 53 
 
 Surrey (Kingston) 
 
 11,086 
 
 17,270 
 
 18,707 
 
 89 
 
 64 
 
 58 
 
 Kent (Sevenoaks) 
 
 11,098 
 
 17,256 
 
 18,474 
 
 40 
 
 65 
 
 73 
 
 Leicester (Harbro') 
 
 12,476 
 
 17,227 
 
 17,611 
 
 110 
 
 66 
 
 63 
 
 Derby (Ilkeston) 
 
 10,660 
 
 17,216 
 
 18,238 
 
 335 
 
 67 
 
 49 
 
 Middlesex (Brentf'd) 
 
 7,971 
 
 17,153 
 
 19,082 
 
 30 
 
 68 
 
 60 
 
 Durham (Jarrow) 
 
 12,897 
 
 17,023 
 
 18,466 
 
 48 
 
 69 
 
 75 
 
 Birkenhead 
 
 12,115 
 
 17,010 
 
 17,479 
 
 138 
 
 70 
 
 74 
 
 Yorks. (Osgoldcross) 
 
 10,322 
 
 16,935 
 
 17,499 
 
 180 
 
 71 
 
 57 
 
 Monmouth (West) - 
 
 9,770 
 
 16,880 
 
 18,521 
 
 189A 
 
 72 
 
 85 
 
 Northamptonshire(E) 
 
 9,691 
 
 16,862 
 
 17,060 
 
 27A 
 
 73 
 
 77 
 
 Durham (S.E.) 
 
 13,176 
 
 16.690 
 
 17,464 
 
 See the discussion of the " pairs," which will be found on page 76. 
 
 63
 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF SEATS. 
 
 ABC 
 
 (1886) (1906) (1908) 
 
 79 74 81 
 
 135 
 
 75 
 
 75 
 
 36 
 
 76 
 
 86 
 
 13 
 
 77 
 
 87 
 
 125 
 
 78 
 
 72 
 
 198 
 
 79 
 
 79 
 
 176 
 
 80 
 
 70 
 
 62 
 
 81 
 
 90 
 
 20 
 
 82 
 
 100 
 
 260 
 
 83 
 
 71 
 
 395 
 
 84 
 
 97 
 
 293 
 
 85 
 
 89 
 
 191 
 
 86 
 
 91 
 
 166 
 
 87 
 
 88 
 
 256 
 
 88 
 
 70 
 
 241 
 
 89 
 
 93 
 
 92 
 
 90 
 
 82 
 
 46 
 
 91 
 
 95 
 
 143 
 
 92 
 
 98 
 
 117 
 
 93 
 
 83 
 
 29 
 
 94 
 
 95 
 
 115 95 94 
 
 108A 96 99 
 
 153 97 92 
 
 186 98 102 
 
 64 99 105 
 237 100 103 
 
 25 101 109 
 
 218 102 122 
 
 156 103 56 
 
 43 104 124 
 
 103 105 107 
 
 262 106 80 
 
 54 107 112 
 
 325 108 104 
 
 65 109 119 
 259A 110 111 
 
 97 111 120 
 
 155 112 114 
 
 298 113 121 
 
 101 114 115 
 
 75 115 115 
 
 Birmingham 
 
 (Bordesley) - 
 Lancashire (Gorton) 
 Lancashire (Darwen) 
 Nottingham (West) - 
 Cheshire(Altrinch'm) 
 Durham (N.W.) 
 Lancashire (Eccles)- 
 Derby (South) - 
 Yorkshire (Shipley) - 
 Glamorgan (Mid) 
 Hanley - 
 Great Grimsby 
 Burnley 
 
 Middlesex (Uxb'dge) 
 Surrey (Epsom) 
 Derby (N.E.) - 
 Monmouth (South) - 
 Kent (S. Augustine's) 
 Leicester (Melton) - 
 Worcester (Oldbury) 
 Durham (Houghton- 
 
 le-S.) - 
 
 Sussex (Mid.) - 
 Kent (Tunbridge) - 
 Warwick (Tarmvorth) 
 Sheffield (Attercliffe) 
 Yorks. (Normanton)- 
 Surrey (Chertsey) - 
 Staffordshire (N.W.) 
 Deptford- 
 Battersea- 
 Halifax (2) - 
 Lanes. (Accrington) - 
 Camberwell (Dul- 
 
 wich) - 
 Isle ol Wight - 
 Glamoigan(Rhondda) 
 Yorkshire (Morley) - 
 Bradford (East) 
 Leeds (South) - 
 W r est Ham (N.) 
 Derby (Chesterfield) 
 Cheshire (Crewe) - 
 Bucks (Wycombe) - 
 
 64 
 
 A 
 
 B 
 
 c 
 
 (1886) 
 
 (1906) 
 
 (1908) 
 
 11478 
 
 16,653 
 
 17,204 
 
 10,338 
 
 16,547 
 
 17,495 
 
 12,629 
 
 16,544 
 
 17,048 
 
 14,929 
 
 16,506 
 
 17,00'S 
 
 10,497 
 
 16,492 
 
 17,681 
 
 9,543 
 
 16,384 
 
 17,303 
 
 9,781 
 
 16,382 
 
 17,781 
 
 11,575 
 
 16,326 
 
 16,743 
 
 14,066 
 
 16,295 
 
 16,306 
 
 8,979 
 
 16,200 
 
 17,767 
 
 10,970 
 
 16,156 
 
 16,461 
 
 8,659 
 
 16,058 
 
 16,853 
 
 9,638 
 
 15,983 
 
 16,734 
 
 9,902 
 
 15,936 
 
 16,907 
 
 9,009 
 
 15,933 
 
 17,905 
 
 9,207 
 
 15,898 
 
 16,647 
 
 11,069 
 
 15,858 
 
 17,145 
 
 12,157 
 
 15,841 
 
 16,480 
 
 10,190 
 
 15,815 
 
 16,421 
 
 10,573 
 
 15,732 
 
 17,121 
 
 12,992 
 
 15,711 
 
 16,463 
 
 10,586 
 
 15,580 
 
 16,571 
 
 10,703 
 
 15,500 
 
 16,367 
 
 10,048 
 
 15,491 
 
 16,713 
 
 9,715 
 
 15,484 
 
 16,261 
 
 11,479 
 
 15,474 
 
 15,847 
 
 9,220 
 
 15,419 
 
 16,195 
 
 13,222 
 
 15,404 
 
 15,700 
 
 9,371 
 
 15,397 
 
 15,269 
 
 10,018 
 
 15,369 
 
 18,524 
 
 12,289 
 
 15,316 
 
 15,193 
 
 10,797 
 
 15,301 
 
 15,782 
 
 8,963 
 
 15,286 
 
 17,254 
 
 11,943 
 
 15,193 
 
 15,638 
 
 8,210 
 
 15,181 
 
 16,123 
 
 11,467 
 
 15,160 
 
 15,341 
 
 8,988 
 
 15,136 
 
 15,642 
 
 10,931 
 
 15,119 
 
 15,321 
 
 10,026 
 
 15,101 
 
 15,497 
 
 8,616 
 
 15,077 
 
 15,279 
 
 10,815 
 
 15,051 
 
 15,481 
 
 11,269 
 
 15,050 
 
 15,420
 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF SEATS. 
 
 ABC 
 
 (1886X1906X1908) 
 
 52 116 117 
 152 117 101 
 
 380 
 132 
 349 
 
 68 
 314 
 154 
 
 22 
 
 53 
 203 
 361 
 161 
 
 49 
 254 
 
 59 
 307 
 
 93A 
 
 71 
 239 
 311 
 
 24 
 
 263A 
 194 
 
 96 
 100 
 259B 
 185 
 
 67 
 
 44 
 
 23 
 
 41 
 
 222A 
 102 
 
 57 
 206 
 327 
 
 83 
 
 31 
 119 
 182 
 
 73 
 
 371A 
 108B 
 
 118 
 
 119 
 
 120 
 
 121 
 
 122 
 
 123 
 
 124 
 
 125 
 
 12S 
 
 127A 
 
 127B 
 
 128 
 
 129 
 
 130 
 
 131 
 
 132 
 
 133 
 
 134 
 
 135 
 
 136A 
 
 136B 
 
 137 
 
 138 
 
 139 
 
 140 A 
 
 140 A 
 
 141 
 
 142 
 
 143 A 
 
 143s 
 
 144 
 
 145 
 
 146 
 
 147 
 
 148 
 
 149 
 
 150 
 
 151 
 
 152 
 
 153 
 
 154 
 
 155 
 
 136A 
 108 
 110 
 134 
 105 
 84 
 125 
 137 
 133A 
 128 
 113 
 118 
 127 
 130 
 131 
 142 
 138 
 132 
 147 
 161 
 141 
 150 
 136B 
 139 
 129 
 123 
 151 
 157 
 149 
 159 
 143 
 145 
 165 
 125 
 140 
 144 
 152 
 133B 
 147 
 156 
 155 
 146 
 
 Yorkshire (Pudsey) - 
 
 Warwickshire (Nun- 
 
 eaton) 
 
 Devon port (2) - 
 Bristol (South)- 
 Liverpool (Walton) - 
 Kent (Faversham) - 
 Lanes. (Southport) - 
 Hertford (Watford) - 
 Kent (Mid) 
 Lincoln (Spalding) - 
 Bristol (East) - 
 Birmingham (East) - 
 Surrey (Guildford) - 
 Bedford (Luton) 
 Wilts. (Cricklade) 
 Lanes. (Middleton) - 
 Manchester (South) - 
 Walsall - 
 
 Gloster (Thornbury) 
 Stoke-upon-Trent 
 Hartlepool 
 Bedford (Bigglswd'e) 
 Lanes (Lancaster) - 
 Hammersmith 
 Suffolk (Lowestoft) - 
 Devon (Tavistock) - 
 Bradford (West) - 
 Coventry 
 Dewsbury 
 
 Stafford (K'swinford) 
 Kent (Ashford) 
 York (2)- 
 
 Lancashire (Newton) 
 Rochdale 
 
 Yorkshire (Elland) - 
 Surrey (Reigate) 
 Salford (West) 
 Durham (Mid.)- 
 Nottingham (South) - 
 Glamorgan (Gower)- 
 Dorset (East) - 
 Northampton (Mid.) 
 Chatham - 
 Monmouth (North) - 
 
 65 
 
 A 
 
 B 
 
 c 
 
 (1886) 
 
 (.906) 
 
 (1908) 
 
 11,989 
 
 15,039 
 
 15,410 
 
 10,061 
 
 15,021 
 
 16,266 
 
 6,546 
 
 14,978 
 
 14,585 
 
 10,385 
 
 14,935 
 
 15,740 
 
 7,630 
 
 14,889 
 
 15,658 
 
 11,370 
 
 14,860 
 
 14,691 
 
 8,437 
 
 14,854 
 
 16,014 
 
 10,029 
 
 14,810 
 
 17,072 
 
 13,482 
 
 14,628 
 
 15,153 
 
 11,957 
 
 14,617 
 
 14,582 
 
 9,506 
 
 14,543 
 
 14,705 
 
 7,382 
 
 14,469 
 
 14,977 
 
 9,978 
 
 14,469 
 
 15,505 
 
 12,106 
 
 14,459 
 
 15,375 
 
 9,031 
 
 14,390 
 
 15,149 
 
 11,748 
 
 14,314 
 
 14,924 
 
 8,534 
 
 14,221 
 
 14,762 
 
 11,000 
 
 14,127 
 
 14,474 
 
 11,333 
 
 14,096 
 
 14,561 
 
 9,214 
 
 14,091 
 
 14,743 
 
 8,500 
 
 14,086 
 
 14,296 
 
 13,347 
 
 14,085 
 
 13,757 
 
 8,961 
 
 14,085 
 
 14,497 
 
 9,611 
 
 14,007 
 
 14,220 
 
 10,956 
 
 14,002 
 
 14,585 
 
 10,851 
 
 13,989 
 
 14,560 
 
 8,988 
 
 13,965 
 
 14,807 
 
 9,736 
 
 13,965 
 
 15,230 
 
 11,439 
 
 13,951 
 
 14,056 
 
 12,272 
 
 13,912 
 
 13,785 
 
 13,389 
 
 13,864 
 
 14,230 
 
 12,415 
 
 13,864 
 
 13,775 
 
 9,344 
 
 13,867 
 
 14,429 
 
 10,808 
 
 13,831 
 
 14,381 
 
 11,851 
 
 13,828 
 
 13,662 
 
 9,500 
 
 13,817 
 
 15,192 
 
 8,197 
 
 13,814 
 
 14,547 
 
 11,145 
 
 13,733 
 
 14,428 
 
 12,751 
 
 13,656 
 
 13,923 
 
 10,560 
 
 13,624 
 
 14,705 
 
 9,758 
 
 13,557 
 
 14,241 
 
 11,306 
 
 13,450 
 
 13,854 
 
 6,988 
 
 13,432 
 
 13,856 
 
 10,703 
 
 13,411 
 
 14,342
 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF SEATS. 
 
 ABC 
 
 (1886) (1906) (1908) 
 
 302 166 166 
 
 170 157 163 
 
 289 158 179 
 60H 159 172 
 42 160 209 
 
 130 161 169 
 146A 162 162 
 
 290 163A 175 
 227 163B 177 
 151 164 188 
 165 165 176 
 
 53 166 171 
 
 333 167 154 
 
 257 168 187 
 
 295 169 160 
 
 235 170 164 
 
 245 171 174 
 
 309 173 168 
 
 268 174 170 
 
 144 175 182 
 
 35 176 184 
 
 359 177 181B 
 
 136 178 173A 
 
 174 179 158 
 
 66 180 191 
 
 196 181 186 
 177 182 193 
 318 183A 180 
 104 183s 178 
 167 184 190 
 
 197 185 189 
 251 186 197 
 287 187 185 
 124 188 195 
 283 189 201 
 
 198e 
 183 
 
 299 192 152 
 
 285 193 181A 
 
 69 194 206 
 
 136 195 204 
 
 32 196 194 
 
 187 197 135 
 
 142 198 192 
 
 47 190 
 116 191 
 
 Lancashire (Leigh) - 
 Lanes. (Chorley) 
 B'ham (Edgbaston) - 
 Gloster (Tewk'sb'ry) 
 Cardiganshire - 
 Lanes. (Radcliffe) - 
 Essex (Harwich) 
 Hackney (South) 
 Leicester (Loughb V) 
 Yorks. (Keighley) 
 Leicester (Bosw'th) - 
 Yorks. (Cleveland) - 
 Hull (East) - 
 Bristol (North) 
 Greenwich 
 Berks. (Wokingham) 
 Lanes (Ince) - 
 Sheffield (Hallam) 
 Sussex (Eastbourne) 
 Sheffield (Ecclesall) - 
 Devon (Barnstaple) - 
 Yorkshire (Thirsk) - 
 Lambeth (Norwood) 
 Sussex (Rye) - 
 Durham (B. Auckl'd) 
 Lanes. (Rossendale) 
 Derby (Mid.) - 
 Manchester (East) - 
 Wolverhampton (W.) 
 Yorks. (Skipton) 
 Yorkshire (Otley) - 
 Stockport (2) - 
 Yorkshire (Ripon) - 
 Lanes. (Ormskirk) - 
 Somerset (Frome) - 
 Stockton - 
 
 Suffolk (Woodb'dge) 
 Cheshire (N'thwich) 
 Camberwell (North) 
 Hertford (S. Albans) 
 Yorks. (Sowerby) 
 Birmingham (West)- 
 Nottingham (East) - 
 Camb'well (Peckh'm) 
 Somerset (North) 
 
 66 
 
 A 
 
 B 
 
 c 
 
 (1886) 
 
 (1906) 
 
 (1908) 
 
 8,572 
 
 13,380 
 
 13,641 
 
 9,881 
 
 13,247 
 
 13,701 
 
 8,693 
 
 13,230 
 
 13,322 
 
 11,665 
 
 13,226 
 
 13,470 
 
 12,308 
 
 13,215 
 
 12,502 
 
 10,433 
 
 13,151 
 
 13,508 
 
 10,141 
 
 13,144 
 
 13,741 
 
 8,684 
 
 13,126 
 
 13,380 
 
 9,313 
 
 13,126 
 
 13,350 
 
 10,072 
 
 13,125 
 
 13,043 
 
 9,919 
 
 13,114 
 
 13,370 
 
 11,788 
 
 13,086 
 
 13,473 
 
 8,053 
 
 13,073 
 
 13,866 
 
 9,002 
 
 13,061 
 
 13,067 
 
 8,632 
 
 13,049 
 
 13,758 
 
 9,258 
 
 13,033 
 
 13,693 
 
 9,157 
 
 12,986 
 
 13,398 
 
 7,846 
 
 12,956 
 
 13,622 
 
 8,504 
 
 12,913 
 
 13,588 
 
 8,904 
 
 12,911 
 
 13,489 
 
 10,189 
 
 12,908 
 
 13,105 
 
 12,637 
 
 12,888 
 
 13,091 
 
 7,501 
 
 12,867 
 
 13,256 
 
 10,304 
 
 12,842 
 
 13,452 
 
 9,858 
 
 12,790 
 
 13,781 
 
 11,450 
 
 12,765 
 
 13,004 
 
 9,571 
 
 12,757 
 
 13,069 
 
 9,779 
 
 12,724 
 
 12,879 
 
 8,391 
 
 12,707 
 
 13,312 
 
 10,796 
 
 12,707 
 
 13,323 
 
 9,883 
 
 12,670 
 
 13,035 
 
 9,560 
 
 12,645 
 
 13,036 
 
 9,049 
 
 12,635 
 
 12,706 
 
 8,714 
 
 12,624 
 
 13,087 
 
 10,498 
 
 12,612 
 
 12,836 
 
 8,761 
 
 12,581 
 
 12,640 
 
 12,126 
 
 12,528 
 
 12,688 
 
 10,577 
 
 12,527 
 
 13,098 
 
 8,603 
 
 12,519 
 
 13,973 
 
 8,741 
 
 12,497 
 
 13,256 
 
 11,364 
 
 12,492 
 
 12,560 
 
 10,329 
 
 12,483 
 
 12,579 
 
 12,749 
 
 12,451 
 
 12,861 
 
 9,713 
 
 12,401 
 
 14,615 
 
 10,209 
 
 12,381 
 
 12,899
 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF SEATS. 
 
 A 
 
 B 
 
 c 
 
 (1886) (1906) 1908) 
 
 87 
 
 199 
 
 210 
 
 72 
 
 200 
 
 202 
 
 202 
 
 201 
 
 212 
 
 105 
 
 202 
 
 211 
 
 322 
 
 203 
 
 199 
 
 303 
 
 204 
 
 221 
 
 273 
 
 205 
 
 214 
 
 230 
 
 208 
 
 198 A 
 
 343 
 
 207 
 
 218 
 
 347 
 
 208 
 
 196 
 
 195 
 
 209 
 
 225 
 
 266 
 
 210 
 
 215 
 
 150 
 
 211 
 
 222 
 
 337 
 
 212 
 
 216 
 
 240 
 
 213 
 
 207 
 
 134 
 
 214 
 
 200 
 
 137 
 
 215 
 
 208 
 
 205 
 
 218 
 
 205 
 
 199 
 
 217 
 
 241 
 
 271 
 
 218 
 
 230 
 
 120 
 
 219 
 
 224 
 
 160 
 
 220 
 
 228 
 
 111 
 
 221 
 
 243 
 
 112 
 
 222 
 
 233 
 
 97 
 
 223 
 
 226 
 
 141 
 
 224 
 
 236 
 
 88 
 
 225 
 
 217 
 
 387 
 
 223 
 
 235 
 
 209 
 
 227 
 
 234 
 
 188 
 
 228 
 
 223 
 
 139 
 
 229 
 
 231 
 
 34 
 
 230 
 
 227 
 
 236 
 
 231 
 
 229 
 
 332 
 
 232 
 
 245 
 
 96 
 
 233 
 
 254 
 
 208 
 
 234 
 
 250 
 
 225 
 
 235 
 
 232 
 
 190 
 
 236 
 
 248 
 
 207 
 
 237 
 
 256 
 
 70 
 
 238 
 
 264 
 
 81 
 
 239 
 
 251 
 
 310 
 
 240 
 
 238 
 
 383 
 
 241 
 
 219 
 
 32U 
 
 242 
 
 244 
 
 Lincoln (Gainsb.) - 
 Bucks (North) - 
 Brecknockshire 
 Yorks (Holmfirth) - 
 St. Helens 
 Aston Manor - 
 Ipswich (2) 
 Sheff'd (Brightside)- 
 Islington (North) 
 Hampshire (Basing) - 
 Northampton - 
 Swansea Distrct 
 Flintshire 
 Kent (Thanet) - 
 Essex (Mid) - 
 Berkshire (Newbury) 
 Lincoln (Brigg) 
 Somerset (Wells) 
 CumbTnd (Cocker- 
 mouth) 
 
 Liverpool (W.Derby) 
 Bucks. (Mid) - 
 Durham (B. Castle) - 
 Birmingham (South) 
 Staffs. (Penkridge) - 
 Yorkshire (Colne) - 
 Staffs. (Leek) - 
 Chelsea - 
 Hampstead 
 Staffs. (Burton) 
 Warwick (Rugby) - 
 Derbyshire (W.) 
 Manchester (N.W.) - 
 Essex ( Epping) 
 Hackney (North) 
 Pembroke 
 
 Notts. (Bassetlaw) - 
 Cheshire (Hyde) 
 Yorks. (Spen Vail.) - 
 Worc'st'r (Dr'itw'ch) 
 Yorkshire (Whitby)- 
 Norfolk (East) 
 Sussex (Chichester) - 
 Monmouth District - 
 Denbigh (East) 
 
 A 
 
 B 
 
 C 
 
 (1886) 
 
 (1906) 
 
 (.908) 
 
 11,107 
 
 12,370 
 
 12,475 
 
 11,307 
 
 12,334 
 
 12,635 
 
 9,520 
 
 12,235 
 
 12,446 
 
 10,770 
 
 12,219 
 
 12,464 
 
 8,291 
 
 12,174 
 
 12,686 
 
 8,571 
 
 12,149 
 
 12,109 
 
 8,867 
 
 12,148 
 
 12,393 
 
 9,298 
 
 12,108 
 
 12,688 
 
 7,774 
 
 12,075 
 
 12,150 
 
 7,720 
 
 12,049 
 
 12,818 
 
 9,600 
 
 11,954 
 
 11,931 
 
 8,926 
 
 11,908 
 
 12,280 
 
 10,082 
 
 11,892 
 
 12,107 
 
 7,941 
 
 11,981 
 
 12,279 
 
 9,217 
 
 11,767 
 
 12,539 
 
 10,377 
 
 11,746 
 
 12,658 
 
 10,323 
 
 11,737 
 
 12,507 
 
 9,501 
 
 11,725 
 
 12,574 
 
 9,538 
 
 11,700 
 
 11,612 
 
 8,873 
 
 11,692 
 
 11,808 
 
 10,535 
 
 11,681 
 
 12,021 
 
 9,991 
 
 11,617 
 
 11,904 
 
 10,643 
 
 11,611 
 
 11,539 
 
 10,636 
 
 11,584 
 
 11,784 
 
 10,881 
 
 11,563 
 
 11,925 
 
 10,234 
 
 11,545 
 
 11,702 
 
 11,103 
 
 11,536 
 
 12,235 
 
 5,981 
 
 11,467 
 
 11,725 
 
 9,463 
 
 11,465 
 
 11,770 
 
 9,700 
 
 11,451 
 
 12,034 
 
 10,310 
 
 11,443 
 
 11,799 
 
 12,685 
 
 11,411 
 
 11,914 
 
 9,239 
 
 11,374 
 
 11,812 
 
 8,058 
 
 11,334 
 
 11,492 
 
 10,883 
 
 11,322 
 
 11,331 
 
 9,479 
 
 11,320 
 
 11,390 
 
 9,328 
 
 11,314 
 
 11,791 
 
 9,645 
 
 11,300 
 
 11,415 
 
 9,484 
 
 11,283 
 
 11,261 
 
 11,350 
 
 11,263 
 
 11,035 
 
 11,161 
 
 11,237 
 
 11,372 
 
 8,502 
 
 11,225 
 
 11,684 
 
 6,485 
 
 11,207 
 
 12,148 
 
 8,297 
 
 11,172 
 
 11,501
 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF SEATS. 
 
 ABC 
 
 (i 886) (i 906) (1908) 
 
 216 243 239 
 
 226A 244 237 
 
 127 245 252A 
 
 278 246 246 
 
 140 247 257 
 
 358 248 261 
 
 200 249 255 
 
 214 250A 240 
 
 357 250B 220 
 
 336 251 253 
 
 324 252 249 
 
 129 253 259 
 
 111 254 266 
 
 139 255 262 
 
 363 256 258 
 
 158 257 267 
 
 183 258 272 
 
 331 259 283 
 
 113 260 275 
 
 106 261 288 
 
 292 262 247 
 
 244 263 242 
 
 352 264A 173B 
 
 284 264B 263 
 
 184s 265 280 
 
 98 266 301 
 
 360 267 276 
 
 288 268 295A 
 
 60A 269 277 
 
 213 270 203 
 
 171 271 260 
 
 319 272 285 
 281 273 213 
 300 274 265 
 149 275 298 
 234 276 270 
 229 277 268 
 243 278 269 
 126 279 284 
 133 280 292A 
 
 320 281 319 
 345 282 274 
 344 283 271 
 210 284 287 
 317 285 296 
 
 Derby (High Peak) - 
 Cheshire (Knutsford) 
 Norfolk (N.W.) 
 Herts. (Hertford) 
 N'mb'land (Hexham) 
 Reading - 
 
 C'mbridge (Wisbech) 
 Hampsh. (N. Forest) 
 Swansea Town 
 Lambeth (Brixton) - 
 Lanes. (Widnes) 
 Cheshire (Eddisb.) - 
 Suffolk (Stowm'kt.) - 
 Notts. (Newark) 
 Dorset (South) 
 CumbTnd (Eskdale) 
 Norfolk (North) 
 Islington (East) 
 Shropshire (N'port)- 
 Shropshire (L'low) - 
 Carmarthen (E.) 
 Cornwall (Bodmin) - 
 Sussex (Grinstead) - 
 West Bromwich 
 N'hamptonshire (N.) 
 B'ham (Central) 
 Lincoln (City) - 
 Manchester (N.) 
 Glostershire (Mid) - 
 Southw'k (B'rm'd'sy) 
 Essex (Maldon) 
 Liverpool (Kirkdale) 
 TowerHamlets(Bow) 
 Sussex (Horsham) - 
 Shrop. (Oswestry) 
 Lanes. (Heywood) - 
 Devon (Ashburton) - 
 Hampshire(Andover) 
 Camb'dge(Ch'st'rt'n) 
 Hereford (Ross) 
 Lambeth (Ken'ngt'n) 
 Warrington 
 Devon (Torquay) 
 Gloster (Dean) 
 Yorks. (B'rkst'n Ash) 
 
 68 
 
 A 
 
 B 
 
 C 
 
 (1886) 
 
 (1906) 
 
 (1908) 
 
 9,414 
 
 11,154 
 
 11,661 
 
 9,314 
 
 11,141 
 
 11,688 
 
 10,444 
 
 11,140 
 
 11,354 
 
 8,840 
 
 11,124 
 
 11,467 
 
 10,237 
 
 11,049 
 
 11,255 
 
 7,515 
 
 11,041 
 
 11,144 
 
 9,532 
 
 11,033 
 
 11,317 
 
 9,431 
 
 11,030 
 
 11,650 
 
 7,597 
 
 11,030 
 
 12,147 
 
 7,963 
 
 11,010 
 
 11,345 
 
 8,223 
 
 11,005 
 
 11,408 
 
 10,436 
 
 10,988 
 
 11,200 
 
 10,587 
 
 10,971 
 
 11,016 
 
 10,214 
 
 10,863 
 
 11,100 
 
 7,316 
 
 10,845 
 
 11,211 
 
 10,000 
 
 10,811 
 
 10,995 
 
 9,742 
 
 10,795 
 
 10,888 
 
 8,092 
 
 10,783 
 
 10,610 
 
 10,630 
 
 10,777 
 
 10,791 
 
 10,740 
 
 10,765 
 
 10,513 
 
 8,669 
 
 10,746 
 
 11,426 
 
 9,158 
 
 10,731 
 
 11,542 
 
 7,660 
 
 10,726 
 
 13,452 
 
 8,749 
 
 10,726 
 
 11,080 
 
 9,741 
 
 10,688 
 
 10,667 
 
 10,923 
 
 10,670 
 
 10,255 
 
 7,444 
 
 10,645 
 
 10,787 
 
 8,703 
 
 10,624 
 
 10,423 
 
 11,665 
 
 10,620 
 
 10,767 
 
 9,433 
 
 10,619 
 
 12,629 
 
 9,869 
 
 10,613 
 
 11,168 
 
 8,346 
 
 10,596 
 
 10,566 
 
 8,795 
 
 10,545 
 
 12,418 
 
 8,582 
 
 10,508 
 
 11,030 
 
 10,083 
 
 10490 
 
 10,276 
 
 9,269 
 
 10,463 
 
 10,941 
 
 9,300 
 
 10,429 
 
 10,976 
 
 9,183 
 
 10,433 
 
 10,947 
 
 10,455 
 
 10,386 
 
 10,567 
 
 10,380 
 
 10,384 
 
 10,486 
 
 8,313 
 
 10,382 
 
 9,969 
 
 7,730 
 
 10,365 
 
 10,831 
 
 7,738 
 
 10,343 
 
 10,932 
 
 9,458 
 
 10,336 
 
 10,540 
 
 8,411 
 
 10,286 
 
 10,415
 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF SEATS. 
 
 A 
 
 (1886) 
 
 321B 
 
 274 
 
 169 
 
 168 
 
 193 
 
 94 
 250 
 211 
 118 
 277 
 121 
 246 
 
 77 
 178 
 172 
 157 
 326 
 
 74 
 294 
 306 
 248 
 265 
 204 
 269 
 231 
 304 
 258 
 224 
 255 
 184A 
 221s 
 339 
 201 
 238 
 222B 
 301 
 122 
 354 
 146B 
 192 
 163 
 334 
 403 
 374 
 407 
 
 B C 
 
 (1906) (1908) 
 
 286 315 
 
 287 286 
 
 288 295B 
 
 289 290 
 
 290 281 
 
 291 293 
 
 292 292B 
 
 293 320 
 
 294 300 
 
 295 289 
 298 304 
 
 297 278 
 
 298 297 
 
 299 299 
 
 300 302 
 
 301 308 
 
 302 279 
 
 303 325 
 
 304 306 
 
 305 321 
 308 345 
 
 307 314 
 
 308 303 
 
 309 318 
 
 310 329 
 
 311 305 
 
 312 294 
 
 313 339 
 
 314 307 
 
 315 326 
 
 316 323 
 317A 313 
 317B 311 
 
 318 334 
 
 319 331 
 
 320 322 
 
 321 333 
 
 322 328 
 323A 335 
 323B 357 
 
 324 316 
 
 325 340 
 
 326 273 
 
 327 309 
 
 328 291 
 
 Kensington (N.) 
 Cornwall (St. Aust.) - 
 Worcester (Bewdley) 
 Som'rs't (Bridgw't'r) 
 Warwick (Stratford)- 
 Suffolk (Eye) - 
 Yorks. (Buckrose) - 
 Liverpool (Everton)- 
 Wilts. (Westbury) - 
 Stafford (Lichfield) - 
 Suffolk (Sudbury) - 
 Yorks. (Holderness)- 
 Yorks. (Richmond) - 
 Anglesey - 
 
 Lincoln (Sleaford) - 
 Oxford (Woodstock) 
 Hampshire(P't'rsf'ld) 
 Bradford (Cent.) 
 Wolverhampton (S.)- 
 Somerset (West) 
 Carnarvon (Arfon) - 
 Cambs. (Newmarket) 
 Yorks. (Howden) 
 Denbigh (West) 
 Cornwall (Launc.) - 
 Oxford (Henley) 
 Herts. (Hitchin) 
 Merioneth 
 Devon (Honiton) 
 Lincoln (Stamford) - 
 Somerset (S.) - 
 Wolverhampton (E.) 
 Worcester (E'sham)- 
 Lancs. (Lonsdale) - 
 Somerset (E.) - 
 Manchester (N.E.) - 
 Gloster (C'cester) - 
 Newcastle-under-L. - 
 Norfolk (South) 
 Northamptonsh. (S.) 
 Lincoln (Hornc.) 
 L'pool (E. Toxt.) - 
 Paddington (N.) 
 Exeter 
 Christchurch - 
 
 69 
 
 A 
 
 B 
 
 c 
 
 (1886) 
 
 (1906) 
 
 (1908) 
 
 8,297 
 
 10,270 
 
 10,042 
 
 8,860 
 
 10,235 
 
 10,562 
 
 9,833 
 
 10,231 
 
 10,423 
 
 9,861 
 
 10,180 
 
 10,506 
 
 9,631 
 
 10,173 
 
 10,651 
 
 10,993 
 
 10,163 
 
 10,474 
 
 9,113 
 
 10,151 
 
 10,486 
 
 9,439 
 
 10,149 
 
 9,946 
 
 10,566 
 
 10,130 
 
 10,257 
 
 8,842 
 
 10,123 
 
 10,512 
 
 10,522 
 
 10,121 
 
 10,169 
 
 9,143 
 
 10,117 
 
 10,676 
 
 11,237 
 
 10,112 
 
 10,408 
 
 9,777 
 
 10,001 
 
 10,264 
 
 9,863 
 
 10,000 
 
 10,251 
 
 10,012 
 
 9,935 
 
 10,113 
 
 8,202 
 
 9,983 
 
 10,674 
 
 11,297 
 
 9,978 
 
 9,882 
 
 8,636 
 
 9,974 
 
 10,153 
 
 8,537 
 
 9,980 
 
 9,928 
 
 9,136 
 
 9,948 
 
 9,512 
 
 8,936 
 
 9,934 
 
 10,055 
 
 9,502 
 
 9,833 
 
 10,229 
 
 8,899 
 
 9,891 
 
 9,995 
 
 9,297 
 
 9,868 
 
 9,770 
 
 8,555 
 
 9,328 
 
 10,164 
 
 8,996 
 
 9,320 
 
 10,431 
 
 9,333 
 
 9,805 
 
 9,634 
 
 9,012 
 
 9,797 
 
 10,147 
 
 9,741 
 
 9,782 
 
 9,849 
 
 9,349 
 
 9,778 
 
 9,923 
 
 7,917 
 
 9,758 
 
 10,058 
 
 9,522 
 
 9,756 
 
 10,084 
 
 9,219 
 
 9,738 
 
 9,741 
 
 9,344 
 
 9,717 
 
 9,754 
 
 8,579 
 
 9,701 
 
 9,926 
 
 10,517 
 
 9,673 
 
 9,744 
 
 7,637 
 
 9,650 
 
 9,788 
 
 10,141 
 
 9,643 
 
 9,717 
 
 9,636 
 
 9,643 
 
 9,170 
 
 9,941 
 
 9,637 
 
 10,020 
 
 7,992 
 
 9,629 
 
 9,560 
 
 5,345 
 
 9,602 
 
 10,880 
 
 6,963 
 
 9,567 
 
 10,109 
 
 4,626 
 
 9,530 
 
 10,502
 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF SEATS. 
 
 ABC 
 
 (1886) (1906) (1908) 
 
 346 329 337 
 
 279 330A 349 
 
 159 330 1, 327 
 
 385 331 312 
 
 383 332 344 
 
 353 333 317 
 
 296 334 342 
 
 261 335 310 
 
 242 336 324 
 
 123 337 338 
 
 226B 338 336 
 
 189B 339 350 
 
 22U 340 347 
 
 175 341 376 
 
 364 342 378 
 
 275 343 353 
 366 344 355 
 375 345 352 
 162 346 351 
 164 347 360 
 
 252 348 361 
 
 253 349 252B 
 390 350 341 
 329 351 348 
 377 352 346 
 397 353 369 
 220 354 359 
 215 355 368 
 355 356 356 
 217 357 373 
 
 85 358 386 
 
 263B 359 377 
 
 282 360 362 
 
 61 361 390 
 
 388 362 364 
 
 249 363 374 
 
 276 364 366 
 371 B 365 367 
 228 366A 372 
 352 366B 343 
 394 367 379 
 315 368 282 
 286 369 380 
 
 365 370 363 
 291 371 371 
 
 Salford (North) 
 Leeds (East) 
 Norfolk (Mid) - 
 Barrow-in-Furness - 
 Morpeth - 
 Bristol (West) - 
 Cornwall (Truro) 
 Carnarvon (Eition) - 
 Devon (Totnes) 
 St. George's Han. Sq. 
 Hereford (L'm'ster)- 
 N'umr'rl'nd (Berw.)- 
 Devon (Tiverton) - 
 Finsbury (Holborn)- 
 Islington (W.) 
 Kensington (S.) 
 Cornwall (Camb.) 
 Great Yarmouth 
 Carmarthen (W.) 
 Sheffield (Central) - 
 CumbTnd(Egr'm'nt) 
 To werH. (Poplar) 
 Darlington 
 Bury 
 
 Tynemouth 
 Newington (Wai.) - 
 Wilts (Devizes) 
 Birmingham (N.) 
 Cornwall (St. Ives) - 
 Norfolk (S.W.) 
 Leeds (Central) 
 Salop (Wellington) - 
 Berks (Abingdon) - 
 Hull (Central) - 
 Cambridge 
 Cumb'rl'nd (Penrith) 
 Wilts (Chippenham) 
 Wigan 
 
 Essex (Saff. Wald'n) 
 Hackney (Central) - 
 Hastings - 
 
 Southwark (Rother.) 
 Salford (South) 
 Chesh. (M'ccl'sfield) 
 Wilts (Wilton) 
 
 A 
 
 B 
 
 c 
 
 (18^6) 
 
 (1906) 
 
 (1908) 
 
 7,728 
 
 9,517 
 
 9,677 
 
 8,831 
 
 9,490 
 
 9,458 
 
 9,992 
 
 9,490 
 
 9,804 
 
 6,063 
 
 9,426 
 
 10,071 
 
 6,119 
 
 9,425 
 
 9,515 
 
 7,657 
 
 9,423 
 
 10,013 
 
 8,625 
 
 9,403 
 
 9,546 
 
 8,978 
 
 9,373 
 
 10,087 
 
 9,188 
 
 9,370 
 
 9,888 
 
 10,500 
 
 9,359 
 
 9,637 
 
 9,314 
 
 9,328 
 
 9,693 
 
 9,691 
 
 9,316 
 
 9,441 
 
 9,349 
 
 9,248 
 
 9,485 
 
 9,802 
 
 9,242 
 
 8,783 
 
 7,276 
 
 9,229 
 
 8,759 
 
 8,859 
 
 9,223 
 
 9,282 
 
 7,139 
 
 9,210 
 
 9,264 
 
 6,949 
 
 9,169 
 
 9,309 
 
 9,969 
 
 9,150 
 
 9,321 
 
 9,923 
 
 9,142 
 
 9,038 
 
 9,043 
 
 9,093 
 
 9,034 
 
 9,041 
 
 9,088 
 
 11,354 
 
 5,907 
 
 9,078 
 
 9,547 
 
 8,179 
 
 9,068 
 
 9,484 
 
 6,869 
 
 9,019 
 
 9,459 
 
 5,598 
 
 8,995 
 
 8,929 
 
 9,357 
 
 8,988 
 
 9,087 
 
 9,427 
 
 8,981 
 
 8,931 
 
 7,606 
 
 8,980 
 
 9,203 
 
 9,391 
 
 8,936 
 
 8,884 
 
 11,135 
 
 8,893 
 
 8,471 
 
 8,961 
 
 8,881 
 
 8,782 
 
 8,791 
 
 8,875 
 
 9,023 
 
 11,627 
 
 8,861 
 
 8,284 
 
 6,189 
 
 8,850 
 
 9,002 
 
 9,123 
 
 8,845 
 
 8,854 
 
 8,853 
 
 8,838 
 
 8,971 
 
 6,988 
 
 8,804 
 
 8,970 
 
 9,306 
 
 8,779 
 
 8,911 
 
 7,381 
 
 8,779 
 
 9,527' 
 
 5,672 
 
 8,758 
 
 8,707 
 
 8,455 
 
 8,700 
 
 10,643 
 
 8,717 
 
 8,645 
 
 8,684 
 
 7,211 
 
 8,636 
 
 9,003 
 
 8,675 
 
 8,632 
 
 8,920
 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF SEATS. 
 
 ABC 
 
 (1886) (1906) (1908) 
 
 372 372 370 
 270 373 389 
 223 374 383 
 308 375 385 
 379 376 387 
 
 350 377 382 
 370 378 396 
 348 379 375 
 356 380 392 
 381 381 384 
 315 382 393 
 
 76 383 399 
 
 408 384 391 
 
 396 385 395 
 
 289 386 365 
 
 387 387 401 
 
 272 388 398 
 
 312 389 354 
 
 313 390 402 
 368 391 358 
 
 385 392 400 
 400 393 330 
 
 351 394 403 
 393 395 405 
 247 396 406 
 340 397 404 
 367 398 381 
 323 399 397 
 399 400 409 
 
 386 401 332 
 342 402 394 
 338 403 411 
 384 404 407 
 267 405 410 
 410 406 420 
 
 373 407 416 
 416 408 412 
 391 409 413A 
 386 410 415 
 421 411 419 
 381 412 413s 
 415 413 414 
 378 414 388 
 405 415 422 
 398 416 417 
 
 Oxford - 
 
 Manchester (S.W.) - 
 Devon (S. Molton) - 
 Dorset (North) 
 Worcester 
 Marylebone (W.) 
 Islington (S.) - 
 L'pool (W. Toxteth) 
 Finsbury (Central) - 
 Ashton-under-Lyne - 
 Cheltenham 
 Strand 
 Gloucester 
 Bath (2) - 
 St. Pancras (E.) 
 Chester - 
 Montgomeryshire 
 Shoreditch (H'xt'n) - 
 Oxford (Banbury) - 
 Bethnal Grn. (N.E.)- 
 Stalybridge 
 St. Pancras (N.) 
 Westminster - 
 Carlisle - 
 
 L'pool (Ab'rcromby) 
 Dorset (West) - 
 St. Pancras (W.) 
 Bethnal Grn. (S.W.) 
 Pemb.&HVrfrdw'st 
 Newington (W.) 
 Southwark (W.) 
 Lambeth (North) 
 Cambridge Univ. (2) 
 Hunts (Ramsey) 
 Dover 
 
 Marylebone (E.) 
 Gravesend 
 Oxford Univ. - 
 W'stmTnd(Appleby) 
 Hythe - 
 
 Westm'l'nd (Kendal) 
 Colchester 
 ShYditch (H'gg'st'n) 
 Wakefield 
 Warwick and L. 
 
 A 
 
 B 
 
 C 
 
 (1886) 
 
 (1906) 
 
 (1908) 
 
 6,983 
 
 8,615 
 
 8,922 
 
 8,890 
 
 8551 
 
 8,422 
 
 9,343 
 
 8,542 
 
 8,495 
 
 8,522 
 
 8,490 
 
 8,489 
 
 6,714 
 
 8,412 
 
 8,460 
 
 7,677 
 
 8,365 
 
 8,580 
 
 7,024 
 
 8,361 
 
 8,002 
 
 7,684 
 
 8,347 
 
 8,807 
 
 7,600 
 
 8,279 
 
 8,200 
 
 6,553 
 
 8,248 
 
 8,491 
 
 8,464 
 
 8,114 
 
 8,094 
 
 11,264 
 
 8,109 
 
 7,970 
 
 4,547 
 
 8,043 
 
 8,229 
 
 5,637 
 
 7,968 
 
 8,024 
 
 5,913 
 
 7,961 
 
 8,982 
 
 6,296 
 
 7,918 
 
 7,888 
 
 8,870 
 
 7,843 
 
 7,978 
 
 8,494 
 
 7,754 
 
 9,270 
 
 8,478 
 
 7,748 
 
 7,847 
 
 7,102 
 
 7,730 
 
 9,140 
 
 6,424 
 
 7,691 
 
 7,931 
 
 5,447 
 
 7,582 
 
 9,762 
 
 7,670 
 
 7.539 
 
 7,750 
 
 5,726 
 
 7,513 
 
 7,383 
 
 9,137 
 
 7,418 
 
 7,249 
 
 7,914 
 
 7,413 
 
 7,501 
 
 7,103 
 
 7,282 
 
 8,669 
 
 8,265 
 
 7.262 
 
 7,999 
 
 5,474 
 
 7,150 
 
 6,904 
 
 6,377 
 
 7,147 
 
 9,752 
 
 7,776 
 
 7,066 
 
 8,041 
 
 7,939 
 
 6,903 
 
 6,808 
 
 6,482 
 
 6,838 
 
 7,143 
 
 8,917 
 
 6.751 
 
 6,863 
 
 4,537 
 
 6593 
 
 6,423 
 
 6,978 
 
 6.588 
 
 6,573 
 
 4,200 
 
 6,568 
 
 6,727 
 
 5,875 
 
 6528 
 
 6,670 
 
 6,022 
 
 6,528 
 
 6,597 
 
 3,749 
 
 6,520 
 
 6,540 
 
 6,149 
 
 6477 
 
 6,670 
 
 4,241 
 
 6,426 
 
 6,667 
 
 6,752 
 
 6.403 
 
 8,457 
 
 4,801 
 
 6,326 
 
 6,334 
 
 5,491 
 
 6,296 
 
 6,554
 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF SEATS. 
 
 ABC 
 
 (i 886) (i 906) (1908) 
 
 401 417 418 
 406 418 424 
 388 419 408 
 404 420 421 
 
 419 421 423 
 330 422 428 
 414 423 425 
 
 424 424 427A 
 369 425 429 
 
 412 426 431 
 426 427 426 
 409 428 433 
 392 429 427B 
 
 402 430 430 
 384 431 436 
 395 432 435 
 376 433 434 
 
 422 434 437 
 418 435 438 
 411 436 439 
 
 435 437 432 
 382 438 440 
 417 439 441 
 
 432 440 443A 
 
 425 441 444 
 
 423 442 443B 
 
 429 443 442 
 428 444 448 
 
 420 445 445 
 
 437 446 446 
 
 439 447 449 
 431 448 450 
 
 430 449 452 
 
 438 450 451 
 
 413 451 447 
 434 452 453 
 
 440 453 454 
 
 433 454 456 
 
 436 455 455 
 442 456 457 
 
 441 457 458 
 
 Carmarthen (Dist.) - 
 Scarborough 
 Tower H.(L'm'ho'se) 
 Paddington (S.) 
 Peterborough - 
 Liverpool (Exch.) 
 Maidstone 
 Rochester 
 Liverpool (Scotl.) 
 Carnarvon Dist. 
 Bedford - 
 Radnorshire ' - 
 Tow'r H. (Mile End) 
 St. Pancras (S.) 
 Finsbury (East) 
 Hunts. (Huntingdon) 
 Tower H. (Stepney) 
 Denbigh Dist. - 
 Shrewsbury 
 Kidderminster- 
 London Univ. 
 Tower H. (W'chpl) 
 Rutlandshire 
 Boston - 
 Stafford - 
 Canterbury 
 Hereford 
 King's Lynn - 
 Flint District - 
 Taunton - 
 Salisbury - 
 Grantham 
 
 Montgomery Dist. - 
 Pontefract 
 
 Tower H. (St. Geo.) 
 Windsor - 
 Winchester 
 Whitehaven - 
 Penryn (Falmouth) - 
 Bury St. Edmunds - 
 Durham (City) 
 
 A 
 
 B 
 
 c 
 
 (1886) 
 
 (1906) 
 
 (1908) 
 
 5,399 
 
 6,258 
 
 6,521 
 
 4,668 
 
 6,250 
 
 6,139 
 
 5,954 
 
 6,234 
 
 6,910 
 
 5,193 
 
 6,143 
 
 6,388 
 
 3,790 
 
 6,025 
 
 6,196 
 
 8,171 
 
 5,891 
 
 5,675 
 
 4,273 
 
 5,870 
 
 5,918 
 
 3,304 
 
 5,763 
 
 5,713 
 
 7,076 
 
 5,767 
 
 5,641 
 
 4,476 
 
 5,668 
 
 5,628 
 
 3,134 
 
 5,535 
 
 5,808 
 
 4,539 
 
 5,466 
 
 5,318 
 
 5,804 
 
 5,419 
 
 5,713 
 
 5,370 
 
 5,329 
 
 5,640 
 
 6,105 
 
 5,326 
 
 5,130 
 
 5,655 
 
 5,272 
 
 5,226 
 
 6,926 
 
 5,176 
 
 5,280 
 
 3,407 
 
 4,755 
 
 4,878 
 
 4,131 
 
 4,709 
 
 4,819 
 
 4,506 
 
 4,691 
 
 4,494 
 
 2,579 
 
 4,403 
 
 5,613 
 
 6,140 
 
 4,279 
 
 4,136 
 
 4,166 
 
 4,042 
 
 4,012 
 
 2,718 
 
 3,896 
 
 3,931 
 
 3,264 
 
 3,885 
 
 3,889 
 
 3,371 
 
 3,868 
 
 3,931 
 
 3,002 
 
 3,852 
 
 3,950 
 
 3,094 
 
 3,692 
 
 3,688 
 
 3,773 
 
 3,659 
 
 3,882 
 
 2,541 
 
 3,590 
 
 3,799 
 
 2,336 
 
 3,396 
 
 3,464 
 
 2,883 
 
 3,383 
 
 3,457 
 
 2,999 
 
 3,313 
 
 3,360 
 
 2,465 
 
 3,288 
 
 3,387 
 
 4,322 
 
 3,246 
 
 3,798 
 
 2,612 
 
 3,210 
 
 3,295 
 
 2,326 
 
 2,982 
 
 3,054 
 
 2,687 
 
 2,945 
 
 2,970 
 
 2,562 
 
 2,926 
 
 3,049 
 
 2,292 
 
 2,788 
 
 2,728 
 
 2,302 
 
 2,580 
 
 2,610 
 
 Economic Aspects of Seat Distribution. 
 
 The ebb and flow of electoral strength, exhibited in this way, 
 offers a new, exact, and constant standard of national prosperity. 
 
 72
 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF SEATS. 
 
 Studied in conjunction with the other and more familiar standard 
 that of population the electoral standard provides us with an 
 extremely valuable addition to the instruments of economic and 
 sociological investigation. Macaulay has remarked that " one of 
 the first objects of an inquirer who wishes to form a correct notion 
 of the state of the community at a given time must be to ascertain 
 of how many persons that community then consisted." The know- 
 ledge, however, will be of infinitely greater value if it is supple- 
 mented, by means of the introduction of the electoral factor, by 
 concise information with regard to the number, distribution, and 
 movement of so much of the population as reaches a certain level 
 of comfort and social advantage. But there is, perhaps, no science 
 in which the state of things at a given moment, however accurately 
 delineated, is of less value than in economics, unless it be accom- 
 panied by a knowledge of the earlier conditions out of which that 
 state of things has developed. To be informed that the popula- 
 tion of a given country consists of 10,000,000 is of little value to 
 the student of economics, unless he is provided with corresponding 
 figures relating to earlier dates in the case of the country imme- 
 diately concerned, so that he may form estimates of its progress or 
 retrogression, as the case may be. If these comparative particulars 
 are available with regard merely to population, they cannot convey 
 any very clear idea of the relative prosperity at the different 
 periods, and, unless the population figures are fairly recent, they 
 will only be more or less exact estimates, formed in the absence of 
 any compulsory and exhaustive system of enumeration. But the 
 figures of electoral strength and distribution are the result of a 
 close and constant scrutiny of a very large proportion probably 
 90 per cent. of the individual cases, by partisan observers who 
 bring all the resources of knowledge and all the stimuli of emula- 
 tion to the task of investigation. The result is to provide us (at all 
 events, for the period within which detailed comparison of indi- 
 vidual constituencies is possible that is to say, since the Redis- 
 tribution Act) with a standard of national prosperity which, in the 
 main, is not susceptible of mistake or distortion, and is therefore 
 of great value in days when there is keen controversy concerning 
 our real position as a factor of the living world when on the one 
 hand we are assured of abounding prosperity, and on the other 
 are warned that we are living on our capital. The various quali- 
 fications for the franchise constitute a standard modest, but real 
 of social wellbeing, and, inasmuch as we /have seen .that they are 
 the subject of critical test before they are admitted as valid, it 
 may be accepted as true that in the vast majority of cases the 
 standard represented by the qualification has actually been attained. 
 If it can be shown (and these figures show it) that the number of 
 adults who are able to live up to a certain level of personal com- 
 fort and civic consequence is rapidly increasing, then we may fairly 
 
 73
 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF SEATS. 
 
 feel assured that our old nation is sound at the heart, a sturdy 
 nurse of vigorous offspring. 
 
 Individual Instances Considered. 
 
 It will now be worth while to examine a few individual instances 
 of the flux of electoral strength in individual constituencies, and 
 to offer some conjectures with regard to the operative forces which 
 are producing the changes. The first name, that of the Romford 
 division of Essex, introduces us to an array of constituencies 
 which have been developed into unexpected magnitude by the 
 growth of suburban London. Other instances of the same tendency 
 will be observed in the cases of (3) the Walthamstow Division, (5) 
 Wandsworth, (8) the Harrow Division, (14) Croydon, (15) Totten- 
 ham, (16) Enfield, (17) West Ham (South), and (18) Lewisham. 
 A comparison of the figures irv the first column to the 
 right of the names (showing the aggregate numbers of the 
 respective electorates) with those in the second and third 
 will show at what speed and with what strides the change 
 has taken place since 1886. To a great extent it is the 
 result of an increased population, which is again, in its turn, a 
 consequence of the growth of the metropolis as a gigantic centre 
 of political, financial, commercial, industrial, and social activity. 
 In part, however, this immense growth of " London over the 
 border " has been produced by the draining of the more central 
 constituencies. In (451) St. George's-in-the-East, (433) Stepney, 
 and (438) Whitefcihapel the electorate has either fallen off in 
 number or is with difficulty maintained at its former strength. 
 In these instances there is a special factor at work. The electors of 
 1886 have gone to swell the registers of Romford and Waltham- 
 stow largely 'because of the pressure of the alien refugee, who, in 
 the mass, offers a good example of a dense population with prac- 
 tically no articulate political voice. The struggle towards articu- 
 lation, however, by means of Naturalisation Societies on a co-opera- 
 tive basis, is probably one of the forces which have caused the 
 electoral strength of St. GeorgeVin-the-East (the centre of a dense 
 alien population) to show an increase since 1906. 
 
 Clearly, then, the rapid advance of the Romford division to the 
 first place in the ranks of English and Welsh constituencies is a 
 remarkable electoral phenomenon ; but the covering of the agricul- 
 tural lands of Essex with a teeming industrial population, of which 
 nearly 50,000 has attained to the social standard represented by 
 the electoral qualification, is also an economic event of consider- 
 able importance. In such instances as are afforded by Romford 
 itself, as well as by Walthamstow, Wandsworth, Harrow, Totten- 
 ham, Enfield, Lewisham, and Fulham, the change marks the 
 growth not only of new areas and centres of population, but of a 
 new class of electors, of whom a considerable proportion are within, 
 
 74
 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF SEATS. 
 
 or only just outside, the social realm which is tersely described as 
 " villadom." The phenomenon, it must be remembered, is an 
 increased extension of the area covered by the electoral units, as 
 distinguished from a greater density of qualification over a super- 
 ficial area previously absorbed. For instance, (103) Battersea, 
 (1636) South Hackney, (192) North Camberwell stand for greater 
 density rather than wider area; while in (315) the Stamford divi- 
 sion, (338) the Leominster division, (445) the Flint district, (335) 
 St. George's, Hanover Square, (225) Chelsea, (411) North Lam- 
 beth, and (377) West Marylebone, the density remains almost as 
 unaltered as the superficies, and 1 exhibits either the unchanged com- 
 plexion of agricultural areas, or else the conservative character of 
 one type of suburban life, which marks the inner ring of metro- 
 politan constituencies, and upon which, as the older lives fall off, 
 the waves of transformation will soon begin to dash. 
 
 Of course, these urban electoral phenomena are not confined to 
 the Metropolis and its district. In (158) the Edgbaston division of 
 Birmingham we have an instance of the spatial extension of the 
 electoral area, by means of rapid building in the most attractive 
 quarter of the Midland metropolis; while in (195) West "Birming- 
 ham and (74) Bordesley the large accession to the electorate is the 
 consequence of a greater density, with its concomitant in the shape 
 of a more general ability to comply with the requirements of the 
 electoral standard. An intermediate type is presented by such 
 constituencies as (115) the Wycomibe division, (100) the Chertsey 
 division, and (87) the Uxbridge division. These exhibit the in- 
 creased electorate which is partly the result of the residential 
 settlement of a population that lives its business life in the metro- 
 polis and fills the morning and evening trains ; and partly also the 
 consequence of the springing up of a trading community minister- 
 ing 'to the needs of the other class. In this way we get a greater 
 density of the electorate, as well as a greater extension of the 
 physical area which it effectively occupies ; but neither portion of 
 the phenomena is quite the same thing as we have witnessed in 
 Romford and Walthamstow. More on the surface of the survey, 
 of course, lies the comparatively stationary character of such elec- 
 torates as that of (457) Durham) City, (455) Penryn, and (448) the 
 Montgomery district at the end of the lists ; while at the other 
 verge of the field of view the same permanence of magnitude 
 shows itself in (6) the City of London. Between these extremes 
 are instances like (341) Finsbury (Hol'born) and (431) Finsfoury 
 (East), where the extension of the central City area of offices 
 and warehouses is destroying previous residential qualifications and 
 reducing the number of the electors. 
 
 The singular stability as regards their relative magnitude of the 
 electorates in the lower levels of the statistics, from No. 434 to 
 the end, will not esc?ape the observant eye. There are none of 
 
 75
 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF SEATS. 
 
 those cataclysmic alterations such as we see near the top, where the 
 Romford division leaps from the thirty-ninth place to the first, or 
 the Wandsworth division comes up at a bound from its position as 
 No. 145 to the dignity of No. 5, and now No. 4. In these lower 
 levels of the statistics, in fact, we find numerous instances where 
 the consecutive number rattached to a given constituency varies 
 only very slightly from 1886 to 1908. It .has kept its place in the 
 panorama of national life, while others have leaped to the front 
 or fallen back in the race. 
 
 The Significance of the " Pairs." 
 
 The arrangement of the constituencies in order of their magni- 
 tude has necessarily revealed a number of " pairs." These are 
 enumerated below, in the three groups of the years 1886, 1906, 
 and 1908 respectively. The first group (1886) shows the constitu- 
 encies which were electorally equal in 1886, but are now, in the 
 majority of cases, sundered widely in electoral rank as the result 
 of economic or socio-economic changes. These comparisons, as 
 we shall see, often reveal the differing " drift " of constituencies 
 where one, for instance (as in the ninth pair below), has risen 
 rapidly in electoral rank since 1886, while the other has moved in 
 the reverse direction. The " A " and " B " of each pair represent 
 mere alphabetical sequence. 
 
 EQUAL IN 1886. 1906. 1908. 
 
 27A Durham (S.E.) 73 77 
 
 278 Yorkshire (Hallamshire) 53 51 
 
 6oA Gloucester (Mid) 269 277 
 
 6oB Gloucester (Tewkesbury) 159 172 
 
 93A Walsall 132 142 
 
 938 Yorkshire (Barnsley) 39 45 
 
 io8A Kent (Tunbridge) 96 99 
 
 io8s Montnouth (N.) 155 146 
 
 I46A Essex (Harwich) 162 162 
 
 1468 Norfolk (South) 323A 335 
 
 I&4A Lincoln (Stamford) 315 326 
 
 1848 Northamptonshire (N.) 265 280 
 
 i8gA Northamptonshire (E.) 72 85 
 
 1898 Northumberland (Berwick) 339 350 
 
 22IA Devon (Tiverton) 340 347 
 
 2218 Somerset (S.) 316 323 
 
 222A Lanes. (Newton) 144 143 
 
 2228 Somerset (E.) 319 331 
 
 226A Cheshire (Knutsford) 244 237 
 
 2268 Hereford (Leominster) 338 336 
 
 259A Bradford (E.) no in 
 
 2598 Bradford (W.) I4OA 129 
 
 2&3A Lanes. (Lancaster) 1368 141 
 
 2638 Salop (Wellington) 359 377 
 
 76
 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF SEATS. 
 
 EQUAL IN 1886. 1906. 1908. 
 
 32 1 A Denbigh (E.) 242 244 
 
 3218 Kensington (N.) 286 315 
 
 37iA Chatham 154 155 
 
 3718 Wigan 365 367 
 
 The "pairs" in 1906 and 1908 are in the following tables sub- 
 jected to the same system of comparison : 
 
 1886. 1906. EQUAL in 1906. 1908. 
 
 24 J36A Bedford (Biggleswade) 161 
 
 263A 1368 Lanes. (Lancaster) ... 141 
 
 23 I43A Kent (Ashford) 149 
 
 41 1438 York (City) 159 
 
 318 i83A Wolverhampton (W.) 180 
 
 104 1838 York. (Skipton) 178 
 
 214 25OA Hampshire (New Forest) 240 
 
 357 2508 Swansea Town 220 
 
 352 264A Sussex (Grinstead) '73^ 
 
 284 2648 West Bromwich) 263 
 
 339 3 J 7 A Wolverhampton (E.) 313 
 
 201 3i?B Worcester (Evesham) 311 
 
 1468 323A Norfolk (S.) ......... 335 
 
 192 3238 Northamptonshire (S.) 357 
 
 2 79 33 A Leeds (East) 349 
 
 '59 33 OB Norfo'k (Mid) 327 
 
 228 366A Essex (Saffron Walden) 372 
 
 352 3668 Hackney (Central) '. 343 
 
 The constituencies which, as a result of twenty-two years of 
 flux, ultimately became "pairs" in 1908 are these: 
 
 EQUAL IN 1908. 
 
 Bristol (East) I33A 
 
 Glamorgan (Gower) 1338 
 
 Devonport 136A 
 
 Suffolk (Lowestoft) 1368 
 
 Sussex (Rye) i?3 A 
 
 Sussex (Grinstead) '73B 
 
 Hertford (St. Albans)... i8iA 
 
 Lambeth (Norwood) 1818 
 
 Sheffield (Brightside) ig8A 
 
 Suffolk (Woodbridge) 1988 
 
 Norfolk (N.W.) 252A 
 
 Tower Hamlets (Poplar) 2528 
 
 Hereford (Ross) 2<)2A 
 
 Yorks (Buckrose) 2928 
 
 Manchester (N.) *95 A 
 
 Worcester (Bewdley) 2 95 B 
 
 Oxford University 4'3 A 
 
 Westmorland (Kendal) 4 138 
 
 Rochester 427A 
 
 Tower Hamlets (Mile End) 4278 
 
 Boston : 443A 
 
 Canterbury 4438 
 
 77
 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF SEATS. 
 
 The most interesting " pairs " for comparative consideration are, 
 among those equal in 1886, Lancashire (Newton) and Somerset 
 (E.) ; Bradford (E.) and Bradford (W.) ; Denbigh and North Ken- 
 sington; Chatham and Wigan. Among those equal in 1906 the 
 economic suggestion is greatest in such " pairs " as Kent (Ashford) 
 and York ; in the reversal of the position which is shown, between 
 1886 and 1908, between Hampshire (New Forest) and Swansea 
 Town, where 1906 saw the intersection of the respective upward 
 and downward curves; in Leeds (E.) and Norfolk (Mid), where 
 the sharp downward curve of Norfolk does not intersect the down- 
 ward curve of Leeds, but turns upward again. The " equal in 
 1908 " " pairs '' offer similarly interesting studies, not the least sug- 
 gestive of which is presented by the last " pair " of all (Boston and 
 Canterbury), with their evident history of an almost changeless 
 position in the roll of the constituencies. 
 
 These phenomena have all been treated rather as economic 
 symptoms than as economic influences. They are, in fact, the result 
 of economic influences, though they tend to react upon, and to 
 perpetuate, the operation of the forces which produced them. 
 The electoral power of the towns has increased to a much greater 
 extent than is apparent in their representation. The change and 
 the tendency can, in fact, only be fully appreciated by means of 
 an examination of the magnitude of the electorates at the different 
 dates, rather than by means of any consideration of the electoral 
 " weight " of the constituencies in the House of Commons. Doubt- 
 less this increased power of the towns, which must be still further 
 augmented by any scientific scheme of redistribution, i's an 
 economic phenomenon that is not wholly welcome. Apart from 
 moral forces, however, there exists no mode of checking it. The 
 electoral power tends to mass itself in the towns, and there is no 
 method capable of commending itself to advocates of scientific 
 representation by which political power can be refused to these 
 larger aggregations, so as to diminish the relative importance to 
 which they are numerically entitled. For these reasons our con- 
 cern has been with the growth and distribution of electoral power 
 as an economic symptom and standard, rather than as an economic 
 influence. 
 
 Vote-Value Abnormalities. 
 
 The enormous differences in the political value of a single vote 
 (and therefore in the political influence accorded to the single 
 citizen) in different parts of the country exhibit themselves in 
 every part of the survey. If we assume that the political value of 
 a vote in (i) the Romford division is i, then we get : 
 
 Political value 
 CONSTITUENCY. of one vote. 
 
 (1) Romford division I 
 
 (2) Newcastle-on-Tyne (2) 2-6 
 
 (182) Manchester (E.) , 3-8
 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF SEATS. 
 
 Political value 
 CONSTITUENCY. of one vote. 
 
 (204) Aston Manor 4/9 
 
 (40) Derby (2) 4-9 
 
 (350) Darlington 5-1 
 
 (205) Ipswich (2) 7'9 
 
 (427) Bedford 8-4 
 
 (446) Taunton 13-1 
 
 (457) Durham City 187 
 
 What kind of growth is likely to be fostered in an organism 
 whose powers of self -adaptation to environment are made to vary, 
 in absolute prodigality of capri/oe, in a ratio which bears no deter- 
 minate and consistent proportion whatsoever to the amount of 
 intelligent effort that directs them? The natural alertness of a 
 suburban population, which has within a few years covered the 
 Essex fields with the materials of social well-being, is to count 
 but as a single turrit of force in its efforts to direct the political 
 organism upon the path of evolutionary movement, speculation, 
 and venture, while the antique traditions which keep the life of 
 Durham City steady in its ancient path are to count for more than 
 eighteen units of fortce. A new school of political thought, offering 
 elements of the greatest power and .promise for the organic good 
 (and being, in effect, the same as a "sport" in the realm of 
 biology, and therefore of potentially vast significance for the pro- 
 cess of development and progress), may make itself effectively heard 
 at Durham, and may secure the Parliamentary representation if it 
 command 1,300 votes; but opinions of equal (political value would 
 be almost wholly impotent as regards the making of any impression 
 on the vast electoral aggregate of Romford. Newcastle and Rom- 
 ford, which in 1886 occupied respectively the first and second 
 places in the range of electoral strength, themselves afford a 
 striking instance of these 'abnormalities, in that the larger consti- 
 tuency possesses the smaller political representation. Bait, in 
 truth, the disproportion of the numbers is the least dangerous 
 feature of these capriciously distributed obstacles to clear political 
 expression. The smaller constituencies, as we said, pursue the 
 changeless tenor of their way from year to year as inheritors of an 
 ancient moral tradition by which they shape their political ideals. 
 The moral and political judgment which they exercise is almost 
 wholly imitative. Yet to these judgments, which, comparatively 
 speaking, are the least valuable elements of the national aggregate 
 of politically diagnostic capacity, -we attach an infinitely greater 
 weight than to the suggestive and deliberative aid which the 
 organism receives from such of its perceptual organs 'as are 
 refreshed from the most invigorating springs of modern thought and 
 collective experience, and which are able, by means of their own 
 achievements within the limits of their special functions exercised 
 for their local benefit, to justify every claim to the respectful sym- 
 pathy of the whole organic consciousness. If we endeavour to 
 
 79
 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF SEATS. 
 
 expo-ess the significance of the present erratic apportionment of 
 electoral .power by saying that the political intelligence of the 
 averaee Durham voter is eighteen times greater than that which 
 is possessed by his brother Englishman at Romford, we have 
 enunciated a proposition which is self-destructive. Yet " laws in 
 the widest sense of the term," said Montesquieu in a definition 
 which dimly foreshadows the Darwinian theory, " are the neces- 
 sary relations derived from the nature of things." So far as they 
 are positive, how can they possibly attain their highest expression 
 and potency if the power to evoke their utterance is capriciously 
 distributed, in suich a manner as largely to defeat all intelligent 
 effort at co-ordination? Compliance with the requirements of the 
 Second and Third Canons is, in truth, rendered almost impossible 
 by these triumphs of maladjustment. 
 
 Old Principles of Distribution. 
 
 In startling contrast with the widening economic, jurisprudential, 
 politico-biological, and socio-psychological horizon which is open- 
 ing out before us .as we proceed we may place the exiguous bald- 
 ness of the memorandum which accompanied the Redistribution 
 Bill of 1884. After briefly premising that there were 645 seats to 
 be disposed of, the memorandum proceeded : 
 
 It is proposed to redistribute these 645 members first, according to 
 the estimated population in 1885 of England, Wales, Scotland, and 
 Ireland respectively; secondly, by giving to each county, with its 
 boroughs, its proportion of members according .to population ; and 
 thirdly, to distribute that proportion again within the limits of each 
 county, according to the population of the rural districts and of the 
 towns respectively. 
 
 The population of the United Kingdom is about 36,200,000 and, 
 omitting the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, which enjoy their 
 own institutions and have never sought representation in the Imperial 
 Parliament, may be taken as 36,000,000. Deducting from this number 
 the average number of persons convicted of crime and the average 
 number who are receiving poor relief together 1,160,000 the number 
 to be dealt with in this Bill may be stated as 34,840,000, and are 
 distributed thus : England, 28,870,000 (number increasing) ; Wale=, 
 1,370,000 (number stationary); Scotland, 3,900,000 (number increasing); 
 and Ireland, 4,700,000 (number decreasing). 
 
 The Bill proposes the following general distribution : 
 
 
 
 Eng- 
 land. 
 
 Wales. 
 
 Scot- 
 land. 
 
 Ireland. 
 
 Counties, boroughs, and groups of 
 boroughs 
 
 
 yf 
 
 
 S-7 
 
 City of London 
 
 
 
 73 
 
 7 
 
 Universities 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 469 
 
 25 
 
 75 
 
 89 
 
 
 
 -> 
 
 ^ 
 
 r- 
 58 
 
 
 80
 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF SEATS. 
 
 The Bill proposes to disfranchise no borough, but in the case of a 
 borough now represented which has a small population it proposes to 
 associate other boroughs with it, so as to form a group having joint 
 representation. 
 
 It adds to the borough constituencies in England and Wales all 
 towns at present unrepresented having each a population of over 10,000. 
 
 Each county in the United Kingdom has been considered separately, 
 and the boroughs within it, so far as they are not of such size as to 
 claim individual representation, have been grouped together, so that 
 the whole of a group of boroughs may, as far as possible, be within 
 the same county. 
 
 The present number of constituencies in which a third member is 
 returned to represent the minority is eleven in England and one in 
 Scotland. Under this Bill it is proposed that the number having three 
 members shall be fifty-nine in England, three in Scotland, and ten in 
 Ireland. 
 
 So far as it takes population as the primary basis of distribution 
 and seeks to avoid the sterilisation of old electoral individualities 
 (as in the grouping of boroughs), this scheme proceeds upon sound 
 lines. But it will be noticed that the scheme is professedly based 
 upon population, whereas there is no essential and constant con- 
 nection between population and electorate. The electorate may 
 l>e a large proportion (as in the Strand) or a small 
 proportion (as in some East London constituencies) of the 
 population itself. It is true that, so long as we have a restricted 
 and highly technical suffrage, we cannot be said to make any real 
 attempt to create a permanent proportional relationship between 
 electorate and population; but that is all the greater reason why 
 we should avoid the endeavour to persuade ourselves, or to create 
 the appearance, that such a proportion does in fact exist. The 
 vital defect of the 1884 scheme, however, is that it makes no pro- 
 vision for the maintenance in operation even of those basic prin- 
 ciples upon which it professes to be founded, with the result that 
 the whole scheme ran rapidly out of adjustment with the objects 
 for which it purported to be designed. It is now hopelessly in- 
 operative as a scientific expedient and tends to attain deeper depths 
 of maladjustment every year. 
 
 It will be remembered that the scheme did not ultimately give a 
 greater representation than two members to any single constituency. 
 Where the claim to larger representation is undeniable the object 
 has been attained by breaking up the area intb separate constituen- 
 cies, as is the case with the seven units of Birmingham and of the 
 old borough of the Tower Hamlets. To this wide distribution of 
 single seats, concurrently with a mere handful of double and no 
 triple constituencies, it was once objected* that there is danger 
 from (i) the probable election and permanent retention of seats by 
 men of inferior and unparliamentary calibre who happen to be 
 
 *See The Times, October 21, 1884. 
 G 8l
 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF SEATS. 
 
 popular in particular neighbourhoods, and (2) the comparative 
 ignoring, in consequence, even at General Elections naturally 
 critical, of great issues. 
 
 There is, however, no means, consistently with democratic 
 ideals, 'by which a 'popular man, however unparliamentary his 
 calibre, can be excluded from the House of Commons. Popu- 
 larity is, in the main, the standard of fitness, for he who is popu- 
 lar with the largest number of electors will secure, the greatest 
 number of votes ; and as long as the popularity subsists the mem- 
 ber will enjoy what his friends will affectionately call a " freehold." 
 Further and this is really the sinister element a member who 
 has sectored his seat by means ot an evanescent popularity and 
 who proceeds to abuse, in the most flagrant way, the confidence 
 which his election involves, is, under our existing system, safe 
 from the righteous indignation of (his constituents at all events, 
 for a time which may extend to a period of six or seven years. 
 For this the scheme outlined in the present essay offers a remedy 
 (see Chapter XIII.) ; but for the election of a popular but utterly 
 incompetent man our 'now existing electoral method does not, 
 and in fact cannot, provide any antidote at all. If, by means of 
 political reasoning, you can destroy the popularity, you may change 
 the representation; but as long as the popularity subsists, even 
 the philosophic weapons of a Socrates or an Aristotle would be 
 wielded in vain. For the same reasons it is clear that a man who 
 was confident of his popularity in his own constituency could afford 
 to fly in the faice of the national sentiment, and even ot" the 
 national interest, while at the same time bidding defiance to all 
 pretenders to 'his own electoral throne. These objections to the 
 single-member seat are, then, objections arising from the very 
 fundamentals of our political system the rule of the majority, 
 as enforced in the- ballot-box. But there are other objections, 
 which take a different form and open up totally dissimilar aspects 
 of our theme. 
 
 Accidental Minority Predominance. 
 
 A single constituency, which is asked to give its judgment upon 
 the claims of two candidates, can only (unless there is a tie) 
 pronounce a verdict which will be unmistakably that of the 
 majority of the voters who went to the poll. Even in this primary 
 case the appearance of a third candidate* may result in the repre- 
 sentative being the nominee of a minority. But what is more 
 important is the fact that as soon as the verdict ceases to be that 
 of one constituency, and becomes that of many, we are in the 
 
 * At this point, as elsewhere in this chapter, we approach such ques- 
 tions as the mode of voting, the second ballot, and the transferable 
 vote. Thse are discussed at a later stagte. At prestent we are con- 
 cerned with the larger electoral units (the constituencies) and not the 
 smaller (the voters). 
 
 82
 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF SEATS. 
 
 presence of the possibility which we encountered above 
 the aggregate selection may evolve a majority, perhaps a large 
 majority, of members, who represent a minority, perhaps a small 
 minoritv. of electors. This was actually the case in this country 
 (excluding Ireland) after the General Election of 1895. Accord- 
 ing to figures which were quoted by Lord Courtney in an address 
 at Stockport, the Liberal vote in Great Britain was about 1,800,000, 
 and the Unionist vote about 1,775,000; but the Unionists 
 obtained the majority of seats (279) against only 202 held 
 by their opponents. The single constituency has no con- 
 st'ant value, so that no reliable calculation of political strength 
 can be made upon its basis. If, in the expressions 4x and 3x 
 the x have the same value, 4X must be the greater; but if the x 
 in the expression 4x be valued at 5, while the x in the expression 
 3x be valued at 10, the prima facie aspect of the values is alto- 
 gether falsified. This is the essential fault of the singlet-member 
 system. As we shall see at a slightly later stage of the argument, 
 it offers no guarantee that the aggregate of representatives 
 shall bear a correct proportion, or any proportion at all, to 
 the aggregate opinion of the electorate. The control of the majority 
 by the minority would remain a permanent possibility, developing 
 into a peril if the subjugated majority were determined to put an 
 end by violent means (there being no others) to such an abnor- 
 mality of so-called representative institutions. 
 
 So far, then, a brief consideration of the Memorandum of 1884 
 and of the abnormalities which we lhave seen produced by the 
 Redistribution Bill which it accompanied has brought us to the 
 conclusion that as a means of securing any constant corre- 
 spondence between the composition of Parliament and the opinion 
 of the electorate, the present scheme of (mainly) single-member 
 constituencies fcas broken down. It is utterly aiinscientifio an 
 antiquated mechanism striving in vain to turn out a product which 
 shall attain the high standard of excellence that modern condi- 
 tions, aspirations, and necessities demand. It will, as we have 
 already seen, become more hopelessly out of " touch " as the years 
 roll on, and especially as the existing two-party system comes 
 under the disruptive influence of new political combinations and a 
 higher power of civic authority, responsibility, and judgment than 
 is involved in the old method of choosing between two men, with 
 neither of whom the chooser may be in intimate sympathy or any 
 real sympathy at all. In what direction, then, shall we turn in 
 our search for sound, practical principles capable of continuous 
 and effective application? 
 
 Proportional Representation. 
 
 They are to be found in what is known as Proportional Repre- 
 sentation. The constituencies must be large, sending three, five, 
 or seven members to Parliament, while the elector must be
 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF SEATS. 
 
 restricted from giving more than one vote. As Lord Courtney said 
 at Stockport,* in a brilliant exposition of the whole subject : 
 
 " Let Manchester, say, be treated as one community. Let Salford 
 also be treated as one community. Enlarge Stockport if necessary so as 
 to form a constituency of three members. In this way you might have 
 constituencies of three, five or seven members. Fasten your minds on a 
 constituency returning five members. What we want would be realised 
 if the electors separated themselves into fifths, each fifth agreeing to 
 choose one man. The five members chosen would really represent the 
 whole constituency. The number agreeing together need not, however, 
 be so great as a fifth. Any combination exceeding a sixth t could have 
 a member by agreeing upon one man. Just follow that for a moment. 
 There are five to be elected. If more than one-sixth of the electors are 
 agreed upon A, he is elected. If more than one-sixth are agreed upon 
 B, he also is elected; and so with C, D, and E. Thus you would have 
 five men sent up to Parliament, representing more than five-sixths of 
 the constituency, leaving something under a sixth over, and therefore 
 you 'have something over five-sixths of the constituency speaking through 
 the five men they sent up. You have got the wants of the five-sixths ex- 
 pressed by the five men you sent up. You have five-sixths working, 
 acting, and participating in the political life of the men they sent up. 
 Realise that thought. You are one of a thousand, let me say, in Stock- 
 port who sent up a man. You know you voted for him. He is your 
 man. He is in a measure part of yourself. The whole community 
 with the exception of that little surplus gets represented in the Central 
 Assembly. The whole community, its thinking, its feeling, is voiced. 
 There is co-operation there ; whether Liberal or Labour, workman, em- 
 ployer, capitalist, Free Trader, Tariff Reformer, Churchman, Dissenter, 
 teetotaller, publican, you are represented. Whatever your wants or 
 ideas you find them expressed by people who share your views, who 
 know your demands, whose action is your own, reflecting your own, 
 speaking your own, speaking for you and working as you yourself would 
 work if you were present there." 
 
 The only plausible objection to these large constituencies 
 returning six or seven members en masse (and not as individual 
 representatives of separate divisions) is the tendency of their 
 electorates to become utterly unwieldy in the matter cf facile and 
 rapid communication. Twenty years ago dt was no doubt true that 
 such electorates were more easily swayed than smaller bodies by 
 sudden storms of passion and prejudice. Personal responsibility 
 would decrease as the aggregate electorate grew in size. But this 
 is not so true to-day, and tends to become less true as we are able 
 to set in motion and maintain in activity the forces that check or 
 neutralise the various springs of suggestibility acting on large 
 masses of humanity. Plumping (in the sense of giving the whole 
 number of votes to one candidate, as used to be done at School 
 Board elections) is a thing of the past. Moreover, plumping itself, 
 
 * March 22, 1907. The whole speech may be obtained from the Pro- 
 portional Representation Society, of which the hon. sec. is Mr. John H. 
 Humphreys, 107, Algernon-road, Lewisham, S.E., a gentleman possessed 
 of an inexhaustible fund of information, which he courteously and 
 lucidly imparts to all inquirers. 
 
 t Tbe exact process will be explained when we come to deal with the 
 mode of voting. 
 
 84
 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF SEATS. 
 
 though it occasionally led to a colossal waste of voting power, 
 worked well, on the whole, to seicure representation for all shades 
 of opinion, and to check the tyranny of small majorities. Cer- 
 tainly it is the best testimonial to tha large constituency that it is 
 disliked by the party managers, who find that it encourages the 
 voters to break away from the party " ticket " by means of cross- 
 voting and to insist on giving support to the " best man " the man 
 well known and thoroughly trusted in the place be he of what 
 political colour he may, and whether he is a party nominee or 
 not. The selection of the best man, in contradistinction to the 
 party man, is so eminently to be desired in our political life, that 
 if large electoral nuclei had no other recommendation than their 
 tendency to initiate this process, they would have a unique claim 
 upon our careful consideration. What is necessary, however, is to 
 guard against (i) the swamping of the minority, who may, in a 
 large constituency of five or seven members, represent traditions, 
 ideals, or aspirations that are of value to the organic growth of the 
 State, though incapable of maintaining themselves under the exist- 
 ing system of voting; and (2) the grouping of interests which are 
 wholly and essentially different in character, temperament, and aim 
 within the limits of one constituency. What is required is not only 
 to map out the interests and temperaments of the electoral body, 
 but to give free play and articulate expression to the various shades 
 of colour which characterise the interests and temperaments 
 themselves. We ought to show both the escutcheon and the 
 inescutdheon quite clearly or, to use an illustration which will 
 perhaps strike a more familiar note, we ought to be able to display 
 upon the electoral map not only the various colours of the districts, 
 but the heights and depths within them, just as the shading of a 
 modern physical map exhibits the varying contour of the land. 
 
 A Detailed Illustration. 
 
 The attainment of these ideals by means of the method 
 of Proportional Representation offers no real difficulty. In a 
 system of large constituencies the great centres of population like 
 Leeds, Birmingham, Manchester, and Bristol would, as Lord 
 Courtney suggested at Stockport, have their own group of repre- 
 sentatives standing, in the first place, for the general local senti- 
 ment; and distinguished, in the second, by the shades into which 
 it was marked off. Of greater magnitude than these constituencies 
 would be the metropolis itself; but there, again, its main divisions 
 (like the boroughs of the Tower Hamlets, Lambeth, Marylebone, 
 and Paddington) would each (subject, perhaps, to some re-group- 
 ing and absorption in the case of the smaller boroughs like Pad- 
 dington, Shoreditch, and Marylebone) have their own charac- 
 teristic cluster of representatives tinted by the hands of the elec- 
 torate itself, into accord with the prevailing coloration of local 
 
 85
 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF SEATS. 
 
 sentiment. At the other extreme, and of less magnitude, would be 
 the smaller provincial boroughs, many of them already incorpor- 
 ated into borough groups or county divisions, and the others, 
 up to a population of 10,000, to be dealt with in the same manner 
 under any scientific scheme of distribution. These towns are 
 always in general unity of sentiment with the districts around them, 
 so that there would be no unequal yoking ,of necessarily antagonis- 
 tic interests. For instance, there are four county divisions of 
 Shropshire, while Shrewsbury (with an electorate in 1908 of 4,819) 
 is separately represented. Ludlow is at the head of the division 
 of the county which bears its name. It Has ceased to have 
 separate representation, but there is an almost complete unity of 
 interest between the town and the division, such as would not 
 exist if (for instance) Ludlow were a large and busy manufactur- 
 ing centre like Northampton. 
 
 We .shall see the position more clearly if we place the results of 
 the 1906 election before our eyes: 
 
 U. L. Majority. 
 
 Shrewsbury 2 >395 ! i955 U-44O 
 
 Shropshire (Wellington) . 3,114 4,806 L. 1,692 
 
 Shropshire (N.) 4.853 4)677 U.I76 
 
 Shropshire (S.) 4,9?8 4,218 11.760 
 
 Shropshire (W.) 5> O11 4<58 U.5O3 
 
 20,351 20,164 
 
 Clearly, Shropshire, instead of .being represented by four 
 Unionists and a single Liberal, ought, on a strictly numerical basis, 
 to be represented by 2\ Unionists and 2\ Liberals. At any rate, 
 it should be clear to the most imperfect political vision that the 
 highest civic and politically-educational aims would be better served 
 by making Shropshire one large constituency, and requiring each 
 elector to express an individual preference, which would necessi- 
 tate a careful balancing of the respective claims and programmes, 
 than by compelling the electors in five separate constituencies to 
 choose, in each constituency, between two men:, with the result 
 that not only is the electoral judgment narrowed and warped by 
 the limited issue to which it is .confined, but the political senti- 
 ment of the .county, on a numerical basis, is utterly misrepresented 
 in the House of Commons. Save, perhaps, in the Wellington 
 division (where there is a large industrial, as distinguished from aa 
 agricultural, electorate), Shropshire is not likely to endorse any 
 advanced political programme. Its traditions are those of the 
 deliberate, the cautious, the distrustful in the presence of novelty. 
 That is to say, there is a prevailing unity of sentiment which is 
 of that stamp. But there are many shades of colour. The indus- 
 trial workers of the Wellington division are probably more aggres- 
 sive, im the political sense, than the Liberals of Shrewsbury ; and 
 these, in their turn, are politically keener than the Liberals of 
 
 86
 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF SEATS. 
 
 Ludlowi and of the small industrial centres (like the Clee Hill Dhu 
 stone community) around it. But all these various shades of 
 Liberal opinion could * by combining upon two candidates out of 
 five in a unified county constituency, ensure their return; for th* 
 Liberal vote in the Wellington division would be strong enough, 
 independently of the rest, to return one, and the (combined Liberal 
 vote elsewhere would certainly return another. In that way we 
 should have two Unionists and two Liberals ; and the final struggle 
 would fall where it ought to fall around the fifth seat, which 
 would be quite likely to go into the hands of a non-party man, to 
 the dismay of the party managers and the strengthening of the 
 House of Commons. If that were so, and this outcome of the 
 system were repeated (as it almost certainly would be) in other 
 constituencies, we should find the whole tone of the Legislature 
 raised by the presence of these capable men, the subjects of per- 
 sonal, as distinct from party, choice, and the possessors of per- 
 sonal, as distinct from party, qualifications. Fifty or sixty such 
 men, oblivious to the official claims of the party whips, absolutely 
 refusing to be iherded like sheep into the party lobby, serenely 
 careless of a party anger which could not deprive them of their 
 seats, would exercise an almost inconceivably salutary in- 
 fluence upon the Government of the day supporting it against 
 illegitimate pressure, forcing it to move where official inertia- 
 prompted it to stand still, and, generally, driving the wedge of 
 common sense and common interest into the very centre of the- 
 party system. In this abandonment of the effete single member 
 method, and in the offer to the electorate of a mode of expression: 
 at once more supple and more subtle, we shall, in truth, endanger 
 the very existence of party machinery and place party managers in 
 a position of keen embarrassment. These, however, are contin- 
 gencies which the earnest citizen, who desires success and pro- 
 sperity for the State itself, and not merely for the temporary and 
 perhaps adventitious custodians and instruments of its will, can 
 afford to regard with absolute equanimity. 
 
 The Mischief of Misrepresentation. 
 
 The alternative, then, is Proportional Representation. If we 
 pursue a little further the 'consideration of the illustrative instance- 
 already adduced, the disadvantages of the present single member- 
 constituencies, and the commanding claims of a system of target 
 electoral areas, will exhibit themselves still more conspicuously^ 
 The transfer of 850 Liberal votes in the Wellington (Mid-Shrop- 
 shire) division would have the effect of causing the loss of the seat, 
 and Shropshire would in that case become wholly Unionist in its 
 Parliamentary complexion. We should have a majority of 21,201 
 represented by five members and a minority of 19,3*4 represented 
 
 * We shall sea precisely why this is so when we come to discuss the 
 mode of voting. 
 
 87
 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF SEATS. 
 
 by no members at all. Thus, if a Liberal Government were in 
 power its proposals would be liable to the opposition, possibly 
 the successful opposition, of a Unionist minority, which might, as 
 in the case of the Shropshire members, wield a Parliamentary 
 power out of all proportion to the political opinions prevalent in 
 the electoral areas where it originated ; or, if a Unionist Govern- 
 ment were in power, Its hands might be strengthened by such 
 apparent unity of sentiment as had caused Shropshire to be 
 seemingly unanimous in its support, when, in fact, Shropshire was 
 nothing of the kind. These abnormalities, hindrances, and dis- 
 tortions would be impossible if the Liberal minority, in such cases 
 as this, had the power to combine upon, say, two members, and 
 so to ensure its own possession of a fair share of the Parliamentary 
 representation of the county. 
 
 But the beneficial results of the larger electoral area go much 
 further than this As we are now content to work the electoral 
 machine the county of Shropshire (which the writer is using merely 
 as a convenient illustration) is not only politically misrepresented, 
 but every Liberal elector in the four Unionist constituencies is 
 rendered politically impotent. He has, and can have, no effective 
 share in the choice of representatives of the national will. It is 
 useless for him to aspire to an intelligent interest in the political 
 life of the county, for power, which is the stimulus of interest, 
 lies hopelessly out of his reach. Political perception is weakened, 
 for the projectiles of political life and thought cannot impinge upon 
 the civic faculties with the same force when scattered over an 
 area of impersonal responsibility as when they strike the more com- 
 pact target of the individual mind and awaken the individual 
 capacity into conscious and robust action. In that way the 
 political alertness of the electorate is dulled, relaxed, or deadened 
 altogether, and instead of the consciousness of individual share 
 in the collective sovereignty and the realisation of a living, actual, 
 personal potency in the corporate life of the nation, we get a 
 sullen, effortless acquiescence in the things that are a political 
 depressant whose existence is fatal to all those finer elements of 
 aspiration, judgment, struggle towards the light, social enthu- 
 siasm, and civic ambition, which alone can raise the national 
 organism to the higher levels of life and achievement and maintain 
 it there in progressive and unsullied excellence. 
 Question of By- Elections. 
 
 The critical reader will by this time, no doubt, have seen that if 
 Proportional Representation, on the foundation of larger con- 
 stituencies, be adopted, the by-elections will present problems of 
 some delicacy and difficulty. For instance, a five-member con- 
 stituency might be representated by two Unionists, two Liberals, 
 and a Labour member, and the representation might be in perfect 
 consistency with the electoral strength of the respective parties. 
 
 88
 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF SEATS. 
 
 But if the Labour member were to resign, or die, the single Labour 
 seat, which was perfectly safe at a General Election, could not 
 be held, in the case of a poll of the entire constituency, 
 against the united vote of one of the other parties. It 
 would be useless to " run " a Labour candidate ; and the Labour 
 party would, consequently, cease to be represented until another 
 General Election enabled them to assert, as a proportion of the 
 electorate, the strength which could, under those circumstances, 
 depend upon 'being able to realise its objects. So that Proportional 
 Representation, without a provision for by-elections, cannot prevent 
 the same falsification of electoral opinion as prevails under the 
 present system. In the case 'before us a -by-election would create, 
 in the mind of an observer who was not closely acquainted with 
 the facts of the case, the idea that the Labour party was an entirely 
 impotent element in a constituency whose representation was wholly 
 divided, in one proportion or another, between Unionist and 
 Liberal members. As it is not feasible, even at a by-election 
 which is concerned only with one-fifth of the aggregate representa- 
 tion of the (constituency, to exclude any class of electors from the 
 poll, it becomes essential to grapple with the problem in some 
 other way. 
 
 In all the Continental list systems supplementary candidates 
 are elected at the time of the general election, and these, in the 
 order of their election, take the place of any member who may 
 die or resign.* Another suggested method of dealing with the 
 difficulty is the total abolition of by-elections, accompanied by 
 the grant, to each group within the Parliament, of the power to co- 
 opt a new member on the death or retirement of a member of the 
 group. With this solution, the complexion! of Parliament would, as 
 in Belgium, remain the same from, one general election to another, 
 and it has been urged that this would be of little consequence were 
 the duration of Parliaments shortened. With shorter Parliaments 
 it is said that by-elections would lose a great deal of their present 
 significance, and much more regard would be paid to the number 
 of votes polled than to the loss of the seat. Still another scheme 
 {adopted in Tasmania a small electoral area) contemplates the 
 polling of the whole constituency whenever a vacancy occurs. 
 
 The present writer would regard the establishment of shorter 
 Parliaments as a matter of quite subordinate importance in com- 
 parison with the acquisition and exercise by the electorate of an 
 uninterrupted power (scrupulously gtfarded, however, from the 
 possibility of abuse) to dismiss an incompetent, unfaithful, or re- 
 calcitrant member at any time. A safe, cautious, and practical 
 scheme for the .creation and maintenance of this power, as well as 
 
 * The precise method is explained in an article " Proportional Repre- 
 sentation in Belgium," which appeared in the October, 1908, issue of the 
 Contemporary Review. 
 
 89
 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF SEATS. 
 
 the reasons for considering it one of the primary essentials of self- 
 government, will be outlined and discussed in Chapter XIII. 
 If the desirability of the existence of the prerogative of dismissal 
 be admitted, it will be evident that we canrtot consistently accept 
 any plan which contemplates the co-option of members to fill casual 
 vacancies by the party group to which the deceased member be- 
 longed, nor yet any scheme of provisionally electing superfluous 
 candidates who should succeed to the vacant places as death, 
 resignation., or other cause renders them available. Both expedients 
 tend to perpetuate the compulsory and, for a time, irrevocable 
 delegation of that sovereign power which should properly be con- 
 tinuously resident in the electorate. This delegation is, in the 
 present essay, regarded as a distinct menace to the sovereignty 
 itself. Against any abuses to which the ambition or reckless- 
 ness of minister or monarch, arising under this existing system 
 of delegation, the by-elections are (short of rebellion) the only 
 protection. To abolish them, either 'by specific provision or, in 
 effect, by the giving of the power of co-option to Parliamentary 
 groups would be to render the electorate totally incapable of mani- 
 festing its disapproval of a Government programme or of minis- 
 terial methods. A huge majority, elected by the nation under the 
 impulse of some gust of passion, or because of electoral inability 
 to penetrate beneath the whirling verbiage of partisans, could then- 
 pursue its mischievous career in sheer defiance of the changed* 
 sentiment of a people brought to a better mind by reflection an<f/ 
 by the closer scrutiny of the effigy which the misguiding jugglery 
 of election eloquence had tricked out in delusive beauty. It is r 
 then, essential that in adopting the scheme of larger constituencies 
 we preserve for the electorate a power to pick out any one of the 
 three, five, or seven members and to irrtimate to him, with an 
 authority that brooks no denial, that he is dismissed. On the 
 other hand, if this is to involve a poll of the whole electorate, we- 
 ar* in the presence of a needlessly large public or private expense, 
 and also, as we have already noticed, of a menace a serious 
 menace to the principle of Proportional Representation itself. 
 
 The Allocation of Constituencies 
 
 Mr. Joseph King (almost by way of an obiter dictum) .offers* a 
 solution of this question which we may adopt with the greater 
 satisfaction because it would automatically add another safeguard" 
 against abuse to the operation of the machinery for the dismissal 
 of a member. Mr. King suggests that after the poll the whole 
 of the members returned for the large three, five, or seven member 
 constituency should choose (making the choice in the order of their 
 position in the poll, the first choice being that of the man at the 
 head) to which of the electoral divisions they will be allocated. 
 * " Electoral Reform," page 99. 
 90
 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF SEATS. 
 
 Then, in the event of the death or resignation of any member, the 
 by-election takes place in the electoral division to which he had 
 allocated himself. That is to say, that if the Shropshire -polls 
 resulted in the return of three Unionists and two Liberals, they 
 would allocate themselves to the five constituencies in the order 
 in which they, as candidates, stood at the poll. This would operate 
 with perfect fairness. None of the Unionist candidates would be 
 likely, even if the first three selections fell into their hands, to 
 choose the Wellington division, which is the Liberal stronghold. 
 Nor would either of the Liberals, if the first choice were theirs, 
 be disposed to choose a centre of Unionist strength for the purpose 
 of self-allocation to it. Each member would, in fact, make his 
 choice with the deliberate and perfectly legitimate aim of securing 
 for his supporters the maximum opportunity of perpetuating the 
 representation of the views which they had selected 'him to enforce, 
 when the course of time or circumstance '.compelled him to relin- 
 quish the responsibility. This plan would only fail to work prac- 
 tical justice where the election of the candidate to whom there 
 fell the choice of the last allocation: was the result of the efforts 
 of a united and concentrated minority recruited from all parts of 
 the constituency. There might then be no single division in which 
 the views of the minority member would have any chance of per- 
 petuation in the event of a by-election. But it would be well to 
 recollect that, inasmuch as the other members would choose the 
 divisions most favourable to the opinions of which they were the 
 exponents, the minority member might well be allocated to the 
 division which was relatively the most favourable to the opinions 
 of his supporters ; and we must also bear in mind that this scheme 
 confers real representation, subject only to the changes and chances 
 of OUT mortal life, upon a minority which, under the existing 
 system^ would not have the remotest chance of securing any voice 
 whatever in the National Assembly. 
 
 Three, Five, or Seven Members. 
 
 At the /commencement, then, of the working of a system of Pro- 
 portional Representation we should have an arrangement under 
 which all constituencies entitled, on a numerical basis, to fewer 
 than three members (that being the minimum size of the electoral 
 group), would be merged into some larger entity either the county 
 in which they stood (and not >any other) or else a cluster consist- 
 ing of themselves and other municipal factors. The numerical 
 basis of distribution should foe founded rather upon electorate than 
 population. There is, as we have seen, no constant, much less 
 essential, ratio between the two, so that the attempt to adjust 
 electoral representation to a partly non-electoral population is 
 bound to introduce an element of variability in vote values, which 
 is precisely the evil that any sound plan of self-government 
 must, up to the very limit of practicability-, struggle to exclude
 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF SEATS. 
 
 altogether. The desirability of employing the electorate rather than 
 the population for this purpose would not be minimised by adult 
 suffrage. However liberal the scheme under which adult suffrage 
 is conferred, there must always be some qualification required 
 and, whatever it might be, the ratio between the total of those who 
 possessed it and the aggregate population must vary, and vary 
 widely, in different parts of the country. Constituencies would be 
 allotted three, five, or seven members in accordance with their 
 electorates, the numerical qualification 'being fixed at the figure 
 which would yield a House of Commons about as large as the 
 present assembly. The selection of an odd number of members 
 would prevent the self-stultification which occasionally results in a 
 two-member constituency from the return of two men pledged to 
 apposite political programmes a state of things which is 
 undesirable in the extreme unless one, or both of them, has 
 sufficient strength of character to have commended himself to the 
 electorate by his known ability to act, on occasion, without refer- 
 ence to party claims or exigencies. More than that, it would 
 confer upon the minority, in every case, the opportunity of concen- 
 trating on its own man, with results which we have already fore- 
 seen. Constituencies entitled to more than seven, or at the utmost 
 to more than nine, members (if such there were), would be best 
 divided into separate moieties with five members each. 
 
 Continuous Redistribution. 
 
 It remains to consider by what means this process can be rendered 
 continuously automatic and adequate, since it is clear that the 
 flux and reflux of population will from time to time bring about 
 such changes as would destroy the harmony between the scheme 
 as originally elaborated and its attempted realisation in the distri- 
 bution of seats. The position of affairs should therefore be recon- 
 sidered at stated intervals. The census, while on the one hand 
 it furnishes the means of reconsideration, on the other hand offers 
 the appropriate intervals. The lapse of ten years would be a 
 sufficient period for the operation of such changes in the density 
 and distribution of the electorate as would create the necessity 
 for readjustment, while, at the same time, it is not so short as to 
 introduce an element of instability. Moreover, this period has 
 actually been selected in Canada as that which should elapse after 
 each change in the distribution of seats. As the census takes place 
 in the spring of the first year of each decade, there would be time 
 for the amended distribution to 'be elaborated and defined so as to 
 go into force on the ist of January irn the next year but one the 
 third year of each decade. Constituencies no longer entitled! to 
 their five or seven members would fall to the next lower class. 
 Those originally entitled to three members, but whose electorate 
 had fallen below the qualifying aggregate, would be absorbed 
 
 92
 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF SEATS. 
 
 either (i) into such other constituency, being actually contiguous to 
 it, and in the same county, as a joint plebiscite of the contiguous 
 constituencies and of the transferred constituency might determine 
 (this method is objectionable as opening the way to the influence of 
 party considerations upon distribution) ; or (2) into that contiguous 
 constituency, being a division of the same (but not of another) 
 county with which the transferred constituency was in greatest 
 lineal contact, according to the ordnance map. In either of these 
 cases the aggregate number of members to which the amplified 
 constituency was entitled would be adjusted to the new conditions. 
 Or (3) where two actually contiguous three-member constituencies 
 both ceased to possess their numerical electoral qualification as 
 suoh, they might be joined (if their united electorate justified it) 
 into a new five-member ^constituency. This process would probably 
 lead to the " falling in " of such a sufficiency of lost seats as would 
 permit of the grant of larger representation to constituencies whose 
 augmented electorates qualified them for an increase in the number 
 of their members. But if that proicess failed to answer the purpose, 
 or if the constant numerical growth of the electorate rendered it 
 impracticable (consistently with the maintenance of the present 
 numbers of the House of Commons), the numerical qualification 
 would have to be raised, so as to adjust it to the new conditions. 
 It is unnecessary that the numbers of the House of Commons be 
 absolutely constant. A variation of ten or even twenty, as a 
 consequence of changes in the distribution of the seats, need create 
 no uneasiness. If it were greater, the qualification could be ad- 
 justed to the altered conditions of the electorate. The work of 
 elaboration and adjustment could be done under the authority 
 of the original Act which had set the process going, 
 though it might be desirable, from the constitutional point 
 of view, that the scheme, when finally arranged, should 
 receive the ad hoc sanction of an Act of Parliament. But 
 as the process would be as automatic and non-controversial as the 
 payment of interest on the National Debt, when once initiated and 
 adjusted, it should progress without the necessity of interference. 
 It has the additional recommendation of depending upon operations 
 which are almost purely mathematical, so that there is no room 
 for recrimination with regard to alleged partisan manipulation of 
 the redistribution process. Any redistribution carried out by a 
 commission must contain the elements of greater or less constitu- 
 tional danger. It may not be true that there was ever an instance 
 of a constituency being carved out to suit a personal interest, and 
 to be employed as the foundation of a personal ambition. What 
 is required is not only that such allegations shall be untrue, but 
 that they shall be so ludicrous and absurd that it is not worth the 
 while of sane men to utter them. 
 
 93
 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF SEATS. 
 
 Some Abnormal Instances. 
 
 A few difficulties would, no doubt, present themselves in the 
 strict adjustment of this scheme to the counties. Rutland, for 
 instance, has but one member and an electorate (1908) of only 
 4,012. But it is contiguous to Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, and. 
 Northamptonshire, with any of which it might be incorporated for 
 the purposes of proportional representation. It is quite true that 
 under such circumstances Rutland would cease to have its own 
 member, but the extreme smallness of the county electorate renders 
 this inevitable in any proportional scheme. The same remarks 
 apply very largely to Huntingdon, which, with a southern division 
 of 5,226 electors and a northern of 6,863 electors, could not stand 
 as a separate electoral entity in any plan based on proportional 
 principles. The Welsh counties (except Glamorgan, which offers 
 a. " ready-made " five-member constituency) would have to be 
 grouped. But these are mere difficulties of detail. It is not their 
 existence, but their insignificance in comparison with the great 
 purposes which their obviation would subserve that need excite 
 our astonishment. 
 
 It would be quite feasible to elaborate a scheme of continuous 
 redistribution which should be applicable to our existing system 
 of single member constituencies. It has not, however, been 
 considered worth while to set it forth. Any serious attempt to 
 grapple with the abnormalities of the present antique system can 
 only proceed upon the lines of proportionate representation, and to 
 that, accordingly, we have confined our investigation. 
 
 So far, then, we have considered the processes of registration 
 the identification and mobilisation of the electorate ; and distribu- 
 tion their marshalling in orderly and scientifically proportional 
 array. The next stage of our investigation will bring us to the 
 commencement of the electoral evolutions which are the prelude of 
 the conflict at the polls. 
 
 Summary of Proposals. 
 
 The distribution of seats to be scientifically proportioned and 
 adjusted, and maintained in proportion and adjustment, to the 
 growth and needs of the political organism. 
 
 The necessary periodical readjustment to take place after each 
 census. 
 
 Existing constituencies to be re-constituted in naturally allied 
 groups of three, five, seven, or (possibly) nine, so as to conform to 
 the proposals known as Proportional Representation, which should 
 be adopted and applied to them. 
 
 Accidental minority predominance, as well as the absolute non- 
 representation of the minority, to be in that way abolislhed up to 
 tihe utmost limit of practicability. 
 
 Vote values, therefore, to be rendered as nearly equal as is 
 practicable, and maintained in that state. 
 
 94
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Candidate and Candidature. 
 
 At the outset of a critical examination of the mode of selecting 
 candidates, and of making their opinions and pretensions known 
 to the electorate, it will be well to remember that in this power of 
 selection, when properly and capably exercised, we have the means 
 of working our way back to the ancient Teutonic ideal and prac- 
 tice. The political units do not nowadays assemble at the delibera- 
 tions of the legislative body and signify assent or dissent by the 
 clashing of spears or by audible indication of their will. But they 
 ought to move, and it is one of the purposes of this 
 essay to move them, in the direction of resuming the 
 exercise of that immediate influence upon the legislative 
 body which, in an infinitely smaller political community and 
 under conditions immeasurably less ambitious, was wielded by 
 their Teutonic ancestry in days that lie far off across the gulf of 
 centuries. The intermediate period has been one of steady dimi- 
 nution in the direct power to guide the legislative instrument. 
 The community early became too large to personally surround the 
 man who had the control of the national helm. It was only im- 
 perfectly replaced by the locally-recruited demonstrators who 
 formed the legislative environment of William I. at Gloucester, or 
 made up the impatient and clamorous mob which excited the 
 anger and dread of William de St. Calais. What is meant 
 is that the gap 'between that which purported to be 
 the representative opinion of the nation and its true senti- 
 ment was widened in this sense, that there was no mutual and 
 necessary interaction between them. To take quite a recent and 
 striking illustration of this fact the representatives of rotten 
 boroughs were, of course, not so hopelessly out ot touch with, or 
 reckless of, national ideas as to essay the abolition of the mar- 
 riage laws or in some other way to outrage the age-long habits and 
 ideals of the people. To attempt so much, as they well knew, 
 must at least have been to stultify themselves and might possibly 
 have wrought the nation up to the pitch of rebellion. Therefore 
 it sufficed .them to maintain a kind of rough and ready touch 
 with the great mass of the .people, and they were only careful to 
 establish and preserve a really intimate and close community of 
 interest with so much of the nation as had the power to speak with 
 a politically articulate voice. As this vocal section was not merely 
 a minority, but was able in some cases to secure as a representa- 
 tive one who did not actually represent any person except such as 
 had no right to any representation whatever, the svstem ceased to 
 be entitled to be called representation at all. The old method 
 had vanished, and the new political conditions had yielded 
 nothing better than a non-responsible or, at all events, inadequately 
 
 95
 
 CANDIDATE AND CANDIDATURE. 
 
 responsible, oligarchy, only susceptible of a slight measure of con- 
 trol from the hardly more extensive oligarchy whose delegate it was. 
 With political impotence there came political stagnation and, so far 
 as the great unrepresented mass of the nation was concerned, politi- 
 cal apathy. From time to time, indeed, some spark of independent 
 sentiment was blown for a moment into a flame of political inde- 
 pendence, promising the glow of warmth and energy to the entire 
 body politic. Too often, as in the case of the Lollards, the Pil- 
 grimage of Grace, and the episode which ended at Sedg- 
 moor, the spark was quenched in blood, and the voice 
 of aspiration, almost inarticulate as it was at best, died away 
 in the silence of a brooding despair. Advanced political theories are 
 useless when those who shape them, and who desire to see them 
 discussed, elaborated, and tested, have no means whatever of im- 
 pressing their opinions upon the authority which is alone capable 
 of providing publicity for the discussion and of initiating the ex- 
 periment. 
 
 The Process of "Selection." 
 
 The conscious and deliberate resumption of the power of actually 
 selecting representatives has not, however, proceeded very far as 
 yet. In the majority of instances the original selection, which the 
 electorate is only asked to ratify, and not to make, is the work 
 of a small clique of party leaders. In truth the system (if system 
 it can be called) by means of which candidates are at present 
 selected is crude in the extreme. There is, perhaps, a local man 
 sufficiently influential and wealthy to be marked out as the suc- 
 cessor (or the opponent) of the sitting member. Failing a local 
 man of influence and ambition, the party officials will, as a rule, 
 be asked to send a list of suitable men for consideration by the 
 leaders of the local organisation. The latter will interview the 
 candidate, and obtain from him the expression of such opinions on 
 current political questions as he imagines will best accord with 
 the sentiments of his visitors and their allies. This limitation of 
 opinion is a necessary consequence of our two- party system, under 
 which, unless the proposed candidate be a man of exceptional 
 strength and independence, he must swallow the whole of the 
 party programme, and strain at no item which it contains. If he 
 pass the ordeal successfully, he will probably be asked to address 
 the local association. Then, if he is again successful in the enuncia- 
 tion of the views of those whom he hopes to make his constituents 
 he may be adopted as candidate, or, perhaps, in accordance with 
 the more cautious policy which the uncertainty of the law has 
 forced upon the party leaders, he will receive an intimation that 
 he may safely consider 'himself the "proposed candidate." In 
 exceptional circumstances a prominent man who has lost his 
 seat elsewhere may be practically " rushed " upon a constituency. 
 But this is only likely to be attempted where the seat is safe, so 
 
 96
 
 CANDIDATE AND CANDIDATURE. 
 
 that no local sentiment is outraged by the sudden selection of the 
 constituency as a harbour for one whom the storms of political 
 fate have rendered temporarily homeless. 
 
 The Question of Money. 
 
 But in whatever way the advent of the potential candidate 
 originally takes place, the first questions asked will have re- 
 ference to his pecuniary means. What sums will he contribute to' 
 the local funds for the purposes of registration and organisation ? 
 How much, by the way, did he give to the central fund of the 
 party, whose administrators furnished him with his credentials to 
 the local leaders ? Can he pay his own election expenses ? More 
 important than all, can he make himself popular with a certain 
 class in the constituency by means of liberal donations to local 
 charities, philanthropic agencies., and other similar agglomerations- 
 of local sentiment and influence ? We shall examine this matter more 
 in detail at a slightly later stage of the argument. At the moment 
 it will suffice to say that no man who has any accurate knowledge 
 of the workings of our electoral system will be likely to deny that 
 these are, in the great majority of cases, the primary considera- 
 tions when the merits of a potential candidate, or the respective 
 claims of competitors for adoption, are discussed by the local 
 leaders. Some cases, of course, there are where the expenses are 
 paid from the " central fund " because the candidate is not a 
 wealthy man. But these do not afford the dominant type. Where 
 such circumstances admittedly exist, indeed, it has been affirmed 
 (and denied) that the subjection of the member to the party whips 
 is enforced more absolutely because of his financial dependence 
 upon the central authorities But the subjection could hardly be 
 more absolute than that which is also enforced (as we have already 
 seen, in the course of the Introduction) even upon' those 
 members who are financially self-supporting in their chosen 
 political sphere, and who have satisfied the very strictest canons of 
 probationary generosity. The conspicuous feature of the entire 
 system is its primary dependence upon the pecuniary power, either 
 of the party or the individual candidate, and it is only fair to 
 add that occasionally the pernicious character of the whole 
 modus operandi forms the subject of the stern criticism of inde- 
 pendent men, and newspapers, of all shades of opinion, who are 
 unanimous in its condemnation and yet confess their impotence 
 to suggest any effective remedy for its evils. 
 
 Even for the achievement of the purposes of the humblest 
 type of rough and ready representation, these processes are clearly 
 imperfect. They leave to the electorate only the power of rati- 
 fication, not the power of choice. They offer to the intelligent 
 elector the opportunity of voting for one of two men, or else of 
 staying away from the poll altogether. Worst of all, the system 
 
 H 97
 
 CANDIDATE AND CANDIDATURE. 
 
 is based upon money, not upon capacity; on party interests, 
 not public considerations. But when it is remembered that 
 these crude processes, distorted at every point of their opera- 
 tion by influences which ought never to be allowed to affect them 
 at all, are the only means by which a great and complicated 
 organism is permitted to find articulate expression for its needs 
 and to promote its own self-adaptation to its environment, astonish- 
 ment is the mildest sentiment with which we can tinge our con- 
 templation of them. If ability to comply with the pecuniary 
 amenities of a. political campaign were verily the necessary and 
 essential concomitant of civic capacity and disinterestedness, then 
 indeed we might desire to perpetuate the system under which 
 its all but universal predominance is established. But inasmuch 
 as there is no necessary connection between large means and 
 political capacity, critical scrutiny must be fatal to a mode of 
 operation which assumes its existence and is, in every phase 
 of its activity, adjusted to that assumption. A giant organism 
 requires the widest, and not the most limited, power of selecting 
 its means of articulate expression, its faculties for what must under 
 the most favourable circumstances be the slow and laborious 
 struggle towards self-adjustment. To say that the voice must 
 always speak with one of two tones, that the vision must ever 
 be restricted to one of two prospects, that the vehemence of the 
 struggling organism may only shape its course in one of two 
 ways, is simply to condemn the structure to something which 
 may easily become political paralysis, under whose deadly influence 
 voice, vision, and vehemence alike will perish altogether. The 
 enunciation of these essentials of political evolution, combined 
 with the consideration of the scientific principles of distribution 
 which we have already discussed, lead us inevitably to the Second 
 Canon of self-government : 
 
 " The area from which the political organism may select the ex- 
 ponents and instruments of its legislative will must be co-extensive 
 with the mature (i.e., the adult) intellectual faculties of the or- 
 ganism itself, and the selective .power must be distributed and un- 
 interruptedly maintained in strict proportion to the respective de- 
 velopment of the various constituent elements which make up its 
 political individuality, so that the expression of its desires and 
 aspirations may take place with the maximum of precision and free- 
 dom, and the realisation of its resolutions with the maximum of 
 efficacy." 
 
 What is a "Candidate"? 
 
 We may now proceed to study the questions of candidature in 
 the light of these principles, to consider where present methods fall 
 short of an attainable ideal, and to suggest adjustments and. re- 
 forms which shall bring us appreciably nearer to its attainment. 
 So far our use of the word " candidate " has not necessitated any 
 
 98
 
 CANDIDATE AND CANDIDATURE. 
 
 endeavour to discover its precise meaning. That, indeed, is no 
 easy task. It is true that the expression "candidate" is, by 
 section 63 of 46 and 47 Viet., c. 51, defined as meaning (unless 
 the context otherwise requires) any person who is elected or 
 nominated, or who is " declared by himself or by others to be a 
 candidate on or after the day of the issue of the writ for such 
 election, or after the dissolution or vacancy in consequence of 
 which such writ has been issued." This definition affords us no 
 certain means of deciding whether a political probationer, who is 
 by general consent intended to oppose the sitting member at 
 the next election, is or is not a "candidate." He has not been 
 elected; he has not been nominated; he has sufficient political 
 prudence to have avoided declaring himself a candidate, even 
 under the painful irritation of reports that he has forsaken the 
 path of political ambition altogether; and the "others," who have 
 officiously declared him to be a candidate, have no valid title 
 to speak with authority in that behalf. Yet when all these nega- 
 tive conditions are satisfied, a skilled election agent will inform 
 the political apprentice that possibly he is a candidate after 
 all and that the expenses he is incurring may have to figure in 
 his return of election expenses ; for candidature is a fearful and 
 wonderful enigma, the key to which lies concealed afar in the 
 unexplored recesses of the judicial mind and has never yet 
 been clutched by mortal hand. 
 
 The earnest inquirer who turns to the heading " Candidate 
 when person begins to be," in the inexhaustible pages of Rogers, 
 may imagine that he has a clue to the mystery. A brief perusal of 
 the cases cited will disabuse his mind of the pleasant delusion. It 
 was unsuccessfully contended at Montgomery* and Walsall that 
 a person could not become a candidate (at a general election, of 
 course) till the dissolution. In Stepney expenses incurred several 
 weeks before the dissolution (when the respondent was still the 
 sitting member in an existent Parliament) were held to be election 
 expenses. In Rochester the expenses of two conversaziones, which 
 took place two months before the election, were held (assuming 
 the functions to be legitimate) to be election expenses. In Lichfield 
 the principle that the election campaign may really, for the pur- 
 poses of a return of expenses, extend back a considerable time be- 
 fore the election, was applied to the expenses of a meeting held four 
 months before the dissolution. In Cockermouth (1901) it was held 
 that the candidature began six months before the election, while in 
 Haggerston the period was extended to three years. In Elgin 
 and Nairn the judges thought that the question was in every case 
 one of fact. Finally in Mon mouth (1901) we are told in the last 
 edition of Rogers (ex. rel. ed.t) that it was suggested by Kennedy, J. 
 
 * The exact references can be found in Rogers on Elections. Vol. II. 
 {Stevens and Sons). 
 
 t Mr. C. Willoughby Williams. 
 
 99
 
 CANDIDATE AND CANDIDATURE. 
 
 but not decided, that after a candidate was selected there 
 might be expenses of candidature, apart from election expenses, 
 which need not be returned. With something of the same breadth 
 of sentiment Darling, J., had held in Cockermouth (1901), where 
 the candidate had been selected on April 2 and the election 
 took place on October 14, that the expenses of a tea meeting on 
 September 20 (but not given by the respondent) were not incurred in 
 respect of the conduct and management of the election. These 
 examples will show what a wide difference of judicial opinion 
 there is, even with regard to the apparently simple preliminary 
 question the first that faces a candidate and his election agent 
 when they proceed to compile the return of election expenses. 
 So it is that the candidate (as the present writer said in an 
 article which he contributed to The Times* on the eve of the 
 general election of 1906) "is warned that a given, sum is all that 
 he will be allowed to spend on 'election expenses,' and that if 
 he exceeds it his election will be void. But he is not told when 
 the ' election ' legally begins, and he is left entirely to his own 
 judgment in deciding when it ends. An expense incurred three 
 months before an election may not 'be an election expense, 
 whereas the judges ma.y take the opposite view of one incurred 
 three years previously. The result of this state of things is that 
 a candidate or his election agent must construct his return of 
 election expenses more or less at haphazard." Very natural 
 under the drcunistanoes is the suggestion that the candidate and 
 his election agent should take the opinion of counsel and be abso- 
 lutely guided thereby. That is the course which would be pursued 
 if the proiblem for counsel's consideration were other than one 
 arising out of the perplexities of election: law. And the fact that 
 the opinion had! been properly taken and honestly acted upon 
 would in all other cases be accepted as the best evidence of 
 bona-fides. Mistaken judgment in a matter of election law can, 
 however, only fail of its disastrous effects upon the candidate il 
 there is a successful application for relief! ; and relief can only be 
 granted where the error is the result of accidental miscalculation 
 or inadvertence, not where it has followed from honest opinion 
 formed in anxious and. bona-fide deliberations. It cannot be 
 pleaded that ( the technical breach of the law was committed by 
 inadvertence, when it was the consequence of counsel's opinion 
 obtained for the express purpose of forming a decision on that 
 very matter. For example, let us suppose that there was a poli- 
 tical meeting held in the constituency six months before the 
 election and at a time when no contest was expected or even con- 
 templated. It never occurs to the election agent that the " candi- 
 dature 1 " has already commenced, and that therefore the expenses 
 
 * December 20, 1905. 
 
 t The meaning of this term is explained early in Chapter VIII. 
 
 TOO
 
 CANDIDATE AND CANDIDATURE. 
 
 of the meeting should appear in the return of election expenses, 
 so he omits them. On petition the judges will give him relief if 
 they are satisfied 1 that the omission was the result of inadvertence 
 and! if the conduct of the election agent has in other respects been 
 free from reproach. It will probably be otherwise if he omitted the 
 expenses of the doubtful meeting as the result of counsel's opinion. 
 The element of inadvertence is gone and relief will be refused. 
 
 Statutory Period of Candidature. 
 
 All these difficulties as to the period of a candidature, with 
 their resultant complication of questions that ought to be per- 
 fectly plain and simple, would be obviated by an enactment that 
 the return of a candidate's election expenses* shall include all 
 expenditure incurred by him, or on his behalf, in the furtherance 
 of hio political interests, within three calendar months, previously 
 to the day on which the poll takes place. Three months is 
 believed by the present writer to be a. fair and reasonable period, 
 but no injustice would be inflicted if the time were extended up 
 to six months. Beyond that an extension would be unreasonable, 
 as tending to difficulty and complexity; while a shorter period 
 would not effect the objects which are here aimed at, and might, 
 in fact, where (political developments could be foreseen, tend to 
 defeat them. It is, however, a matter of the extremest rarity 
 (except where a Parliament Was run its full septennate) for a 
 general election to be foreseen three months ahead of its date, 
 and it is still more unusual for a by-eleoSon to be contemplated 
 at a distance which enables its approximate date to be deter- 
 mined, while there is yet time for the expenditure of money which 
 can be safely omitted from the return of election expenses. 
 For these reasons a candidate would be deterred from large ex- 
 penditure (at any period when it would be politically effective) by 
 the fear that the advent of an election would necessitate the in- 
 clusion of the possibly excessive amount, and possibly dangerous 
 items, in his sworn return. The effect of large expenditure for 
 political purposes is only sustained if the expenditure itself is con- 
 tinuous. Political propagandism can only take the form of meet- 
 ings, the issue of " literature," and the placarding of walls and 
 hoardings. The enthusiasm which these may generate is quite 
 ephemeral. A candidate whose rare and keen political foresight 
 enables him to see that an election will take place in January, at 
 which he will be entitled to expend a statutory maximum of 
 ^1,010, might imagine that he had very cleverly evaded the Act 
 by spending ^700 on ,a political propaganda in the previous May. 
 But 99 per cent, of the effect of these operations would have 
 
 * The question of election expenses enters incidentally at this point. 
 At a later -stage we shall consider it in detail. The reader will under- 
 stand that it is impossible to keep in water-tight compartments the multi- 
 tudinous aspects of a huge central subject. 
 
 IOI
 
 CANDIDATE AND CANDIDATURE. 
 
 passed away before the candidates finally descended into the arena 
 for the actual battle; and, moreover (with a six months' limit), 
 the unexpected advent of the election in September or October 
 would involve the candidate in a limitation to ^300 as his maxi- 
 mum supply of pecuniary ammunition (since he would, as we have 
 supposed, have spent ^700 out of his ^1,010 in the previous 
 May). This would be a very serious handicap, not greatly 
 minimised! in its discouraging influence by the scanty survivals of 
 the propagandist work which, even after the lapse of these few 
 months, would alone remain as the harvest of the original ex- 
 penditure. 
 
 The Process of " Nursing." 
 
 At this point of our argument it will be desirable to introduce 
 and consider in detail the question, to which our attention has 
 already been directed as we passed it in the distance. The refer- 
 ence is to one of the most difficult and delicate problems with 
 which, in the whole course of the present study, we are likely to 
 be confronted that is to say the contributions made by a can- 
 didate, or an intending candidate, to charitable, social, and 
 public or quasi-public purposes. Any man who is known to have 
 political aspirations in a given constituency, whether they have 
 taken the form of definite presentation of his claims to the elec- 
 torate or not, is bombarded no other word will completely 
 describe the process by appeals to contribute money to charities 
 of all kinds, as well as to football, cricket, tennis, and other 
 clubs, " outings " for tradesmen's servants, friendly leads, teas 
 for old people, mothers' meetings, church and chapel funds, 
 flower shows, and, (in fact, every conceivable form of the activity 
 of that ubiquitous instinct of benevolence whose only adequate 
 name is Legion. If the candidate's means permit of a favourable 
 response to these invitations, he is said to be engaged in 
 " nursing " the constituency in which the gifts are distri- 
 buted. A great proportion of these appeals relate to 
 funds which are for public, or quasi-public, purposes, such as 
 those of hospitals; and there is nx> suggestion that any direct 
 political influence is exercised in consequence of donations or 
 contributions made to these institutions. But what is certain is 
 that a section of the electorate a diminishing but still potent 
 section is favourably influenced by the fact that Mr. A has 
 given ;ioo to the funds of the hospital, whereas Mr. B has 
 given ^5 55. or nothing at all. Candidates and their agents 
 are perfectly well aware of this, and are even known to delay 
 the announcement of their contributions in order to ascertain 
 their respective amounts, and so to guard themselves against giving 
 less than others have done. Mr. A is inclined to give ^20, 
 but waits to see if Mr. B gives ^25, in wWich case he will raise 
 his intended ^20 to ^30. These tactics are adopted, not 
 
 102
 
 CANDIDATE AND CANDIDATURE. 
 
 because either of the candidates desires to be lavish or ostentatious 
 in his gifts, and still less from any vulgar desire of notoriety in 
 itself. They are simply an element, almost vital under existing 
 conditions, of a successful appeal to the electorate. They may be 
 said to be of the psychological rather than the political order, 
 introducing into the electoral arena forces which have no business 
 to be there, and whose activity is wholly vicious; but forces 
 which, nevertheless, no politician can ignore, unless he wishes 
 to postpone his realisation of their exact potency until the declara- 
 tion of the poll places it before his eyes in large andi umndstak- 
 able characters. 
 
 Yet another class of benevolence for whose aid appeal is made 
 to candidates consists of the provision of meat, drink, and enter- 
 tainment in such a manner that if it were carried out by the 
 candidate himself, and not through the intermediary of supposedly 
 independent third parties, his election would not stand for a 
 moment against a charge of bribery or treating. As matters are, 
 however, the election judges will not pronounce against this kind 
 of thing unless (i) they are satisfied of the existence of a corrupt 
 motive, or (2) the gifts are made so near to the time of a contest, 
 or actually during its progress, as to exercise an immediate and 
 direct influence upon the voters ; or (3) unless (as in the Rochester 
 case) that which purports to be entertainment supplied at the 
 mutual cost of the members of an organisation is really supplied 
 at less than cost price, the balance being paid for, in part, by 
 the candidate which it supports. Corrupt in the coarse and 
 criminal sense of the word these gifts certainly are not, in the 
 majority of cases at all events: but when it is known that candi- 
 dates regard them as a nuisance and a tax, and yet that they 
 feel themselves compelled to submit, and to assume an interest 
 and a pleasure in paying the money for which they are asked, one- 
 may be sure that they are aware that in this mode of benevolence 
 there is a subtle influence that must be conciliated, and that he- 
 who most thoroughly understands the work of dexterous concilia- 
 tion will have the best chance of seeing the abundant fruit of his 
 generosity falling in gratifying plenitude out of the opened ballot 
 boxes. 
 
 A Pernicious System. 
 
 The writer was once consulted by a gentleman who, from motives 
 which were truly laudable, desired to represent a London con- 
 stituency. The path was clear to his selection as a candidate : 
 the only open question/ was that of expense. The writer, after 
 noting the number of electors, informed him of the maximum sum 
 which hie might expend at a contest, but at the same time varnerT 
 him that unless he were prepared to spend from ,1,500 to 
 ^2,000 a year from that time until the General Election (of 
 which there was no immediate prospect) he might regard his 
 
 103
 
 CANDIDATE AND CANDIDATURE. 
 
 ambition as a hopeless one. The constituency was one where 
 money must be spent. The other candidate would spend it, and 
 his opponent must do at least as much, while his chance at the 
 poll would be increased if he did a little more. When his 
 opponent gave IDS. to a local cricket club, he oould give no less. 
 If he gave a guinea it might make a difference in his poll. The 
 advice was not given with regard to electoral conditions as they 
 ought to be, but as they are. The writer gave it with regret, and 
 felt that he was playing almost a cynical part when he uttered the 
 words. Yet it was in complete accord with the necessities of the 
 existing system. The inquirer consulted one or two other autho- 
 rities, and, finding that their opinion was the same as that origin- 
 ally given to him by the present writer, abandoned the ambition in 
 disgust as one which he could not afford. 
 
 A state of affairs which justifies, and even necessitates, the 
 giving of such advice as this is contrary to all sound canons of 
 representation. It may even be isaid that the results of this vicious 
 method! form a poison that runs through the whole electoral 
 system. It prevents a man of moderate or small means, how- 
 ever eager and able to serve his fellow citizens in a political 
 capacity, from entering into prolonged, painful iand sordid 
 rivalry with a wealthy opponent. In that way, as we have seen, it 
 limits the field of choice which as open to the aspiring organism, 
 and violates the principle enunciated in the Second Canon of 
 self-government. A courageous man, it will be said, shoulc 
 at once make it clear that he will give no contributions what 
 ever that he offers his services, not his money, to the con- 
 stituency. Were our political sentiment what it ought to be 
 such a manly declaration would immensely strengthen the de- 
 clarant's political position. Even now the growth of a healthy 
 appreciation of political realities has gone far enough to make 
 this repudiation of pecuniary sop-giving a safe card to play in 
 many constituencies. But in others the declaration would be 
 distorted. The alleged meanness of the candidate, and his lack 
 of any interest in the benevolent activities of his constituents, 
 would be used by canvassers and street-corner propagandists as 
 a very deadly weapon against him. His supporters mdght, indeed, 
 reply by appealing to the electorate not to be " bought," and by 
 hinting (as definitely as the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Preven- 
 tion Act of 1895 allows) that the contributions of the other candi- 
 date are made for the deliberate purpose of corrupting the elec- 
 torate, which is too honest and straightforward to be " got at " in 
 that way. But in any case the real issues of the contest would be 
 obscured, and an unedifying pseudo-critical inspection of alleged 
 motives would come in to prevent, or at least to thwart or distort, 
 the exercise of a keen and wholesome civic judgment. 
 
 104
 
 CANDIDATE AND CANDIDATURE. 
 
 Absolute Prohibition is Impossible. 
 
 There is one method, simple in its conception and sweeping in 
 its scope, which, if it were only practicable, would commend itself 
 at once to all who 'desire to see the political arena swept clean of 
 extraneous and irregular influences. An absolute (prohibition of 
 the gift of money or money's worth to any institution, society, 
 organisation, or individual whatsoever, by any candidate, or any 
 near relative of any candidate, would (that is to say, if it were prac- 
 ticable) put poor and rich candidate in this respect on terms of 
 equality, relieve the election judges of the necessity of pondering 
 upon the 'precise significance of corruption and the exact psycho- 
 logical phenomena which indicate a tendency thereto, and force 
 the electorate, to a large extent at all events, to consider candi- 
 dates upon their merits and not upon their money. But the only 
 effect of the enactment (supposing it to be otherwise practicable) 
 would be to defer the declaration or manifestation of candidature 
 to the latest "possible moment, so as to enable the intending candi- 
 date to continue his gifts, while at the same time putting it in his 
 power to ansfwer any challenge of their character by the plea that 
 at the time when he made them he was not a candidate. And 
 this might, at times, be perfectly true. A sudden death or an unfore- 
 seen political emergency may bring into the arena, as candidate, 
 a man who, twenty-four hours earlier, had no more idea of fighting 
 the seat than of departing upon an expedition for the exploration 
 of the moon. To the success of such a candidate his gifts to local 
 institutions and charities, made at a time when a Parliamentary can- 
 didature had not entered his remotest contemplation, would, 
 under the proposed scheme, be fatal. Clearly, as we said at the 
 outset, the path of prudence does not, in this matter, pass through 
 absolute prohibition. 
 
 The Prohibition of Gifts. 
 
 But in saying so much it is desirable to add that the absolute 
 prohibition of gifts is regarded as feasible in the Colonies. The 
 Tasmanian Electoral Act of 1906* contained these provisions: 
 
 184. (i.) Any person, having announced himself for election, who, 
 within six months prior to the declaration of the poll, offers, promises, 
 or gives, directly or indirectly, to or for any club or other association, 
 any gift, donation, or prize, shall be guilty of an offence against this 
 section. 
 
 Penalty : ^5, in addition to any other penalty provided by law. 
 
 (2.) No proceedings shall be taken for a contravention of this section, 
 except within three months after the act complained of. 
 
 These stringent stipulations are re-enforced by a modification of 
 the candidate's declaration with regard to the accuracy of the return 
 of election expenses, which does credit to the psychological 
 
 * Printed in full in the " Proportional Representation " Blue Book 
 (No. 3 of 1907) (Wyman and Sons, is. 3d.). 
 
 105
 
 CANDIDATE AND CANDIDATURE. 
 
 insight, and the knowledge of human nature, possessed by the 
 draftsman of the Act. It is further provided that : 
 
 Every member returned to serve in the Parliament ot Tasmania shall, 
 before he takes his seat in the Legislative Council or House of As- 
 sembly, as the case may be, make and subscribe before the Governor, 
 or some person authorised by the Governor to receive such declaration, 
 the declaration upon honour contained in the Form N, Schedule III. 
 
 [FORM N, SCHEDULE III.] 
 
 I, A.B., do hereby declare, upon my honour, that I have not paid, 
 nor will I pay, nor have I authorised, nor will I authorise any person 
 to pay for me .or on my behalf, any other moneys than such as are 
 allowed by " The Electoral Act, 1906," in reference to my election as a 
 Member of this House tor Council] for the electoral district of ; 
 
 and I do also declare upon my honour, that I have done no act unduly 
 to influence any elector in the vote which he has given at such election. 
 
 A. B. 
 
 In this country the law requires a sworn declaration, the wilful 
 falsity of which exposes the candidate to the penalties of perjury 
 (46 and 47 Vic. C. 51, S. 33 (7) ). That is to say, that while in 
 England we bring the declarant into the presence of the law, in 
 Tasmania he is made accountable to his honour and his conscience : 
 tribunals which, in their irresistible appeal to the highest instincts 
 of the mind, are clothed with a transcendent brightness that out- 
 shines the law. 
 
 A Practical Method Suggested. 
 
 With us, any attempt merely to strengthen the law as it stands, 
 by revivifying the existing provisions, is futile. It throws the ulti- 
 mate decision, upon the judges and this with regard not to con- 
 crete facts, but to those most elusive of political phenomena, 
 motives. To suggest that in a matter which may involve an inter- 
 ference with the clhoice of the electorate the question of the 
 motives of a politician' shall be determined, irrevocably, by men 
 who are themselves (in the majority of instances) ex- politicians, 
 and in whom political fervour still bums brightly (though perhaps 
 unconsciously) is, it is true, merely to enunciate a politico-judicial 
 theorem which has found acceptance with us, though it can never 
 commend itself to a sober and vigilant civic thinker as the last 
 word on the subject. What we require to do is not to check bona- 
 fide benevolence, but to curb the ostentatious lavishness which is 
 dictated only by political considerations : to provide, moreover, 
 that where a candidate benefits, in the political sense, even by 
 generosity which is absolutely bona fide, he shall suffer such an 
 automatic disadvantage in other ways as shall keep the balance even 
 between him and the opponent who does not, or cannot, imitate 
 his programme of benevolence. The present writer believes that 
 this could be done by the provision that all gifts of money, or 
 money's worth, made by a candidate (or his wife) to any institu- 
 tion, society, club, organisation (permanent OT temporary), or in- 
 dividual, within a certain period (six months or three, in accordance 
 
 106
 
 CANDIDATE AND CANDIDATURE. 
 
 with the principles enunciated above) shall fall into his 
 return of election expenses (their omission, or the omission of any 
 of them, being made an illegal practice, ohallengeable in the usual 
 way), and be treated in every respect as if they had been incurred 
 in the conduct and management of the elections; except that 
 where the money or money's worth has been employed by the re- 
 cipients in a manner, or for purposes which would, in 
 the case of the candidate, at or during an election, 
 constitute corrupt or illegal practices, or illegal payments, 
 such employment of the charitable funds shall not, of itself, be 
 deemed to be a breach of the provisions of the various statutes deal- 
 ing with corrupt and illegal practices and illegal payments. The 
 object of this proviso may be briefly explained forthwith, in 
 order that the .argument may be free from further interruption. 
 Let the candidate give ^5, as a matter of sheer generosity, to a 
 children's treat in June, and let there be an election in October. 
 Given a six months' limit, this ,5 would, under the scheme now 
 proposed, form a portion of his election expenses, and appear in 
 his return thereof. But inasmuch as the money would have been 
 used as part of a fund for the provision of food, drink, and enter- 
 tainment, and probably for bands of music and for flags and 
 banners, the candidate who included it in his return would be in 
 danger of challenge for providing money for treating as regards 
 the food and diink, and for prohibited purposes as regards the 
 music and the banners. The fact that the children of electors, 
 and not the electors themselves, had benefited by the expenditure 
 would not lessen the gravity of the charge. For this reason it is 
 suggested that the expenditure of the money in this way shall not, 
 of itself (and in the absence of a lack of good faith or other 
 sinister indications), 'be deemed to be an offence against the Acts. 
 It is perhaps superfluous to add that the original provisions, and 
 the suggested exception, would offer an opportunity for the highest 
 skill and foresight m the draftsman of the clauses. 
 
 An Automatic Compensation Balance. 
 These propositions are feasible as well as bold. The adop- 
 tion of the scheme hece proposed must put an end to all lavish 
 expenditure that is likely to be politically effective, and this 
 whether the present, or a revised and lower, scale of election ex- 
 penditure be permanently adopted 1 .. Fifties and hundreds, to say 
 nothing of any larger sums, cannot be flung into a constituency in 
 bountiful profusion by a candidate who may, as the result of the 
 sudden precipitation of a contest, discover that his generosity has 
 eaten away 50 per cent, of his statutory maximum of expenses, or 
 has even exceeded it (and so disqualified him) before the cam- 
 paign opens in earnest. This might actually be the case under the 
 circumstances to which allusion is made, where a person of lavish 
 habits suddenly found himself face to face with a potential 
 
 107
 
 CANDIDATE AND CANDIDATURE. 
 
 candidature. But the contingency may be regarded without alarm if 
 we bear in mind that members should be chosen by the exercise of 
 political judgment, not under the influence of social grati- 
 tude. Supposing there to be lavish expenditure which 
 falls outside the limit of time, it would have lost its political 
 effect, and might be disregarded : if, indeed, it had not, by its 
 prompt cessation as the election loomed in sight, set up a counter- 
 vailing influence, resulting from electoral reflections induced by 
 its sudden stoppage. But as a matter of fact the writer believes 
 that the English political calendar is so uncertain that, with this 
 enactment in front of aim, no candidate would attempt any pro- 
 digal expenditure of the kind which is now so objectionable in 
 character and influence. Anyhow, the advantage gained by such 
 charitable expenditure as the candidate felt it prudent to embark 
 upon would be balanced in the case of his adversary by the benefit 
 arising from fighting with his maximum intact. At least, this would 
 be so if the -adversary had refused to hear the voice of the oharity- 
 mongering charmer. If he had not -refused, both candidates 
 would be in the position of righting with depleted funds. It will 
 be seen that under this scheme the poor man is given a compensa- 
 tory advantage, working on a sliding scale, as against a rich oppo- 
 nent, and, what is more important, the exact amount and nature 
 of the charitable or quasi-charitable contributions are brought 
 under public survey, by being compulsorily included in the return 
 of election expenses. 
 
 Checking the Flow of " Generosity." 
 
 To this scheme it may be objected, in the first place, that it 
 tends to check the stream of kindness, the flow of generosity, 
 which is one of the most pleasant of our social phenomena. If 
 a man lives in a given constituency, or has large business or other 
 interests in it, he may be quite honestly anxious to contribute, on 
 a generous scale, to its public and quasi-public institutions, as 
 well as to the relief of individual misfortune and the gladdening 
 of individual lives. There may be instances, too, where the candi- 
 date is the head of some great industry upon which the constituency 
 largely depends. But in that case it is easy to draw the line be- 
 tween the payment of wages and the bestowal of gifts. Such a can- 
 didate will, of course, have great local influence, unassailable by 
 any legislative provision ; but that is no menace to Self Govern- 
 ment, since political acceptance must always have its root in 
 popularity in any land where national verdicts are delivered in the 
 ballot box. Influence of that kind, however, will be considerably 
 moderated under a scheme of Proportional Representation. 
 But when all this is urged and accepted it remains a 
 fact that in this policy of kindness the advantage of only 
 one class of the community is contemplated, whereas the exercise 
 
 108
 
 CANDIDATE AND CANDIDATURE. 
 
 of the franchise is a corporate trust for the benefit of all. If, 
 then, a mode of action, however commendable, which may gratify 
 a .part, comes to exercise a warping, distorting, and even destruc- 
 tive influence upon a process which ought to operate for the good 
 of the whole community, clearly the partial gratification must be 
 sacrificed for the general good. There is as yet enough of our 
 prehistoric ancestors left in us (under the thin veneer of civilisa* 
 tion) to prompt us to sacrifice the future good, or the corporate 
 benefit, for present individual gratification. Any device which 
 tempts us to follow the promptings of that unworthy spirit must, 
 in t'he interest of organic progress on the upward path, be 
 sternly removed or rendered innocuous. The habit and practice 
 of public generosity, in Parliamentary candidates, unquestionably 
 constitutes a. peril of this kind, inasmuch as it exposes the healthy 
 exercise of political judgment, which is a public trust, to the 
 checking, stunting, warping, lowering influence of private gain. 
 The man w'ho offers himself to the citizens as their representative 
 in the national assembly must be chosen because of their sym- 
 pathy with the political opinions which he holds and the political 
 programme which he represents; or, better still, as a result of 
 their willingness, based upon a knowledge of his capacity and 
 character, to entrust their interests to his hands and to allow him 
 to be called by their political name, in the full assurance that he 
 will neither betray the one nor besmirch the other. On these in- 
 spirations they should act in their choice of their member, 
 and not, assuredly, because he has thrown them gifts. 
 Throughout this examination of our electoral system the twin 
 characteristics .of dignity and deliberation have been and will be 
 urged as its worthiest and most decorous embellishments. Both 
 are tarnished by the slightest shower of backshish. Neither can 
 keep its brilliance in an atmosphere which reeks of donative and 
 is heavy with largess. More and more as the political intelli- 
 gence of the nation rises to higher levels and greater triumphs 
 are its acquirements likely to be .assailed by the reactionary forces 
 which have been trampled down, but not destroyed, in its ad- 
 vance; and if their sinister activity is to be anticipated and ren- 
 dered incapable of harm, one of the first expedients must be the 
 stern exclusion of any attempt to employ the sedative power of 
 private generosity in lulling the public spirit of the nation into the 
 sleep of the faithless sentinel. The scheme which is here pro- 
 posed may seem at first siglht stern to the verge of austerity. If 
 it is examined more closely, in oomiparison with the precious and 
 majestic national heritage which it is designed to protect, and with 
 the healthy and profluent political aspiration which it is intended 
 to encourage, the observer will be astonished at its moderation. 
 
 The proposition before us is, then, that there shall be a strict 
 time limit, from, beyond which no expenses need be brought 
 
 109
 
 CANDIDATE AND CANDIDATURE. 
 
 into the return of election expenditure made by the candidate or 
 his agent ; but that, on the other hand, all expenditure on charit- 
 able, social, and quasi-public objects, which takes the form of 
 subscriptions or donations, shall, subject to the provisions already 
 outlined, be deemed a part of the statutory maximum. That 
 portion of the proposals which refers to the time limit will, the 
 writer confidently believes, generally commend itself to those who 
 are familiar with the facts and necessities of the case. The re- 
 mainder of the scheme he offers for criticism, in the full personal 
 belief that it affords a solution of one of the most troublesome of 
 election problems and an antidote for one of the most dangerous 
 and insidious of political poisons; but, nevertheless, in the full 
 realisation that this is difficult and delicate ground, where it 
 behoves us to act warily, lest in seeking to protect we hamper, and 
 in struggling to set free we injure, the fluttering pinions of liberty. 
 
 Public Payment of Election Expenses. 
 
 Whatever may be the opinion which we adopt with regard to the 
 topics which have so far been examined in this chapter, we shall 
 have to admit that the requirements of the Second Canon of self- 
 government are not, and cannot be, fulfilled as long as the posses- 
 sion of wealth and leisure are the necessary qualifications for active 
 political work in the House of Commons. Even when we have ex- 
 cluded the means of bestowing largess, and the funds out of which 
 a local organisation is to be maintained and the election expenses 
 provided, there still remains the imperative necessity that the 
 representative shall possess the power to furnish himself, and per- 
 haps his family, with daily bread. If he has not that, physical 
 necessity will dominate political aspirations, and the would-be 
 representative, however capable and worthy, and however un- 
 assailably secure in the confidence of his fellow-citizens, cannot 
 serve therm in a Parliament which sits (as far as the majority of 
 representatives are concerned) in a distant city not famous for the 
 cheapness of the accommodation which it offers to visitors. Let 
 us, however, consider the campaign expenses first of all. The 
 organisation expenses may, as we have seen, be reducible to a 
 minimum by the transference of the work of registration to public 
 officials. The election expenses may, as we shall discover, be sus- 
 ceptible of a minimising process which shall in no wise impair the 
 thoroughness and soundness of the electoral judgment. 
 But even at their minimum the election expenses will be large; 
 and private generosity, howsoever praiseworthy, is not the fit sup- 
 port of energy devoted to the public service. 
 
 There is only one solution of the enigma. It is the payment out 
 of the public funds of the election expenses of any bona-fide candi- 
 date, standing with a reasonable chance of success, and the pay- 
 ment of a moderate salary to any elected member who applies 
 for it. The analysis of these proposals will reveal nothing that 
 
 no
 
 CANDIDATE AND CANDIDATURE. 
 
 is startling, and much that is reasonable and irrefutable. With 
 regard to the payment of election expenses, it would be necessary 
 to proceed with great circumspection in the arrangement of the 
 provisions. However low the figure to which the expenses might 
 be reducible, the public assumption of responsibility for them in 
 all cases is unthinkable. We shall see that this is so if we reflect 
 that the unrestricted public financing of candidatures would enable 
 every printer to '' run " one of his own workmen as candidate and 
 to secure, in that way, orders for hundreds of pounds' worth of 
 superfluous printing. Similarly, every bill-poster might be at work, at 
 the public expense, carrying out the orders of a candidate whom he 
 had himself covertly brought into the field ; while the unemployed 
 problem might be temporarily solved by a selection of candidates 
 recruited from the ranks of the workless and provided with the 
 wages of " clerks and messengers " out of the public exchequer. 
 What is required, then, is a provision, not that responsibility for the 
 expenses of all candidates shall be publicly assumed in advance, 
 but that the legitimate expenses of any candidate who fought with 
 a reasonable chance of success shall be a public charge, provided 
 that within seven days of the election he apply for the public aid 
 in the matter and furnish a certificate from the returning officer that 
 he actually was a candidate and polled the 15 per cent, of the 
 electorate which can alone justify his claims. A minimum of 
 15 per cent., as we shall see, is fair and reasonable under our 
 present system. Under Proportional Representation, the minimum 
 might be fixed at one-half (or perhaps one-third) of the " quota." 
 
 An Easily Workable Scheme. 
 
 The effect of these provisions would be to remove the financial 
 difficulties from the path of any candidate who was standing with 
 any numerically substantial support, such as that of a strong politi- 
 cal organisation, or a great trade union. Such financial necessities 
 as were immediate and pressing (like the wages of clerks and 
 messengers) could be met out of the advances which the organisa- 
 tion or the trade union* would readily furnish, confident of its own 
 ability to poll the minimum that would entitle it to the repay- 
 ment of the money. Printers and other tradesmen, relying upon 
 their own judgment in the matter of the candidate's prospects, 
 would readily do work for a man who, for all practical purposes, 
 might be said to have th'e public credit behind him. Their un- 
 willingness to do so, as a result of misgivings about a candidate's 
 chances, would be the best of checks upon political and financial 
 irresponsibility. After all, the tradesman who was offered the 
 printing orders from a candidate would have to exercise, with re- 
 gard to their acceptance, only a rather higher form of the same 
 judgment which he would apply to the proffered patronage of any 
 other customer. It comes to this, that the present system is an 
 
 * By private subscription, if corporate provision remained illegal. 
 
 Ill
 
 CANDIDATE AND CANDIDATURE. 
 
 impossible one, if the political organism is to have, as the condi- 
 tions of healthy and progressive existence require, an unrestricted 
 choice of voices to define its needs, and of brains and hands to 
 translate the definition from the abstract into the concrete, for 
 the furtherance of the process of self-adaptation to environment. 
 The other extreme is equally impossible. No State could bear 
 the burden of allowing any and every political adventurer to incur 
 large liabilities in its name. To limdt the assistance of the public 
 credit to the nominees of recognised organisations is in the highest 
 degree undesirable. The essentials of "recognition " could not be 
 defined in a manner which would be free from the taint of menace 
 to absolute freedom of choice. The limitation would, in truth, 
 help to perpetuate much that is pernicious in the present system. 
 The only soberly practicable method is, then, to pay the expenses; 
 but to pay them subject to a guarantee of the seriousness of the 
 candidature, as evidenced in the fruits of the ballot-box. There 
 will be the less objection to the public assumption of financial 
 responsibility in this matter if it is borne in mind that the present 
 scale of returning officers' charges is extravagant to the last degree. 
 The value of the various items is estimated on a liberal, not to 
 say occasionally lavish, scale, in accordance, it may be, with the 
 legal traditions of amplitude and generosity in the matter of fees, 
 of which the returning officer is generally a personal exponent. 
 
 The Discouragement of Irresponsibility. 
 
 Provision is already made in the election law, by the require- 
 ment of a preliminary deposit of ^1,000, for the prevention of 
 election petitions started merely under the impulse of the chagrin 
 of defeat; and, by the insistence on the making of a deposit 
 towards the returning officer's expenses, for the discouragement 
 of the nomination of candidates who are of no influence or sub- 
 stance in themselves, and have no influential or responsible organi- 
 sation, or no substantial degree of public confidence and sup- 
 port, behind them. These provisions create a precedent which 
 might well be followed in the imposition of an effective disability 
 upon the candidate who is a mere adventurer, or who comes into 
 the field only to force a contest or to inflict annoyance. The 
 writer is well aware that a candidate who is known to have no 
 chance whatever is occasionally put up against a powerful and 
 popular man in order to divert the tatter's attention, and to pre- 
 vent him from employing his power and popularity for the assis- 
 tance of other candidates on his own side. This may be all very 
 well as a piece of election tactics, but the scheme is utterly in- 
 consistent with the dignity, the deliberation, and the absence of 
 accidental, capricious, and superfluous influences, which are the 
 essentials of a sound electoral mechanism. It is impossible to 
 absolutely prohibit the running of a second candidate under such 
 circumstances ; but there might well be a provision that, where a 
 
 112
 
 CANDIDATE AND CANDIDATURE. 
 
 second candidate polls less than 20 per cent, of his opponent's 
 aggregate, he shall be required to pay not half, but the whole of 
 the returning officer's expenses, and shall be incapable of election 
 to Parliament, for the same or any other constituency, until they 
 are paid in full which payment in full shall not be deemed to be 
 satisfied by any amount, recovered in bankruptcy proceedings, 
 which falls short of 203. in the . In the event of the liability for 
 election expenses being transferred to the public shoulders, such 
 candidate should be required, subject to the same penalties and 
 safeguards (and in addition to the payment of his own expenses), to 
 repay to the public funds such extra expense as had been involved 
 by his rash and unjustifiable tactics. 
 
 The running of a third, or possibly a fourth, candidate in single- 
 member constituencies is not so great an abuse, because to some 
 extent it automatically rights itself. The returning officer's ex- 
 penses, as apportioned between two candidates, will be materially 
 lightened, for those two, by the appearance of a third. If there 
 are two candidates, and the returning officer's expenses are ^240, 
 the effective nomination of a third candidate reduces their quota 
 by 40 each. But if, instead of four candidates, there are six, 
 the greater complication of the proceedings will necessitate con- 
 siderable extra expense on the part of the returning officer, and 
 for this those candidates should be liable who fail to poll 20 per 
 cent, of the aggregate of the successful candidate. The persons 
 who force their vain political ambitions upon the notice of the 
 electorate in this way should be penalised, as already suggested, 
 by the provision that they shall not be nominated as candidates 
 in that or any constituency until these extra expenses have been 
 paid in full. And similarly, if the expenditure comes from public 
 sources, repayment of superfluous expenses which were the result 
 of unjustifiable third or fourth candidatures (as well as the expenses 
 of the candidates themselves) should be made a condition of the 
 capability to become a candidate again. All these provisions 
 could be extended so as to meet the necessities of the larger con- 
 stituencies which would be formed under a national scheme of 
 Proportional Representation. 
 
 No Menace to Minorities. 
 
 There is nothing unreasonable or oppressive in these sugges- 
 tions. Clearly it is the right of every citizen to invite the support 
 of his fellow-citizens for the furtherance of the political pro- 
 gramme which he chooses to formulate, or with which he prefers 
 to identify himself. But clearly, also, he has not the right to 
 carry that invitation up to the point of involving the constituency, 
 or his fellow-citizens, in heavy expense, unless there is a reason- 
 able prospect that his personality and his opinions will commend 
 themselves to the electorate. To say that a candidate can judge 
 exactly what measure of support he will receive would be to ignore 
 I 113.
 
 CANDIDATE AND CANDIDATURE. 
 
 all the lessons of political uncertainty which the ballot box has 
 taught us ; but that is quite a different thing from affirming that a 
 candidate is unable to say whether he has a reasonable chance or 
 not. A " reasonable chance," under the conditions here sug- 
 gested, only involves the polling of 15 per cent, of the total elec- 
 torate of a single-member constituency, or half (or possibly one- 
 third) the " quota "* under a scheme of Proportional Representa- 
 tion. Suppose the figures (in a single-member or two-member 
 constituency) are these : 
 
 Jones 5,000 
 
 Smith 4,000 
 
 Robinson 3,000 
 
 Jenkins 2,000 
 
 Brown 800 
 
 There cannot be the least doubt that in this case Brown knew from 
 the start that his candidature was hopeless. He may think that 
 his views are excellent and praiseworthy and they may, indeed, 
 be so; but as they have failed to commend themselves, in the re- 
 quired proportion, to the judgment of the electorate, he must pay 
 the penalty of a premature attempt to secure the constituency's ap- 
 proval for them. It may be argued that this mode of procedure 
 would prevent the voicing of the opinions of minorities and stifle 
 at their birth the aspirations of many noble causes. That is not 
 the case. With our system of almost absolute freedom of speech 
 no minority need be voiceless; and if it be a strong and well 
 disciplined minority it may, by the threatened transfer of its sup- 
 port from ope side to the other, compel attention to its views. 
 Even under our present imperfect electoral system, it has many 
 opportunities of making itself heard or felt, and under Propor- 
 tional Representation its powers would be greatly augmented. It 
 has no right, however, to involve the public in expense, and the 
 electoral mechanism in needless complication, merely in the 
 furtherance of the opinions which find no such general support as 
 to secure for them any considerable proportion! of the contents of the 
 ballot box. In truth, it is doubtful whether a sound, but prema- 
 turely propagated, cause is not injured, rather than advanced, by 
 these early and futile appeals to the electorate. The small 
 minority is taken as representing the real strength of the movement, 
 and discouragement ensues; whereas the facts are that the very 
 novelty of the appeal has deterred many voters, by its apparent hope- 
 lessness, from rendering it assistance, and has incited them to limit 
 their selection to the traditional aspirants who represent the pre- 
 dominant partisan divisions of current political thought and action. 
 That policy which patiently waits in gathering strength, and then 
 bursts into the electoral arena in overwhelming force, is far more 
 likely to progress in power and authority than that which can only 
 
 * This term is explained in the discussion on the Act of Voting. 
 
 114
 
 CANDIDATE AND CANDIDATURE. 
 
 record a series of petty attempts and petty defeats, the result of 
 an untimely endeavour to secure that which might have been won 
 by waiting. Such accidents of political warfare, the result of mis- 
 taken strategy, may, indeed, check and discourage, but can never 
 stifle, a truly noble cause, endowed with the attributes of genuine 
 adaptation to the needs of the body politic. 
 
 National Training in Political Judgment. 
 
 There is, again, another and a wider aspect of this problem, to 
 which, at the present epoch in the electoral life of the nation, no 
 small importance attaches. Above and beyond the victories ot 
 political parties in the direction) of the national policy, there lies 
 the training of the people in the exercise of political judgment, 
 the working of the political instinct into the very texture of the 
 nation, as a part a vital part of the cosmic process in which 
 the nation's life may be a potent or a pitiful element in precise 
 proportion to its appreciation of its share in this evolutionary de- 
 velopment. The habit of restraint, the capacity for self-posses- 
 sion, are as important in the life of the nation as in the life of the 
 individual ; and the untimely ebullitions of immature aspirations 
 are irregularities inconsistent with restraint and fatal to self-pos- 
 session. If those who engineer these premature displays are made 
 to pay the penalty of their rashness and impatience we shall but 
 put a premiumi on political responsibility ; we shall but encourage 
 the exercise of a deliberate, cautious, restrained, and sober 
 scrutiny of the operative forces whose close study is a necessity of 
 political advance. And perhaps there is nothing more gratifying 
 to the careful observer of the present trend of political life in this 
 country (who is also a believer in the evolution of the political 
 organism) than the evident growth of the spirit of political vigilance 
 and responsibility as exhibited, mirabile dictu, in the politically 
 youngest class of the nation that which is composed of organised 
 labour. Patience, self-subordination, the restraint which springs 
 from foresight, and the discipline which comes of the corporate, as 
 distinguished from the individual, conception' of political duty, are 
 here displayed with a. brilliance which, is phenomenal in the politi- 
 cal firmament of our islands. We are a serious nationi, inheritors of a 
 destiny which holds the future of the whole race, to make or mar, 
 within its grasp. If we can breed political seriousness without 
 impairing political freedom; and if we can stifle political frivolity 
 for the benefit of political insight and foresight, we shall have 
 helped to establish that destiny on foundations that will not shake 
 even under the pressure of accumulated centuries. 
 
 If, as is likely to be the case in the near future, the election 
 expenses of 'candidates who bad a reasonable chance of success 
 should be paid out of public funds, the necessity for the restriction 
 of lavish expenditure upon public and quasi-public institutions 
 will still remain, and might still 'be dealt with in the manner 
 
 "5
 
 CANDIDATE AND CANDIDATURE. 
 
 outlined above. The candidate whose authorised expenditure was 
 ;i,oio would, if he were shown to have had a " reasonable chance 
 of success," be entitled to be reimbursed, up to that amount, for 
 his authorised payments, duly vouched for; but if he had, within 
 the statutory period before the election, spent ^500 in gifts to 
 public or quasi-public objects, then he would only be entitled to 
 call upon the public funds for the balance (^510), and that 
 balance would represent the limit of his election expenditure. 
 
 The Payment of Members. 
 
 The provision of absolute and untrammelled freedom of choice 
 as regards the exponents and operators of its will, by the develop- 
 ing political organism, does not, however, entirely fulfil the re- 
 quirements of the Second Canon of self-government. The success- 
 ful candidate, the chosen co-interpreter and co-organiser of 
 national aspiration, may indeed have been relieved of the burden 
 of the election expenses; but the gain will not be great if he is 
 prevented, by the necessity of daily seeking sustenance for himself 
 and his family, from devoting Himself to the discharge of those 
 functions for which his fellow- citizens have selected him. Yet 
 surely he who is the organic voice and vision should have a secured 
 and sufficient share of the organic dividend as a means of support 
 and protection in 'his work. The very beginnings of self-government 
 require that the organism which selects shall 'also sustain, as long 
 as its selection stands the test of its judgment. This is no new 
 principle. It has been discovered and adopted by the political 
 insight of many peoples that payment of members is an absolute 
 necessity of complete liberty of selection for legislative work. 
 Those sturdy offspring of their hardy Northern mother, the British 
 Colonies, have adopted the system and found it to raise the level 
 of political morality, in addition to .serving the purpose which 
 is the main centre of our contemplation here the unrestricted 
 freedom of organic choice. In fact, the House of Commons, on 
 March 7, 1906, passed a resolution, which the late Sir Henry 
 Campbell-Bannerman supported in words of weight and eloquence, 
 in favour of the payment of members. To the objec- 
 tion that the system will generate the professional politician the 
 answer is that the professional politician as already with us, that 
 he survives because healthier civic individualities are precluded, 
 by our present limitation of their activity, from getting into an 
 effective " struggle for existence " with the parasitical interloper, 
 and that he will vanish as soon as the limitation is removed, so 
 that the vehement instruments of the organic will can come within 
 striking distance of him. As for the idea that it is a pity to pay 
 for that which can be had for nothing, the argument is unanswer- 
 able. But to the facts before us it has no application, for that 
 which is required (absolute freedom of organic choice) cannot, 
 
 116
 
 CANDIDATE AND CANDIDATURE. 
 
 under any circumstances conceivably co-existent with our present 
 economic environment, be had for nothing. The objection, there- 
 fore, does not touch the case which is under consideration. 
 
 Not Only Labour or Socialist Members. 
 
 It is a common mistake to imagine that the necessity for paying 
 the member will arise only in the case of the Labour or Socialist 
 representative. It is true that there are instances (one of them, at 
 least, that of a distinguished man) by means of which the public 
 has been familiarised with the representation which has its support 
 in corporate effort ai>d co-operative self-denial. But there is, we 
 shall be told, another class of men who will give gratuitous labour 
 and will take care that the different quality and stimulus of their 
 service is publicly known. If it were attainable, no doubt, this 
 ostentation of civic devotion would bring its congenial reward 
 in abundant advertisement ; and for that reason it might be desir- 
 able to pay in secret, or to make the receipt of payment an essen- 
 tial condition of membership of Parliament, with the Chiltem 
 Hundreds as the automatic and inexorable penalty of refusal. True 
 it is, of course, that the Labour or Socialist member will in the 
 majority of cases (and apart from public payment) possess no finan- 
 cial resources save those which he derives from the persons who 
 have selected him to be the representative and exponent of their 
 interests. True it is also that at the other end of the social scale 
 will be the member who is entirely independent, in the financial 
 sense, of his constituents if, indeed, they are not, in some mea- 
 sure, financially dependent upon him, as they may be if he is the 
 head of a vast business or industry from which their livelihood is 
 derived. But it is in neither of these directions that the payment 
 of members is destined to work the greatest social and political 
 advancement. Its most welcome and significant results will 
 be found in the advent into the field of political and administrative 
 activity of the most capable representatives of an immense class 
 that year by year comes within the influence of higher education 
 and obtains a technical or professional equipment which, added 
 to an experience of life under the healthy stimulus of ambition 
 and to the enthusiasm generated by the more ample and more 
 satisfying activities that the whole educational process has opened 
 up to brain and hand, makes of these aspirants the very finest 
 material for the selection and use of the political organism. These 
 are the resources of life and courage, labour and insight, upon 
 which the nation has scarcely drawn at all, and will not draw, 
 till it can assure its servants that they shall not be reduced to 
 penury by their devotion to its interests. From this class, let it 
 be candidly said, come those seekers for Parliamentary honours 
 who receive the sinister munificence that has its source in central 
 funds, and who are alleged (though the allegation is denied) to 
 
 117
 
 CANDIDATE AND CANDIDATURE. 
 
 jeopardise their independence by the acceptance of this stealthy 
 and ambiguous bounty. If the only gain by the payment of mem- 
 bers -were the placing of these enthusiastic (or at least ambitious) 
 souls in a position of freedom from an uncongenial clientship, it 
 would be worth all that it cost the commonweal. And when we 
 may well feel assured that not only would it invigorate these, 
 but bring many others, of equal capacity and greater unconstraint, 
 into the arena of political activity, thereby adding at once to the 
 sum total of its intellectual power and heightening the flush of 
 its civic enthusiasm, surely we need not hesitate to rank the appro- 
 priate reward of public service, rendered at the public request and 
 on the public selection, among the Essentials of Self -Government. 
 
 The Requirement of "New Blood." 
 
 But there is another, and an even more important consideration 
 that must not be overlooked. The general standard of adminis- 
 trative ability and political insight that characterises a modern 
 British Government is not a high one. It is for that reason, no 
 doubt, that we have witnessed the menacing growth of the Inner 
 Cabinet, composed of the mere handful of really capable men who 
 dominate all the rest, and, through them, reduce Parliament itself 
 to an invertebrate congeries of harnessed partisans. The Inner 
 Cabinet, as we have seen, is itself a pernicious development of our 
 constitutional system, but the invertebracy of the mass which it 
 leads, whithersoever it chooses, is more pernicious still. The fresh- 
 ening breeze of younger opinion, the unconventional and insup- 
 pressible daring of minds that refuse to be subjected to the para- 
 lysing discipline of the party whips, can be brought into the House 
 of Commons in greater measure only as a result of attracting a 
 constantly widening range of talent into the field of political en- 
 deavour. The work to which we seek to attract such men is 
 neither light nor grateful. For that reason it is all the more essen- 
 tial to remove every discouragement from the path of those who 
 would be likely to undertake it, and whose willingness would be 
 likely to obtain the acceptance and endorsement of their fellow- 
 citizens. A reasonable sum is all that is required a general ^300 
 a year, paid to all members; or an optional ^300 a year, paid 
 to those who privately signify to the Chancellor of the Exchequer 
 their desire to receive it (no names being ever published) would 
 meet all the necessities of the case and would confer upon the 
 civic organism a practically illimitable choice of the weapons of 
 its will, the interpreters of its hopes, its aims, its dreams. 
 
 Weaken the Conventional Tdeal. 
 
 Finally, let us again widen the area under survey and consider 
 these problems in their bearing on the morale of the political 
 organism. We saw, in the very brief survey which we were 
 able to take of the principles deducible from, and continuously 
 
 118
 
 CANDIDATE AND CANDIDATURE. 
 
 operative in, the development of the political organism by means of 
 the evolutionary process, that there is a hampering of the best 
 forces of each generation by the "cake of custom" which has 
 been inherited from its predecessors. That a given generation 
 should be uniquely adapted to the highest ideals of existence 
 and the most trenchant modes of thought that are within the 
 range of its own social and intellectual achievements is, under 
 these circumstances, impossible, owing to the myriad ideals and 
 modes which it inherits, shrouded with a more or less venerable 
 antiquity, from former generations to whom these ideals and modes 
 were, indeed, the summit level of progress at the time, but in our 
 day only hold their own by means of roots that cling in tradition, 
 or by virtue of an unassailability which sounds in statute law. 
 These conventional ideals tend to hamper freedom of choice in the 
 matter of the representative by forcing into prominence those per- 
 sons whose claim to be employed as interpreters and instruments of 
 the organic will is based upon inherited prestige and not upon per- 
 sonal power, capacity, and enthusiasm. The prestige derived from 
 personal achievement in fields of worthy endeavour is, of course, 
 precisely that which should influence the organism in its choice 
 of the voice and vision best qualified for use in the corporate inte- 
 rest. But the prestige that consists only in the inheritance of a 
 name or an estate is of altogether different civic calibre and value, 
 and should be, and must be made to become, a wholly subordi- 
 nate force, susceptible only by the very lowest type of political 
 instinct. That prestige may, indeed, be the inheritance of the 
 fruits of a personal achievement which, in its generation, marked 
 the activity of an advanced contemporary type in the physical or 
 intellectual world. The heir of its antique glory may be amon3 
 the worthiest of the citizens. But his claim to selection and em- 
 ployment as the chosen instrument of the organic will can never 
 be justified by his heirship, and only by his worth in just the pro- 
 portion that it rises above the average of his fellow-citizens, and 
 therefore exhibits that advancement of the type which alone, and 
 in conjunction with no other characteristic, entitles him to the 
 corporate confidence, if the choice should fall upon him. Pre- 
 cisely to the extent that we widen the potentialities of selection 
 shall we eradicate the pernicious power of non-personal prestige, 
 both in its fascination for party organisers and in its charm for 
 the electorate. No method offers so fair a promise of success 
 as that which would increase the number of possible competitors, 
 so that the political organism shall first be startled by the dis- 
 covery of its own native wealth in civic eagerness and capacity, 
 and then utterly shamed out of its habit of allowing the glamour 
 of an escutcheon (reminiscent only of the more or less adventitious 
 pre-eminence of the past) to paralyse or pervert an electoral 
 trenchancy that should rejoice in its firm grip of the present and 
 
 119
 
 CANDIDATE AND CANDIDATURE. 
 
 stretch out strong hands towards a future brighter with promise 
 than any which has hitherto dawned upon the yearning vision of 
 the sons of men. 
 
 Summary of Proposals. 
 
 Candidature to 'be a fixed, not an uncertain, period as at present, 
 so that expenses incurred in. the " conduct and management of the 
 election " shall date back three months (or perhaps six months) 
 from the poll. 
 
 All expenses incurred in " nursing " a constituency (that is to 
 say, gifts and donations of all kinds made in the constituency, as 
 well as the subscriptions of the candidate to local political associar 
 tions) to be included, so far as they fall into the period of can*- 
 didature, in the return of election expenses. 
 
 Public payment of the election expenses and/ returning 
 officers' charges in the case of all candidates who had a reasonable 
 chance of success, provided they apply for the payment, and 
 furnish accounts and vouchers, within a stipulated time. 
 
 Candidates forcing an utterly hopeless and frivolous contest to 
 be penalised by the compulsion to reimburse the expense (if any) 
 thus unnecessarily thrown on the other candidate (or candidates) 
 or the constituency. 
 
 Payment of members. 
 
 120
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 The Election Agent and His Staff. 
 
 Only one question of serious importance to the salutary regula- 
 tion and healthy working of the electoral mechanism will confront 
 us in our consideration of the election agent and his staff. But 
 inasmuch as the onerous character of the duties of an election 
 agent is but little understood, it seems desirable to preface the 
 discussion of the more weighty portion of the theme with some 
 brief explanation of the work which the election agent is required 
 to do, as well as with some attempt at the characterisation of the 
 kind of man who should be selected to do it. By means of that 
 introduction to the actual duties and the ideal personality of the 
 election agent we shall better comprehend the rather intricate 
 analysis which we are attempting to make of the electoral forces 
 that he plays so large a part in organising and directing. 
 
 The Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Act, 1883 
 (S. 24 (i) ), enacts that on or before the day of nomination a 
 person must be named by, or on behalf of, each candidate as his 
 election agent. A candidate may, however, name himself as elec- 
 tion agent. The provision needs to be modified by the addition 
 of the words " and such person shall not be a minor." The absence 
 of this provision is no imaginary blemish. The object of requiring 
 an election agent, either identical with, or distinct from, the can- 
 didate, is to have some person who can be looked to for an ex- 
 planation of any official malpractices, who can, if necessary, be 
 sued, and who 1 shall be endowed with sufficient authority to en- 
 able him to act up to the measure of his responsibility. A minor 
 who is made election agent will probably not fulfil these require- 
 ments. He will be very unlikely to possess the intricate and de- 
 tailed knowledge of election law and practice which is an absolute 
 necessity tor the successful discnarge of nis duties and .the "safe 
 piloting of the candidate and the organisation through an almost 
 unexampled maze of technicalities. The absence of these quali- 
 r . rations, added to his youth, will make it difficult to place upon 
 him the full weight of responsibility if the election procedure is 
 challenged. In a fairly recent election these very important 
 considerations were overlooked by a candidate, in spite of his 
 possession of large political and commercial experience, and he 
 appointed his son, a minor, as election agent. The young man 
 possessed all the capacity for the position, but although a large 
 share of political work had cured his otherwise natural lack of 
 knowledge of election law and practice, it would not cure his in- 
 fancy. When the attention of the father was called to the position 
 of affairs, he determined the appointment in the middle of the 
 campaign, and named himself as his own election agent. The 
 consequence was, a large and perplexing addition to the labour and 
 
 I2T
 
 THE ELECTION AGENT AND HIS STAFF. 
 
 intricacy of the contest. In this instance there was no suggestion 
 whatever of bad faith, but inasmuch as the Act, as it stands, 
 renders it possible to appoint an election agent who does not meet 
 the tacit stipulations of the law, it is extremely desirable that the 
 flaw should be cured by the requirement of full age in the person 
 appointed. 
 
 The responsibilities of the election agent are second in impor- 
 tance only to those of the candidate himself. By the provisions of 
 the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Act of 1895 (the 
 " False Statements " Act), for instance, the election agent is 
 united with the candidate in a responsibility the weight of which 
 falls with the same pressure on no other persons. The acts o! 
 these two, and of these two alone, will void the election under this 
 statute of 1895. But the point need not be insisted upon. Modern 
 candidates are, in the great majority of instances, fully alive to the 
 hugeness of the power and responsibility which are -vested in the 
 election agent, and are proportionately careful in their choice of a 
 functionary in whose hands, to such a wide extent, the success or 
 failure of the electoral campaign must lie. 
 
 The Sphere of the Election Agent. 
 
 The considerations of precaution and convenience of which 
 the election agent is the statutory outcome may be briefly 
 described. The candidate is too fully occupied to bestow 
 anything like close supervision upon the multitudinous 
 adjustments and arrangements which form the insepa- 
 rable environment of a modern election campaign. The 
 mastery of the legal technicalities alone is a prolonged and tediou^ 
 labour, and when their practical application to the management of 
 the contest is added to the strain involved in the organisation of 
 meetings, conferences, canvassing, advertising, and circularising, as 
 well as to the issue of the replies that must follow attacks and the 
 construction of the countermines that (under the present system) con- 
 stantly become a strategic necessity, and all this has to be carried 
 on simultaneously with an unremitting all-round vigilance as 
 regards the petty details of the working of what may be a very- 
 large organisation, it can be readily understood that the addition 
 to this burden of the candidate's own special and inalienable acti- 
 vities in the preparation of speeches, the work of personal calls on 
 electors, and personal correspondence with them and with poli- 
 tical organisations, would be utterly intolerable for any but Atlan- 
 tean shoulders. Hence, therefore, the legislative genesis of the 
 election agent, to whom the technical, managerial, and administra- 
 tive details of the campaign are committed, together with a statu- 
 tory power and responsibility commensurate with their extreme 
 delicacy and importance. The election agent, then, should have 
 an exact and exhaustive knowledge of election law and practice ; 
 
 122
 
 THE ELECTION AGENT AND HIS STAFF. 
 
 some experience, the larger the better, of dealing with men of all 
 classes and of every variety of temper, together with the ability 
 to recognise each variety at sight; courage, authority, and the 
 power of rapid decision under all circumstances, and in most 
 cases without conference with, or reliance upon, any judgment but 
 his own; finally, a philosophic imperturbability of such calibre 
 that, as an achievement in self-control, it yields precedence only 
 to the patience of Job, upon which (except, perhaps, in the matter 
 of the patriarch's habit of seeking relief for his feelings in extended 
 speech) it should be faithfully modelled. 
 
 Relations with the Other Side. 
 
 It is desirable that, as far as possible, the election agent should 
 play the part of a solicitor who is conducting a case that is on 
 trial before a civil court. The latter, for example, should closely 
 watch the proceedings ; should be ready to intervene, so far as is 
 permissible, of course, with a quiet word to counsel, or the hand- 
 ing to him of a timely document where the affair threatens to take 
 a turn adverse to his client; should adopt every expedient in his 
 client's interest that the rules of procedure and the canons of 
 honourable conduct permit ; but, nevertheless, he should maintain 
 courteous relations with the corresponding functionary on the other 
 side, so that necessary communication between the parties may 
 pass without delay and without constraint. He should identify 
 himself with his client's interests up to the point, but not beyond 
 the point, where professional ardour ends and personal feeling 
 begins, remembering always that in the great majority of cases 
 he wages forensic warfare with honourable foes, whose title to the 
 ear of the court and to their own opinions is exactly equal to that 
 which his own side possesses. To present the case with vigour 
 and amplitude, and even with a slight tincture of finesse, is per- 
 mitted by the rules of the game ; but deception and trickery are, 
 according to their magnitude and degree, censurable, reprehen- 
 sible, or criminal. With their legal flavour slightly neutralised, 
 these are the canons of conduct that should guide an election 
 agent. He is to stand at the point of official contact between the 
 contending forces, and to be the medium of communication where 
 arrangement or agreement are desirable in the interests of order 
 and discipline. His duties in this respect necessitate the main- 
 tenance of courteous relations and facile communications with the 
 agent, or agents, opposed to him, so that there shall be frankness 
 in the interchange and confidence that understandings, when once 
 arrived at, will be loyally observed. It is, for instance, often 
 agreed between election agents that they will take no technical 
 objections to each other's nomination papers. But the mainten- 
 ance of these courteous relations is inconsistent with violent par- 
 tisanship, and for that reason it is better that the election agent 
 should not appear on platforms as the public exponent and 
 
 123
 
 THE ELECTION AGENT AND HIS STAFF. 
 
 advocate of his candidate's views* ; and still more desirable is it that 
 he should abstain from constituting himself the personal, as dis- 
 tinguished from the official, mouthpiece of his candidate. Between 
 him and the candidate, however, there must be an absolute con- 
 fidence, unclouded by the lightest breath of suspicion. No agent 
 can conduct a campaign if some of the facts and incidents are 
 concealed from him. He is the one person who should know all 
 that takes place "the one," because there is no other who is 
 entitled to the same fulness of information. Even from the candi- 
 date himself the election agent should conceal, if he can, the 
 untoward incidents of the campaign, the desertions, the revolts, 
 the mutterings of " disgruntled " persons, and the anonymous 
 letters. These last of the hostile elements of a campaign' have 
 very different effects on different temperaments, but, on the whole, 
 they are better intercepted. Upon the desirability of the election 
 agent's ubiquity, up to> the limits of human abilitv in that regard, 
 it would be superfluous to dwell. Misdirected enthusiasm on the 
 part of persons whom the law may choose (in accordance with the 
 peculiar doctrine of election " agency," which we shall shortly 
 examine) to consider agents of the candidate has possibilities 
 replete with danger, as the election agent may discover to his 
 cost if he relax for one moment his personal supervision of all that 
 is going on. This is particularly the case in a county election, 
 where a sub-agent, to whom a certain portion of the statutory 
 maximum has been allotted for local expenditure, may proceed 
 to imperil the whole candidature by opening a committee room in 
 
 '*--J---S -- **- 
 
 a publicrhouse, engaging a band to enliven a meeting, or .hiring 
 vnveyances to ta~ke apathetic electors to the poll. On the whole, 
 the eager but undisciplined and legally-ignorant sub-agent is the 
 most dangerous person with whom an election agent is likely to 
 have to deal. But throughout all the perils, worries, political 
 thunderclaps and electoral earthquakes that surround him and his 
 candidate, the election agent should maintain his imperturbability 
 and goodi humour with all the crowd of workers (and all the host 
 of busybodies) up to the last heartening his colleagues even in 
 the counting room', if the first glimpses of the ballot papers should 
 indicate a visual predominance of votes for the other side. 
 
 Paid Employment at Elections. 
 
 Subject to any special directions which he may receive from his 
 candidate, the election agent will have the duty of selecting the 
 persons who are to be employed for payment during the cam- 
 paign. The question of paid employment during an election con- 
 test needs to be discussed with more than ordinary candour. It 
 
 * There is possibly a legal objection to this in the case of a paid 
 election agent, but it is so highly technical that we need only make 
 passing allusion to it. 
 
 124
 
 THE ELECTION AGENT AND HIS STAFF. 
 
 is the serious question to which reference was made at the begin- 
 ning of this chapter. A candidate, by the very circumstances of 
 his position, is precluded from discussing the question without 
 fear and without favour ; and even when he has become a member 
 the prospect of another (contest forces him into silence. The facts 
 axe, however, that there is no department of the electoral mecha- 
 nism which is so open to grave and dangerous abuse as this, while 
 at the same time there are few or no election problems which 
 present such difficulties alike to the investigator and the reformer. 
 The candidate is permitted to employ (i) an election agent, (2) 
 sub-agents in a county division, (3) polling agents in this book 
 called by their older and more convenient name of personation 
 agents, (4) clerks, and (5) messengers. Whatever the size of the 
 constituency there will be only one election agent, but the number 
 of other functionaries who may be employed will vary, in the 
 case of (2) according to the number of divisions, in the case of 
 
 (3) according to the number of polling stations, and in the cases of 
 
 (4) and (5) according to the number of electors on the register. 
 The number of clerks and messengers which is prescribed by the 
 Act 46 and 47 Viet., c. 51, s. 17 (and Part I. to Schedule I.), is 
 not, however, an absolute restriction of their number, but only 
 of their number at any one time. Trie significance of the statu- 
 tory provisions was considerably widened by the decision in the 
 Walsall petition, where it waa assumed without question (Day, 
 Election Cases, 73) that for good reason one group of clerks might 
 be substituted for another during the course of the election, pro- 
 vided that on no one day the maximum number of clerks was 
 exceeded. Thus, if the maximum be eight, then A, B, C, D, E, 
 F, G, and H may be employed on Monday, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, 
 and J on Tuesday, C, D, E, F, G, H, J, and K on Wednesday, and 
 so on. Whether this principle could be extended so far as to permit of 
 a complete change of clerks and messengers every day, so that A, B, 
 C, D, E, F, and G should be employed on Monday and J, K, L, 
 M, N, O, and P on Tuesday, with another similar alteration 
 for Wednesday, is, perhaps, open to doubt. If it were 
 attempted the election judges would, on a petition, examine the 
 proceedings with a very jealous scrutiny. But whether that be so 
 or not, we shall see as our investigation proceeds how eminently 
 desirable it is that the maximum number of persons employed 
 should be required to consist of the same (and not different) 
 people throughout the election, unless a change is rendered 
 necessary by illness or other absolutely unforeseen occurrence, 
 which shall immediately be made the subject of written notice 
 to the returning officer. 
 
 The Employment of Electors. 
 
 As soon as it is known that an election is pending a candidate, 
 as well as his election agent and all those prominent supporters 
 
 125
 
 THE ELECTION AGENT AND HIS STAFF. 
 
 who are supposed to have " influence " at headquarters, will be 
 assailed with requests for employment. If there is an election 
 agent (as there will be unless the candidate is his own election 
 agent) the applicants will be referred to him, and if he has had no 
 extensive experience he will be likely to delude himself with the 
 idea that the Legislature has provided him with a simple and 
 easy means of dealing with the many and persistent claims that 
 will be pressed upon him. He will remind the applicants that 
 if they are employed they lose their vote. But he will discover 
 that even a single day's employment at substantial remuneration 
 will console many persons for their disfranchisement, while others 
 will make it clear that the fact of their employment at the election 
 is not going to destroy their vote, which will be cast for the man 
 who employs them and against the candidate who refuses their 
 request for work and money. Here, then, at the outset is a defect 
 in the law. It is idle to provide that a voter who is employed for 
 payment at an election shall lose his vote when no really effective 
 method is readily available, except in the case of a prominent and 
 well-known persons like the election agent or the sub-agents, for 
 enforcing the provision. Long after the election, when the return 
 of election expenses has been filed with the returning officer, the 
 names of the persons employed at the election become available 
 for public information; but even if there is an opponent, or an 
 elector, with sufficient public spirit to pursue the inquiry whether 
 such persons voted or not,* there is no simple and effective remedy 
 if it is discovered that they did. 
 
 There can be no question of their knowledge of the illegality and 
 criminality of their act, for every election agent will either have 
 taken care that no voters are employed, or will, if the employment 
 of a voter (such as the chief registration agent) is inevitable, have 
 warned him, by the service of a printed or written notice, that he 
 must not vote. The present writer has made a practice of inserting 
 in the receipt forms to be signed by clerks and messengers when 
 they receive their daily or weekly payment the words, " I am aware 
 that, if I arm a voter, I may not vote at this election," Even with 
 this or a similar precaution, however, the existing provisions, then, 
 which purport to attach disfranchisement to employment at a given 
 election, are inadequate. A conspicuous instance of their inade- 
 quacy will be examined when we come to consider the " Outside 
 Organisations." But, with regard more immediately to the election 
 agent and his staff, what is required is not only the provision that 
 paid employment shall vitiate the vote, but that no voter shall 
 (with certain necessary exceptions specified below) be employed at 
 all ; and, further, that the returning officer shall prosecute any 
 
 * The Clerk of the Crown in Chancery will, for a small fee, supply 
 a " marked register," showing which electors actually voted at an elec- 
 tion. 
 
 126
 
 THE ELECTION AGENT AND HIS STAFF. 
 
 person who, being a voter (and not one of the persons excepted 
 from the operation of these provisions), has been employed for 
 payment, in any capacity, by any candidate or " outside organisa- 
 tion " at an election. Let us consider for a moment why this stern 
 policy is necessary and whither it would lead. 
 
 We shall shortly see (page 138) that the provision of employ- 
 ment, on a large scale, as a means of corruption, is perfectly 
 feasible and almost entirely safe under the existing law, so long as 
 an outside organisation, which is not the agent of the candidate, 
 carries out the operations. By the provision that no voter shall 
 be employed in any paid capacity at an election, either by candi- 
 date or outside organisation, we strike at the root of this poten- 
 tiality of evil. For since the scheme outlined in this essay con- 
 templates the imposition upon the "outside organisations" of 
 the obligation to file a sworn return of expenses in the same way 
 as the candidates, the employment of electors must become known 
 as soon as the return was filed and the prosecution of employer 
 and employed would at once supervene. The attainment of this 
 end is one purpose of the apparently stern prohibition of the 
 employment of voters. The other is the prevention of intimida- 
 tion not the intimidation of the voter, but intimidation by the 
 voter. The truth is that, dangerous and insidious as is intimidation, 
 of the voter, there is an equally pernicious form of intimidation 
 occasionally, and not so rarely as the public supposes, practised 
 by the voter himself. This latter has all the chameleonic charac- 
 teristics of the other type and needs quite as much moral courage 
 to grapple with it, especially if the contest threatens to be ex- 
 tremely close, so that the transfer of a dozen votes may turn the 
 scale. The father who insists that his son shall be employed, or 
 the son who requires that his father shall be added to the list 
 of clerks or messengers (or shall, at least, get the traditional 
 guinea of the personation agent), and who makes it quite clear 
 that if his wishes are not complied with he will vote the other 
 way, is the more usual type of this class of undue influence. On 
 a larger scale it may be seen, for instance, in the case of the 
 estate agent, or solicitor's rent collector, who may exert consider- 
 able influence on eighty or a hundred votes and will exercise it in 
 the interests of the candidate who " finds him a job" in the even- 
 ings for a week or fortnight before the election. What proceed- 
 ings feasible under the existing law* can touch the case of such 
 a man ? To prosecute (assuming that threats of this kind are an 
 offence) is almost certainly to fail, for this class of person is much 
 too cunning to conduct his negotiations in such a form as to 
 leave anything of evidential value behind him. If, against all 
 probability, a prosecution were successful, it means the loss of 
 
 * Merely asking for a bribe is not an offence under the modern 
 statute, though it probably is at common law. 
 
 127
 
 THE ELECTION AGENT AND HIS STAFF. 
 
 scores if not hundreds of the votes of persons who would resent the 
 invocation of the criminal law as a cowardly and unsportsmanlike 
 expedient. This psychological aspect of these problems is dis- 
 cussed in greater detail at a later stage. 
 
 The Proposals Defined. 
 
 What is here proposed, then, is that (subject to the exceptions 
 discussed below) : 
 
 No elector shall be employed at any election for payment in the 
 capacity of clerk, messenger, or polling agent by any candidate or out- 
 side organisation. Any contravention of this provision shall be an 
 illegal .practice and in any proceedings arising out of such employment, 
 or alleged employment, the onus shall be on the candidate or his elec- 
 tion agent (as the case may be) to show that he did not know, and had 
 no reasonable grounds for supposing, that the person so employed was 
 an elector. 
 
 No person shall be employed as polling agent, clerk, or messenger 
 by any candidate or " outside organisation " at any election unless such 
 person has, previously to his (or her) engagement, made written applica- 
 tion for such employment, to the candidate or election agent or outside 
 organisation. 
 
 Such written applications shall state that the applicant for employ- 
 ment is not an elector for the constituency (or any division thereof) 
 where the election is taking place. Any false statement shall be a 
 misdemeanour. The presentation of a declaration shall not exonerate 
 the election agent from the duty of careful inquiry into the matter. 
 
 The employer shall preserve such applications until the ex- 
 piration of fifty days from the date of the announcement of the result 
 of the election (i.e., for fifteen days after the filing of the return of 
 election expenses, which will contain the names of the persons em- 
 ployed for payment at the election). Failure to preserve and produce, 
 on application from the returning officer, shall be an illegal practice. 
 
 The returning officer shall, on his attention being called, not later 
 than fifty days after the declaration of the poll, to the employment of 
 a voter by any candidate or outside organisation, forthwith require 
 from the election agent, or from the secretary of such outside organisa- 
 tion (see page 142), the production of the written application for employ- 
 ment by such voter and sftiall then initiate a prosecution for making the 
 false declaration therein contained. On the hearing of the charge the 
 returning officer, and any person giving evidence either for the prosecu- 
 tion or defence, or professionally engaged in the case, shall not state, 
 and shall not be asked to state, by whom the attention of the returning 
 officer was called to the matter. 
 
 These provisions (which are, of course, only outlined in a brief 
 and concise fashion) provide an automatic antidote for the 
 employment peril. A, a candidate, by inspecting the 
 return of election expenses filed by or on behalf of B, his oppo- 
 nent, discovers that C D, a voter, was employed as a clerk at 
 the election. B, on his attention being called to the matter, 
 states that he had written application for employment in the 
 statutory form from C D. The returning officer is then acquainted 
 with the circumstances and a prosecution follows, on his initiative, 
 not on that of the ex-candidate or ex-election agent. Some share 
 of odium would no doubt be incurred by the side in whose 
 
 128
 
 THE ELECTION AGENT AND HIS STAFF. 
 
 apparent interest the prosecution was initiated, but as the election 
 would be over, .and rumour would be the best available authority 
 for the statements as to the ultimate origin of the prosecution, no 
 harm would be done in that way and, on the other hand, a real 
 advance would have been achieved in the work of destroying the 
 elusive and illicit influences which hover like a will-o'-the-wisp 
 around an election contest. 
 
 A Few Necessary Exceptions. 
 
 These provisions must be relaxed in the case of a few of the 
 prominent or permanent officials of a party organisation. The 
 election agent, if he is paid and is a voter, is not in the least 
 likely to vote, since by so doing he would vitiate the election (as 
 far as 'his own candidate was concerned, that is to say), and 
 no relief would be obtainable. He should be excepted from the 
 prohibition of the employment of voters and he is omitted from 
 the rough draft above. The chief registration agent* and in a 
 large constituency the other paid and permanent members of the 
 party organisation (not exceeding one-fourth of the total election 
 staff) should also be excepted from the provisions, the words 
 " permanent members " being defined to mean persons who have, 
 for a period of not less than six months preceding the day of their 
 appointment by the election agent, been in the regular employ- 
 ment of a party organisation. The necessity for these exceptions 
 arises from- the fact that the chief registration agent and the lead- 
 ing permanently-paid officials of the party organisation are abso- 
 lutely essential to the proper working of the electoral machinery, 
 and to exclude the election agent from retaining their services 
 because they happened to be voters would, from the point of view 
 of efficiency, be a distinctly retrograde step. On the other hand, 
 if it be contended that these provisions verge upon excessive 
 stringency, the answer is that if ruthless sterilisation, or absolute 
 asepsis, constitutes an essential accompaniment of the surgical 
 amelioration of the ills of the body physical, so is an equal ruth- 
 lessness the necessary and inevitable concomitant of the destruction 
 of the insidious social bacilli which threaten the welfare of the body 
 politic. 
 
 The Employment of Sandwich men. 
 
 With regard to the employment of sandwichmen, it would be 
 desirable to prohibit them specifically. They are not now, as a 
 rule, employed directly by an election agent, lest they should be held 
 to be messengers, and form the basis of a charge of illegal employ- 
 ment, on account of their number being in excess of the statutory 
 maximum. The usual method is for the election agent to agree 
 v.-ith a " contractor " for the " advertising " of certain facts. The 
 " contractor " (on his own initiative, as far as the election agent 
 
 * Until his functions are assumed by a public official. 
 K 179
 
 THE ELECTION AGENT AND HIS STAFF. 
 
 -officially knows) proceeds to effect the desired purpose by means 
 of sandwichmen. The net result is that the election agent has 
 succeeded in doing indirectly what he fears to do otherwise 
 that is, he has employed a number of persons whose employment is 
 probably prohibited. The undignified and evasive character of the 
 subterfuge would alone go far to justify the express prohibition of 
 the election device which tempts its adoption ; and when to that 
 reason there is added the very strong objection (based on considera- 
 tions of social self-respect) to the employment of human beings as 
 ambulatory hoardings, especially as an addition to other media of 
 untimely and undesirable display, it is believed that the case has 
 been made for specific prohibition. 
 
 Payments for Committee-Rooms. 
 
 So far as any payment to voters is concerned, the provisions in 
 the existing legislation with regard to committee-rooms might 
 well be left as they stand. Theoretically, no doubt, it would be 
 desirable to enact that 'Where a candidate hires a committee-room 
 from a voter that voter shall not vote. But as a matter of fact 
 committee-rooms are just as frequently hired from opponents as 
 from supporters ; and, moreover, the necessity of hiring committee- 
 rooms from non-voters would considerably limit the area of selec- 
 tion in a matter where the provision of suitable accommodation is 
 essential to the proper conduct of the election. In this respect 
 the existing law is quite in accord with the necessities of the case. 
 
 The Election Sense of "Agency." 
 
 Before we leave the subject of the election agent and his staff 
 it will be requisite that we briefly consider the doctrine of agency 
 in the special election sense. We shall not do this for the sake of 
 the legal principles involved. They are far better studied in 
 Rogers or Lushington than by means of the mere epitome which 
 is all that is necessary for our purpose here. What we are 
 concerned with is the fact that the doctrine of agency, in the elec- 
 tion sense, remains in a highly nebulous condition and in that 
 way constitutes a distinct menace to the absolute freedom of 
 choice which is contemplated in the Second Canon of self-govern- 
 ment, as well as to the sole rights of election and dismissal which 
 are postulated in the Fourth Canon. By means of a concise 
 synopsis of the two doctrines of agency, we shall see what this 
 menace is. 
 
 Within the scope of his authority, which is co-terminous with 
 the area and activity of the campaign itself, the election agent is 
 the plenipotentiary of the candidate. The repudiation of his 
 agency, therefore, in the event of his being guilty of corrupt or 
 illegal practices, is quite out of the question. The repudiation 
 would be almost equally difficult in the case of one joint candidate 
 
 130
 
 THE ELECTION AGENT AND HIS STAFF. 
 
 by tihe other, or of any of the paid election staff, as well as the 
 prominent and responsible leaders of the party organisation, al- 
 though their services are quite honorary. With regard to the 
 other active combatants (and, of course, to a slight extent in the 
 case of those already mentioned) there arise the most complex 
 questions with reference to the candidate's responsibility for their 
 actions questions which, if determined adversely to the candidate 
 on the hearing of a petition, may cost him a hard-won seat. There 
 is a special doctrine of election agency applicable to these cases, 
 which differs very widely from the ordinary legal doctrine of 
 agency. It is, in fact, a survival from the attempts of the old 
 election petition committees to evolve a principle which should be 
 elastic enough to reach instances where a candidate sought to 
 profit by the wrong-doing of others, while strongly protesting that 
 he was in way responsible for, or capable of controlling, their 
 actions. No man was likely to deliberately and openly authorise 
 the commission of an act which would, if brought home to him- 
 self, be fatal to his election. But if such acts were, in fact, per- 
 formed, and if they benefited him., then the question arose, not 
 whether there was agency in the ordinary legal sense (since the 
 precautions of the parties would prevent the existence of any evi- 
 dence cogent enough to establish it), but whether the political 
 relations between the persons concerned were such, in length of 
 period and degree of intimacy, as to establish agency in the elec- 
 tion sense of the term. Agency in the legal sense can be defined. 
 Of agency in the harsh and stringent election sense no definition 
 exists. Even the most acute intellects which have adorned the 
 bench on the trial of famous election petitions have shrunk from 
 the attempt to bring this elusive phenomenon within the limits of 
 logical comprehension. 
 
 The ordinary legal agency may be created in four ways :* (i) By 
 express contract, (2) by implication, (3) from necessity, and (4) 
 by ratification. Of these the first is the kind of agency which 
 exists in the case of the election agent and his staff where there 
 is an explicit and specific engagement. The third has no applica- 
 tion to election work, so that the special doctrine of agency, as 
 applied to elections, is a modification, by way of extension, of the 
 second and fourth modes in which agency may originate. For 
 instance, assuming for the moment that an action would lie for 
 the recovery of money laid out in bribery at the alleged request 
 of defendant, a candidate, the main question would be whether, in 
 fact, the defendant had authorised the laying out of the money. 
 And if it could be shown that the person who had paid the bribes, 
 
 * The reader will understand that what he is here offered is a brief 
 general summary only, such as will enable him to appreciate the con- 
 trast between ordinary agency and the agency that embarrasses the re- 
 spondents to election petitions. Ordinary legal agency treated in detail 
 requires a volume to itself.
 
 TEE ELECTION AGENT AND HIS STAFF. 
 
 though, in fact, he was an agent of the defendant, had in this 
 instance been expressly prohibited from laying out money in that 
 way (and especially if the persons who received it were well aware 
 of the prohibition), his action to recover it from the candidate 
 would fail. But as regards the agency in the election sense, the 
 question would be totally different. The proof of general agency 
 (i.e., of agency in the ordinary legal sense) would render abortive 
 any protection that was sought from the express prohibition of the 
 corrupt acts, however honest that prohibition might have been. 
 The corrupt acts of the agent, though forbidden by the candidate, 
 would, if within the very liberally defined scope of the agent's 
 authority as a political co-operator with the candidate, be 
 fatal to the candidature. The truth is that, while, in the ordi- 
 nary sense of the word, a man cannot easily make another his 
 agent without being aware of it and, in the great 
 majority of cases, without having his eyes fully open 
 to what he is doing, he may create an agent in the 
 election sense of the word without being conscious of what 
 is being done and, in fact, in such a manner that when the person 
 is ultimately decided to be his agent nobody is more astonished 
 than himself. Lest the reader should imagine that he is being 
 edified with something in the nature of picturesque exaggeration 
 he may be reminded that Mr. Justice Channell, in the junior 
 judgment in the Great Yarmouth case (5 O'M. and H., 178), 
 said that the " substance of the principle of agency is that if a man 
 is employed at the election to get you votes, or if, without being 
 employed, he is authorised to get you votes, or if, although neither 
 employed nor authorised, he does to your knowledge get you 
 votes, and you accept what he has done and adopt it, then he 
 becomes a person for whose acts you are responsible in the sense 
 that, if his acts have been of an illegal character, you cannot 
 retain the benefit which those illegal acts have helped to procure 
 for you. . . . That is, as I apprehend, clearly established law. 
 It is hard upon candidates in one sense, because it makes them 
 responsible for acts which are not only not in accordance with 
 their wish, but which are directly contrary to it." The reason 
 for this wide difference 'between common law agency 
 and agency in the election sense was stated in the 
 Gloucester petition (1873) to be that where any corruption is in- 
 tended the candidate is most carefully kept in intentional igno- 
 rance of it. The somewhat cryptic purport of this observation 
 may be illustrated by the decision in the Wigan case (4 O'M. and 
 H., n), where it was said that the position of principal (i.e., candi- 
 date) in the election sense was analogous to that of a man who 
 buys a yacht to race in his name and finds a captain and crew on 
 board. The fact that he consents to sail with them makes them 
 his agents for the purpose of sailing the race in accordance with 
 
 132
 
 THE ELECTION AGENT AND HIS STAFF. 
 
 the laws of the course. The position is, therefore, that while in 
 the ordinary relations of life a man has very large powers of con- 
 trol over his agents and knows, or can with reasonable diligence 
 discover, who they are, in the conduct of an election his political 
 fate may be jeopardised by persons over whose actions he has 
 little or no control (e.g., those of the tradesman who canvassed a 
 street with him and then proceeded to the nearest public-house 
 and called for "drinks round and the health of the candidate"); 
 who act in defiance of his orders, where he has power to give 
 them ; who do the wrongful act maliciously, with the intention of 
 injuring him; or who are almost totally unknown to him, not only 
 as agents, but at all. 
 
 The Meiiacc of Nebulosity. 
 
 This question, whether A is or is not the agent of B at a certain 
 election, is of no great moment while the contest proceeds. But 
 when the contest is over and the electors have delivered their 
 verdict it may become of very great consequence indeed. For 
 then it becomes possible for an appeal to be made from the elec- 
 torate to an alien tribunal, whose judgment, possibly setting aside 
 that of the electorate, may be very largely based upon the indi- 
 vidual opinions of two judges with regard to the nebulous doctrine 
 of agency in the election sense. A criminal statute, which enacted 
 a penalty of six months' hard labour for " discreditable conduct," 
 but gave no definition of the new offence other than that supplied 
 by the two words in which it was described, would naturally excite 
 the lively apprehension of every citizen, whose dread of the opera- 
 tion of the new law would be quickened into genuine alarm if he 
 were told that it was for the magistrate in each case to determine 
 whether the " conduct " charged against the defendant was " dis- 
 creditable" or not. But this would be a mild state of affairs 
 compared with the actualities of the election law of agency. T"he 
 candidate, who is presumably the chosen exponent of his con- 
 stituents' wishes, is, in company with them, exposed to the risk of 
 the very severest penalties, not because he himself has done any- 
 thing wrong, but because, in the opinion of the judges at the 
 trial of an election petition, some person over whom neither candi- 
 date nor constituents had any control has been guilty of a breach of 
 the election law. Clearly, the determination of questions of such 
 gravity as this ought not to be left to the absolute personal 
 discretion and the irrevocable judgment of any two men whatsoever, 
 and certainly not (and the observation does not involve the least 
 savour of disrespect to the bench) of two men who are themselves, 
 in all probability, ex-politicians, whose solitary safeguard from 
 the unilateral malformation of partisanship has been the legal 
 capacity to see both sides. Clearly, in a matter which may involve 
 post-election interference with the verdict of the ballot box, such 
 
 133
 
 THE ELECTION AGENT AND HIS STAFF. 
 
 interference ought to take place only in accordance with principles 
 that have been defined with the sharpest precision, so as to take 
 away from the electorate, and transfer to the judges, the veriest 
 minimum of discretion. It is suggested, therefore, that in any 
 reform of the law with regard to election petitions * it should be 
 enacted (i) that no candidate shall be penalised for the act of an 
 alleged agent unless his relation to such alleged agent has 
 been shown to be of such a character as must, in a civil 
 action, render him liable for the agent's acts; and 
 (2) that any principle which might be evoked to rebut 
 the alleged existence of agency in a civil case shall 
 be capable of employment in the same way, and to the same 
 effect, where it is sought to make a respondent liable for the acts of 
 an alleged agent; and especially (3) that a bona-fide prohibition 
 or limitation, which would be effective, in a civil action, to defeat 
 the allegation or presumption of agency, shall have the same force 
 on the trial of an election petition with regard to any alleged agent 
 of the respondent. If the reader will reflect how easily the elec- 
 toral selection may be assailed before an election petition court, 
 how great are the retrogressive forces whose interest it is to invoke 
 the use of this weapon against it, and how absolute is the judicial 
 discretion in the matter, he will not quarrel with the earlier de- 
 scription of this subtle peril as a menace to the absolute freedom 
 of electoral choice. 
 
 Finally, a mere passing allusion will dispose of the political 
 societies and organisations which exist in nearly every constituency. 
 Nobody doubts their right to exist and to act, or the excellent 
 effect of their work in stimulating political thought and activity. 
 But nowadays they are generally careful to support a policy rather 
 than a person ; and, furthermore, when the election is imminent 
 they are generally dissolved, lest they and every member of them 
 should be engulfed in the quagmire of agency. As regards the 
 expenses incurred by these associations, however, we shall have 
 to say something at a later stage. 
 
 Summary of Suggestions. 
 
 Election agent not to be a, minor. 
 
 Election employes to be the same throughout, not changed from 
 day to day. 
 
 The employment of electors as clerks, messengers, or polling 
 agents, by any candidate or organisation, to be absolutely pro- 
 hibited, with a few defined exceptions. 
 
 Employment of sandwichmen to be specifically prohibited. 
 
 The doctrine of agency, in the election sense, to be approxi- 
 mated to the ordinary doctrine, so as to save candidates from suffer- 
 ing for the misdoings of persons over whom they have no control. 
 
 * These are treated in greater detail, as well as from other points of 
 view, in Chapter XII.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The " Outside Organisations." 
 
 As both the candidate and the election agent have now been 
 subjected to critical scrutiny, it will be desirable at this point to 
 complete the examination of the foci of electoral activity by an 
 inspection of the character and methods of the so-called " outside 
 organisations." The law provides a statutory maximum of 
 election expenses, beyond which a candidate goes at his dire 
 peril. When this legislation was called into being there was no 
 idea that any considerable expenditure was likely to be incurred 
 by any persons other than the candidates and their agents. The 
 change that has taken place in this respect offers a good illus- 
 tration of the rapid and unforeseen developments which occur in 
 our political system. Every by-election affords specimens of the 
 new mode of action. To begin with, the great political parties 
 have each a huge central organisation, consisting in the main of 
 highly-trained and skilled organisers. As soon as a by-election 
 appears on the political horizon the heads of the central office 
 put themselves in communication, with the party candidate, or 
 with the chief of his organisation, and offer the services of a num- 
 ber of the agents in various constituencies, who are attached to, or 
 under the control of, the central office. The candidate or his 
 election agent will be considered a man of moderate aspirations if 
 he limits his request to the services of half a dozen of these 
 auxiliaries, the majority of whom are among the most loyal, effi- 
 cient, and hard-working colleagues that are ever likely to fall 
 within ordinary mortal experience. They are worth a guinea per 
 day per man, if they are Worth anything at all ; so that if the 
 agent confines his request to the services of half a dozen their 
 value to him in a three weeks' campaign will be 108 gs. But 
 this amount, substantial as it is, will not be found in the candi- 
 date's return of election expenses ; and if the vigilant agent 
 on the other side should happen to ignore party amenities and 
 endeavour to discover it there, he will be told that, as a result of 
 an understanding which has been found extremely convenient, 
 these expenses are never included in it. The election agent has 
 certainly made no payment to these welcome auxiliaries, and a?, 
 far as his official knowledge is supposed to extend, they have not 
 been paid at all. They have apparently come down at their own- 
 expense, rendered valuable technical assistance at the cost of a 
 considerable expenditure of time and trouble, and gone away with- 
 out even asking for any remuneration. Inasmuch, however, as 
 Ixrth sides avail themselves of the services of these irregular troops, 
 their employment has now become as much a convention of elec- 
 tioneering as the obligation to resign after a vote of want of 
 confidence in the House of Commons is a convention of the 
 
 '35
 
 THE "OUTSIDE ORGANISATIONS." 
 
 constitution. The only objection to the system is that it is a defi- 
 ance of the law, tolerated because it is supposed to meet an, admitted 
 need, and fair because both sides benefit by it. 
 
 The Germ of Civic Disorganisation. 
 
 These party auxiliaries, however, form by no means the whole 
 of the irregular troops which take the field in a modern election 
 campaign. The old idea of concentrating on the candidate all the 
 problems, hostilities, and activities of the fight has long ceased to 
 receive any wide acceptance as a principle of action. Under that 
 ancient system, indeed, a candidate might reasonably be held in 
 a large degree responsible for the conduct of the campaign, and 
 the doctrine of agency received a special interpretation in order 
 that it might be adapted to the necessities of election work. That 
 state of things, however, has long ceased to be anything but a part 
 of election antiquaries. In a modern election, as far as active con- 
 trol of the proceedings goes, the candidates and their organisa- 
 tions, so far from being the controlling centres of activity, are only 
 single elements in a multiplicity of forces, some of them of con- 
 siderable magnitude, and all of them (except those of the candi- 
 dates) working with complete irresponsibility as regard's the ex- 
 penses tihey incur, and with very little check on the methods they 
 employ. The expenses of each candidate are restricted to a given 
 sum say, ^1,010; and even within the limits of that amount the 
 candidate is restricted in the number of his committee-rooms, 
 clerks and messengers. No such restrictions 'hamper the various 
 " outside organisatio'iis " which transfer their activity to the con- 
 stituency. Each organisation may spend ^20,000 if it chooses; 
 may open committee-rooms in every street, and may employ hun- 
 dreds (or if it prefers, thousands) of voters on so-called election 
 work. By means of the election expenditure of the candidate, 
 joined to his personal efforts as propagandist, and to the labours 
 of his organisation, the whole contemporaneous political pro- 
 gramme has to be dealt with in every phase which is likely to 
 touch the interests of the electorate. But the outside organisa- 
 tions are, as a rule, only concerned with individual items of the 
 policy which is before the country. The liquor trade and the 
 temperance party ; the Unionists and the Home Rulers ; the Pro- 
 testants and their opponents; free traders and tariff reformers; 
 societies which support, and societies which oppose, additional 
 expenditure on certain specified portions of the national establish- 
 ment, such as the navy; and societies called into instant, and 
 apparently prosperous, existence by the latest attempted legisla- 
 tion all these, and more, as political exigencies, party tactics, 
 and individual interests require, enter upon the electoral scene, 
 spend huge sums of money, whose real source is frequently un- 
 known, indulge in methods of campaigning from which the boldest 
 
 136
 
 THE "OUTSIDE ORGANISATIONS." 
 
 candidate would shrink as long as the Corrupt and Illegal Prac- 
 tices Prevention Acts remain unrepealed, and are accountable to 
 no public authority either as regards their money or their methods. 
 Plainly, we have here the germ, already sprouting vigorously, of 
 downright civic disorganisation in a shape which is full of menace 
 to those twin elements of dignity and deliberation: that are essential 
 to the adequate and responsible exercise of the citizen's choice in a 
 Parliamentary contest. A belief that the law should interfere with 
 the work of selecting representatives as little as is consistent with 
 the maintenance of order, decency, and freedom of choice may 
 well be the immovably^roioted conviction of an intelligent ob- 
 server of our electoral system); and yet he may see in the existing 
 state of things a very near approach to electoral anarchy. The 
 law ihas lost its grip upon the very process for which it depends 
 for its own' continued and progressive existence. 
 
 No Limit to "Outside" Expenditure. 
 
 The extremely mischievous tendency of this kind of thing, under 
 its present uncontrolled and irresponsible conditions, must be 
 evident to the most casual observer of the drift of political affairs. 
 It is unfair and embarrassing to the candidates, and it flaunts 
 before the eyes of the elector all those phantasmagoria of subsi- 
 dised activity and display which only distract his sober judgment 
 from the mature consideration of his duty and his trust. The 
 result is that the comparatively reasonable amount of officially 
 known and recognised election expenses, which was originally in- 
 tended to be, practically speaking, the whole of the money ex- 
 pended on the electoral process, now forms merely an infini- 
 tesimal part of it, whose proportion to the whole grows less at 
 every election. We may with advantage consider these aspects 
 of the problem in somewhat greater detail. As regards the candi- 
 date, his position under existing circumstances is that of a man 
 who is called upon' to fight a multitude of skilful and well-equipped 
 opponents with one hand tied behind his back. He is limited to 
 a certain maximum) expenditure, which might easily be reduced 
 were our elections conducted on saner principles, but which is 
 none too much as long as they continue unreformed. Any ex- 
 penditure in excess of that amount is fatal to his candidature. 
 But at the same time he finds in the field against him numerous 
 powerful organisations which are at liberty to spend as much as 
 they choose, and to do it in what manner they please. Their 
 supply of "literature" is unlimited. His is not. They may, at 
 the last minute, flood the constituency with misleading or even 
 absolutely false statements with regard to his political principles 
 and programme, while he, on the other hand, may be reminded 
 by his election agent that the funds still in hand are totally inade- 
 quate to deal with this last thrust in the only effective way by 
 
 137
 
 THE "OUTSIDE ORGANISATIONS." 
 
 an immediate postal communication sent to every individual 
 elector. Some of the organisations, in truth, may have no real 
 political basis at all, but may merely be the stalking-horses of 
 powerful personal interests, or even of nothing better than per- 
 sonal malice. There is nothing to prevent the expenditure of 
 ^20,000 by the Anti-Astronomy League, which has been formed 
 and as operated solely for the purpose of annoying and defeating 
 a candidate who happens to be a distinguished exponent of the 
 Nebular Theory and therefore obnoxious to its organisers. Pro- 
 vided that the league makes no false statement with reference 
 to the personal character and conduct of the candidate, he has no 
 remedy and no protection against this illicit campaigning. It is 
 true that if the league's expenditure is of such a kind as to amount 
 to general corruption, the constituency may be disfranchised ; 
 but that would be small comfort to an honourable man who, in a 
 straightforward way, bad sought the honour of representing it in 
 Parliament, and who was in no sense responsible for the civic mis- 
 conduct which had brought down the penalty upon it. 
 
 In the case of responsible organisations, it is true that the can- 
 didate knows what he is fighting ; but in the case of some at least 
 of the irregular forces which make their appearance at an elec- 
 tion, the unfairness of their operations is aggravated by the mystery 
 of their origin.. Nobody knows who or what they are, or whence 
 their supplies of money (often very ample) are derived. Inquiry 
 has been known to reveal the fact that the " headquarters " of the 
 organisation! was an empty room at 'the top of four nights of stairs, 
 although the resources which did not extend to the employment of 
 a clerk in charge of the " headquarters " were equal to the strain 
 of paying for .500 worth of printing, and the provision of 
 numerous paid speakers. 
 
 The Theatrical and the Gregarious. 
 
 As they affect the elector individually and the constituency at 
 large, the influences arising from the advent of these organisations 
 are in the highest degree reprehensible. They deal in the theatri- 
 cal and the gregarious, twin weapons of political warfare of 
 which the former is wholly, and the latter very largely, foreign to 
 the true electoral spirit. Their acres of pictorial display, and 
 their numerous meetings addressed by paid speakers, only serve 
 in the main to distract and perplex the electorate. They employ 
 large numbers of electors who consider that the money 
 which they receive does not interfere with their right to vote, which 
 it would do if their wages came from the actual candidates. Com- 
 mittee-rooms are engaged at " fancy " prices, and local tradesmen 
 (especially owners of halls) are " placated " by lavish patronage. 
 The large permanent staffs of the outside organisations are fre- 
 quently brought down, at what must be enormous expense, for 
 
 138
 
 THE "OUTSIDE ORGANISATIONS." 
 
 weeks at a time. They are employed at canvassing, which, as 
 they are paid, is a defiance of the law; and their extensive patron- 
 age of hotels and boarding-house keepers introduces yet another 
 alien and disquieting element into the contest. In lavish expeiv 
 ddture, in artificial excitement, in garish display, in absolute irre- 
 sponsibility of method, these organisations are, speaking generally, 
 modern representatives of the civic excrescences and abnormalities 
 at which the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Acts were 
 intended to strike, but at which in a modern election, if they strike 
 at all, it is with an almost palsied arm. 
 
 " Speaking generally," was the expression employed in the last 
 sentence. The writer is perfectly well aware that any all round 
 condemnation of these organisations, or of the system which, when 
 working legally and honestly, they represent, would go far beyond 
 the mark. People who have a genuine interest, be it pecuniary or 
 only sentimental, in a certain political qxiestion, 'have a perfect 
 right to urge their opinions upon their fellow-citizens, and even to 
 spend money in securing the wider dissemination of their views. 
 To seriously check, much less to suppress, such manifestations of 
 political activity would be to loosen the very foundations of self- 
 government. But any individual or organisation acting in this 
 way should be (i) identifiable and (2) responsible 'both as to the 
 source and as to the employment of the money which he or it 
 expends. 
 
 (i) The identity of the organisation and its agents is so closely 
 connected with the question of canvassing that it will be convenient 
 to treat the two subjects together. At the outset, we must not 
 forget that canvassing, as a part of the electoral machinery, is 
 subject to precisely the same evolutionary influences as the other 
 parts. There was a time when it was quite consistent with Eng- 
 lish* political progress, as then understood, that the civic interest 
 of the voter should be aroused by the solicitations of the persons 
 who desired his support. Those were the days when political 
 knowledge had permeated only to a slight extent through the 
 various strata of the population. At a period which was, his- 
 torically speaking, not very much earlier, the constituencies would 
 gladly have been excused from sending representatives at all. Of 
 these crude conditions and methods the theory and practice of 
 canvassing are survivals. They are based upon the idea that the voter 
 has a favour to confer upon the candidate by giving his support, 
 whereas, in truth, it is the candidate who has a favour to confer 
 upon the voter, by consenting to receive if. So much a glance at 
 the essentials of the process will tell us in language that cannot 
 be gainsaid. The election of a representative has ceased to be the 
 feeble response of an apathetic organism to unwelcome stimulus 
 
 * Canvassing is not a native institution, of course. 
 139
 
 THE "OUTSIDE ORGANISATIONS." 
 
 from, a solitary personal centre of political knowledge and power 
 chiefly anxious, not so much for conference with the chosen knight 
 or burgess, as for his consent to the levying of a pecuniary demand 
 upon those who chose him. This was the master, claiming, and 
 in the early days not reluctant to compel, the assent of his ser- 
 vants. But as the character of the process changed, and as the 
 great mass of popular sentiment became less and less able to im- 
 press itself upon a House of Commons whose origins were 
 oligarchic, the so-called representative was placed in a position 
 where he was subject to only a small degree of control 
 by those for whom, technically, he had the power to 
 speak; whom, theoretically, he had authority to bind. 
 Hence it was that he, and not they, became the 
 primary object of conciliation by the powers at the centre; and 
 he who had favours to receive, he whose price could often be 
 estimated in coin, cockade, or coronet, turned naturally to seek, by 
 corruption and by canvassing, for the continued tenure of a posi- 
 tion so fruitful of benefit to himself. For that he begged ; for that 
 he intrigued, struggled, complied or paid. And still, when all 
 these ideas and modes of action are known by political thinkers 
 of the most ordinary type to be as extinct as the clerkship of the 
 petty-bag, the theory and practice of canvassing survives, as the 
 part of a " cake of custom " which is hardest to dislodge from 
 the position where it has clung for centuries. 
 
 Objectionable Aspects of Canvassing. 
 
 But with political conditions changed, it is not the candi- 
 date who should in these days ask that he may be allowed to 
 render service to the political fellowship of which he is a member. 
 The relative positions of the old political forces are, in truth, en- 
 tirely transposed ; and the citizen ought not to expect (as, holding 
 fast to traditional ideals, he often does expect) that he shall be 
 sought out and requested to confer as a favour that of which he 
 should dispose as a trust. His duty demands that he confer the 
 honour of representation, not because another has asked him for 
 it, but because that other is regarded by him (in the exercise of 
 serious civic judgment) as the most excellent instrument of cor- 
 porate organic activity. Of course, so far as canvassing consists of 
 an explanation to individual electors of elements in a candidate's 
 programme which they do not understand, or with which, in the 
 absence of exposition, they might not be in sympathy, it is outside 
 the scope of criticism from the point of view which we have 
 lately occupied. But for one call which is made upon an elector 
 by the candidate for the purpose of exposition, discussion, and the 
 removal of misapprehensions, there are a hundred made by profes- 
 sional and non-professional canvassers, with the object of begging 
 or extorting a favour, not of furnishing the materials of political 
 
 140
 
 THE "OUTSIDE ORGANISATIONS." 
 
 judgment. And it is no small reproach to a large section of the 
 electorate that it demands this sycophancy. " Mr. A has not been 
 called on, and therefore he will not vote," is a commoni answer 
 on election day to the question whether Mr. A has polled or not. 
 As if the exercise of a civic trust depended upon the titillation 
 of personal vanity, upon the realisation by the candidate that, for 
 once at least, the elector can compel the attitude of subserviency 
 and will only consent to fling his gift into hands outstretched in 
 fulsome appeal. The manner and method of modern canvassing 
 are alike unworthy of the proud dignity which should characterise 
 these electoral processes from beginning to end. In another fifty 
 years it should be utterly obsolete. Meanwhile, as we have 
 grasped its true significance as a survival from the lower stage of 
 political progress, and as it would be premature and futile to sug- 
 gest its absolute prohibition at the moment (though its prevention 
 has been attempted in the Colonies), we may profitably 
 occupy ourselves with the question of its regulation as a means of 
 pruning away its all too obvious excrescences. 
 
 The Abolition of Anonymity. 
 
 The elector, surely, has a clear and indisputable right to know 
 who and what the persons are who enter the constituency 
 to talk politics with him, and to essay his conversion to their own 
 opinions. The phrase " enter the constituency " is used advisedly, 
 for there is no intention of suggesting that an elector in the con- 
 stituency has not an absolute right to carry on the work of genuinely 
 canvassing his brother-electors and discussing the mutual 
 interests of all (provided he is not paid); and none 
 of the remarks which follow are intended to apply to a 
 person so qualified. Clearly, then, persons who take the 
 trouble to come into the constituency, sometimes from consider- 
 able distances and at large expense, should be compelled to pro- 
 vide themselves with credentials, in order that the voter may 
 scrutinise the origins of their political enthusiasm and accurately 
 estimate their claims upon his confidence. These considerations 
 lead us to the first of the expedients which are necessary for clear- 
 ing the electoral area from its present tangle of irresponsibility 
 and mystery and bringing its conditions into line with the require- 
 ments of the Third Canon.* 
 
 (A) No person, other than a registered elector of the constituency 
 where the election is taking place and a candidate who is actually 
 " standing " for such constituency, shall systematically canvass therein 
 during the twenty days preceding an election unless his name 
 and address shall have been coirectly registered with the head 
 postmaster of the constituency ; and no club, society, or other organisa- 
 tion, whether permanent or temporary, shall, by itself or its agents, 
 
 * The suggestions about to be outlined were originally put forth by the 
 present writer in Reynolds's Newspaper, April 26, 1908. 
 
 141
 
 THE "OUTSIDE ORGANISATIONS:' 
 
 canvass, or otherwise occupy itself, in the election by the opening of 
 committee-rooms, the issue of bills or pamphlets, the holding of meet- 
 ings, or in any other manner, during the period of candidature, unless 
 it has been registered in the same way. A fee of 6d. shall be charged 
 for the registration, and the register shall be called the 
 Register of Canvassers, and shall be open to public inspection on pay- 
 ment of a fee of jd. for each such inspection. On payment, by post, of 
 a fee of is., the postmaster shall search the register for a specified name 
 and state in writing if he finds it or not. 
 
 No club, society, or other organisation, whether permanent or 
 temporary, and whether composed of electors or not ; and no person, 
 whether an elector or not, shall incur any expense whatever, in excess 
 of the sum of 1 (except the travelling and lodging expenses of a 
 registered canvasser, when bona fide paid by himself in connection 
 with any election), unless such club, society, organisation or person has 
 been registered as above ; and in the case of a club, society or other 
 organisation the registered particulars shall include the name and 
 address of the person who registers it, and the name and address of the 
 secretary, without both of which the registration shall not take place; 
 and the names and addresses of the managers, committee, directors, or 
 other controlling body (if any) of such club, society, or association. 
 The registration of a name without authority, or the furnishing of a 
 false name and address, shall be a misdemeanour,. 
 
 These suggestions are, of course, in the rough form which srffices 
 for their discussion- at the present stage. They are, 
 ft is submitted, in no sense a menace to political free- 
 dom, independence, and activity. It is essential to the 
 proper working of the Corrupt arid Illegal Practices Prevention 
 Acts that outsiders entering the constituency to canvass shall 
 truthfully state whence they come and who they are. The in- 
 formation will enable inquiry to be made as to the probability of 
 their coming, at their own expense, to canvass for paid can- 
 vassing is illegal. There are cases 'many have fallen within the 
 experience of the present writer where enthusiasm for a given 
 cause or candidate brings men and women, from far and near, at 
 great expense and self-sacrifice, to canvass for him. Still, let us 
 know who they are, even if they are bona-fide volunteers. And as 
 regards cluibs and persons, the necessity of registration and the 
 payment of a trifling fee imposes no check Whatever upon legiti- 
 mate political enthusiasm. The trouble imposed is less than that 
 which is involved in taking out a dog license. What the provi- 
 sions do strike at is not honest political eagerness whose origin can 
 bear critical scrutiny, but the illegal, the corrupt, the lavish, and 
 the mysterious ; and if the blow is fatal, so much the better. 
 
 The Destruction of Irresponsibility. 
 
 By means of these provisions we have disposed of the element 
 of anonymity in election work. So far as regards organisation and 
 propaganda, the effect will be to bring into the open any person 
 whose desire to impress his views upon the citizens at a time when 
 they are deliberating upon an irrevocable verdict is such as to 
 
 142
 
 THE "OUTSIDE ORGANISATIONS." 
 
 lead him to the expenditure of time, trouble, money, or money's 
 worth. Supplied with the outline of an expedient for discovering 
 identity, we pass to the method of imposing responsibility. 
 
 (B) Within seven days of the day of election, the head postmaster of the 
 electoral area in which the election took place, shall transmit to the 
 returning officer a certified copy of the list of all persons and of all 
 clubs, societies, and organisations registered at the election in accordance 
 with the foregoing provisions. Every person, whether an elector or 
 not, and every club, society, or association, whether temporary cr 
 permanent, and whether composed of electors or not, shall, within 
 twenty-one days of the election, pay all expenses in excess of the total 
 sum of ji incurred by him or it in connection with such election, and 
 the payment of such expenses shall thereafter be statute barred, as is 
 now the case with the expenses of a candidate ; and shall, further, 
 within thirty-five days of the election, transmit to the returning officer 
 an account of such expenses, duly sworn, together with vouchers and 
 receipts for all amounts over ji. Such accounts shall include the 
 names and addresses of all persons to whom payment was made for 
 work and labour done (the nature and character of such work being 
 clearly specified), and for materials supplied, as well as for the hire 
 of :committee-rooms, and halls for meetings. Postages, telegrams, and 
 miscellaneous expenses shall also be detailed and vouched for. The 
 accounts shall, as nearly as circumstances admit, be in the form specified 
 by the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Acts for the return of 
 the election expenses of a candidate, and shall extend over the same 
 period as if the person, or organisation, had been a candidate. It shall 
 be made, signed, and sworn to (i) by the person himself, if returning 
 his own expenditure ; or (2) by the person registered as secretary, or by 
 one of the persons registered as the controlling body, and by no other 
 person, in the case of a club, society, or organisation, and such person 
 shall be responsible for its completeness and accuracy in the same 
 manner and to the same extent as a candidate or election agent. 
 
 Any person may inspect such returns, and obtain copies thereof, on 
 the same terms and in the same manner as if they were the returns made 
 by a candidate. 
 
 The returning officer shall compare the returns received with the list 
 of registered persons and societies furnished to him by the head 
 postmaster of the constituency, and in case any registered person or 
 organisation shall have failed to make the return, or if the return, 
 though made, is not of the form and character required by the Act, the 
 returning officer shall forthwith notify such person or organisation, by 
 registered letter, to the person making the return, if one has been made, 
 or to the person himself, in the case of a person, and to the secretary, in 
 the case of an organisation, if the return has not been made ; and 
 shall require such person to file such return, or such amended return, 
 within seven days, after which interval, if his requirements have not been 
 complied with, he shall report the facts to the Public Prosecutor, who 
 shall, if satisfied of wilful default, concealment, or misstatement, 
 initiate a prosecution of the offender. 
 
 It need hardly be said that if any person or organisation can be 
 shown to be an agent of the candidate, his or its expenses must be 
 included in his return, and the omission so to include them would 
 be fatal on petition. 
 
 The Lavish and the Mysterious Disappear. 
 
 These provisions secure responsibility. They do not check 
 political activity. Any person, or any organisation, may spend 
 
 M3
 
 THE "OUTSIDE ORGANISATIONS." 
 
 money on propagandist work, but must reveal, on oath, when and 
 where and how it was spent. In this way we get an automata c 
 check upon the amount of expenditure, for no person or society 
 is likely to lay out money on such a lavish scale as 
 shall, when the return reveals the facts, call immediate attention 
 to its magnitude. The certainty of this scrutiny by critical eyes 
 will keep the expenditure strictly within legitimate limits as to its 
 objects; will enable the tracing of payments to electors for ser- 
 vices as clerks, messengers, or speakers; will show, in brief, the 
 precise extent and character of the pecuniary influence brought to 
 bear upon the constituency by the person or organisation who, or 
 which, is the subject of the return. The mysterious, the lavish, and 
 the illegal will disappear under the wholesome light of publicity and 
 responsibility, without endangering the healthy exercise of a single 
 legitimate aspiration or enthusiasm- The requirements are quite 
 modest in comparison with those which are applicable to a regis- 
 tered company. In that case, even if the capital be only ^10, and 
 the object merely the acquisition of a business of the most unim- 
 portant character, the law requires disclosure of the names and 
 addresses of the shareholders, and of the amount paid up on their 
 shares, and of various other particulars, and all these are open to 
 the inspection of any person who applies at Somerset House, 
 while the list of shareholders must also be exhibited to any appli- 
 cant who pays is. at the company's office. Surely an individual, 
 and much more an organisation, possessed by the ambition to guide 
 and influence the political judgment and to assist in shaping the 
 destiny of tne electoral organism should not object to submit 
 to some slight measure of the kind of publicity that is enforced 
 even upon the humble joint-stock organisation which, in the in- 
 terests of a handful of obscure persons, purchases and owns a 
 chandfler's shop. The writer would personally favour the compul- 
 sory disclosure, on oath, of the source of the funds whose expendi- 
 ture is set forth in these returns. So much he has indicated 
 above, but he feels that this is so drastic a proposal that it is best 
 left, for the present, in the form of a suggestion. There are 
 honest causes which may quite legitimately desire to keep secret 
 the source of their supplies. 
 
 No Restriction on Amount. 
 
 It will have been observed that this scheme contemplates the 
 imposition of no restriction on the amount of money expended at 
 an election by persons and organisations other than the candidates 
 and their official agencies. As the candidate's expenses are 
 strictly limited (and it is elsewhere in this essay proposed to sub- 
 ject them to a still further limitation), it would seem at first sight 
 desirable also to limit those of the unofficial agencies. But the 
 only scheme which is apparently feasible is the limitation of the 
 expenditure of each person and each organisation to a given 
 
 144
 
 THE "OUTSIDE ORGANISATIONS." 
 
 proportion (say 5 or 10 per cent.) of that permitted to the candidate. 
 Thus, in a constituency wihere the total statutory expenditure of a 
 candidate was ^1,010, no individual or organisation external to 
 the candidate and his own agencies would be permditted to expend 
 more than ^101. But this would only lead to evasion. Instead 
 of a single temperance organisation spendling ^404, there would 
 be four such organisations spending ^101 each ,and playing into 
 one another's hands. The endeavour to prevent this kind of 
 evasion would be utterly futile. Apparently, then, it may be 
 argued, we do not abolish the unfairness of the present system, 
 under wbich the limited expenditure of the candidate is opposed 
 to the unlimrted expenditure of the opposing organisations. But, 
 in fact, this object is indirectly attained by the ensuring of 
 identity and responsibility, which will, the writer believes, operate 
 with complete efficiency, and save us from the nwess-ity, on the 
 one hand, of attempting to suppress what may be the bom-fide 
 expression of political zeal, and, on the other, of endeavouring by 
 legislative means to attain the unattainable. 
 
 The Party Organisations. 
 
 It will be seen that under these provisions the party organisations 
 will be required to make a return of their expenditure, and any 
 legislation which seriously assails the difficulties and complexities 
 of this question will be imperfect if it does not provide specifically 
 that the central party funds shall be subject to the same obliga- 
 tion with regard to the publication of exact details, possibly of the 
 source, and certainly with regard to the expenditure of their 
 supplies. To say that there are at least two giant organisations 
 controlling large sums of money of mysterious or at least un- 
 disclosed origin, and carrying on the work of politi- 
 cal finance on a colossal scale, while at the same time 
 enjoying absolute freedom from the publicity which at- 
 tends the expenditure of every Parliamentary candidate, is 
 simply to indicate the existence of an intolerable state of affairs, 
 ripe for the limbo which holds the Star Chamber and the pocket 
 borough. Against a central party organisation, and against the 
 funds necessary for its support, nothing need be said ; but inas- 
 much as it is a powerful influence affecting the very mainsprings of 
 national action, the nation has the clearest right to know whence 
 its energy is derived and precisely how it is expended. 
 
 Very closely allied with these problems are the considerations 
 which arise with regard to the expenses incurred by local and 
 permanent political associations in support of a given candidate. 
 These differ from the " outside organisations " in that their work is 
 of local, not general, scope ; of permanent character, not confined 
 to the few weeks of the actual contest. It would be contrary to 
 all sound principles of political liberty to suggest that persons 
 
 L 145
 
 THE "OUTSIDE ORGANISATIONS." 
 
 who desire to energise and assist a certain political programme 
 should not be at liberty to organise themselves for the purpose, 
 and to carry on a united propaganda. Even if the work is de- 
 signed to secure the return of a certain candidate, the expenses 
 will not form part of the statutory maximum unless the alliance 
 between candidate and association is so close as to create agency. 
 All that is necessary to bring such an organisation into line with 
 the Third Canon of self-government is a provision that if it spends 
 money within the period of candidature it shall make a sworn 
 return thereof. But this ideal association, working for the realisa- 
 tion of its own political aims in absolute independence of the 
 interests of an individual candidature, seldom exists in perma- 
 nent reality, though some conspicuous instances have fallen within 
 the experience of the present writer. But as a rude the can- 
 didate finds most of the money, and it is generally 
 under his personal superintendence that it is expended. It 
 is true that as soon as the election comes in sight the association 
 is formally dissolved, in order that neither it, nor any of its 
 members, may engulf the candidate in the quagmire of agency. 
 But when the election is over, it is reconstituted, and once again 
 becomes the obsequious shadow of the candidate. From the 
 point of view of the present essay this state of things is open to 
 serious objection. Under the provisions which have been already- 
 submitted, however, the association would be compelled to make 
 a sworn return of its expenditure within the period of candidature. 
 It would 'be desirable to deduct from such expenditure any con- 
 tributions by the candidate, in order that they might be included 
 in the amount of his own election expenses, subject to the excep- 
 tion that the association might set aside any agreed proportion. of 
 its entire income (without distinction of source) for registration 
 work (so long as registration is not a public charge), and that so 
 much of the candidate's contributions as forms part of that pro- 
 portion, and is bona fide expended in registration work, need not 
 be included in the candidate's return of election expenses. If 
 the candidate gives an annual, or otherwise periodical, sum, such 
 proportion of that sum as corresponds to the period of candida- 
 ture would have to be included in the return, the amount being 
 deemed to accrue from 1 week to week. Thus, a candidate who 
 subscribes ^200 a year to an association will have to include 
 too of that expense in his election return, under a six months' 
 limit of candidature, or ^50 under a three months' limit. These 
 suggestions seem stringent, but inasmuch as the only effect of the 
 present system is to facilitate the evasion, as regards money 
 contributed to associations, of the provisions of the Corrupt and 
 Illegal Practices Prevention Act of 1883, there is clear need for 
 reform. As we are not prepared to repeal the Act, we may as 
 well make it effective, even at the cost of some apparent severity. 
 
 146
 
 THE ''OUTSIDE ORGANISATIONS" 
 
 Present Provision as to "Small" Expenses. 
 
 There is a proviso aftached to Section 28 (i) of the Corrupt 
 and Illegal Practices Prevention Act of 1883 which would have to 
 be modified in order to render these proposed provisions effective. 
 This proviso excepts from the election expenses which are pay- 
 able through the " election agent " any sum disbursed by any 
 person out of his own money for any small expense legally incurred 
 by himself, if such sum is not repaid to him. It is clear from the 
 existence of this proviso that the Legislature could not have con- 
 templated the existence of either persons or organisations free to 
 spend on election work whatever amounts they chose and in what- 
 ever way. For it will be seen that the proviso postulates that the 
 permissible expenses shall be (i) small which the expenses of a 
 huge "outside organisation" certainly are not; (2) legally in- 
 curred, which is not the case with enormous expenditure on paid 
 canvassers ; (3) paid out of his own money that is to say, out of 
 his personal resources, not out of hoige sums whose origin is 
 uncertain; and (4) not repaid to him. In the Norwich petition 
 (4 O'M. and H., 89), Mr. Justice Cave said! that these provisions 
 were certainly never intended to apply to the expenditure of such a 
 sum as ^20 in the posting and distribution of placards. They 
 might, he thought, legitimise the purchase of " half a crown's 
 worth of cartoons" by a person who was not the election agent. 
 Clearly, if this is sound law, every one of the " outside organisa- 
 tions " could be successfully assailed even under the existing statu- 
 tory provisions. Their expenditure, so far from being limited to 
 half a crown's worth of cartoons, or even 20 worth of bill post- 
 ing, expands to ^200, and even to ^2,000, if their own inclina- 
 tion (for they are subject to no other authority) should lead them 
 in that direction. 
 
 Summary of Proposals. 
 
 All persons (other than electors) coming into a constituency to 
 canvass are to be registered in the manner described. 
 
 All organisations, whether local or not, and whether permanent 
 or temporary, which engage in election work must be similarly 
 registered. 
 
 All persons, whether electors or not, and all organisations, 
 spending more than i in connection with the propagandist work 
 of the election, must make a return in the same form, with the 
 same completeness, and subject to the same penalties, as if they 
 had been candidates.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 The Election Expenses. 
 
 Modern ethical standards and ideals have rendered the public 
 conscience intolerant of the open and shameless personal bribery 
 which, almost within the memory of living men, characterised an 
 election contest. The voter does not now receive large sums of 
 money from one side or the other, or from both, in return for a 
 vote which perhaps after all he did not trouble to record at the 
 " open " hustings for these were the pre-ballot days. But even 
 where lavish and wholesale personal bribery had been abolished 
 (or, at least, rendered too dangerous to be worth while) there re- 
 mained the possibility of prodigal election expenditure, which was 
 capable of exercising a direct influence upon those who profited 
 by it, and of casting an almost equally potent spell over those who 
 saw its results in liberal " employment," garish display, the bray- 
 ing of brass, and the flaunting of favours. This in turn has, been 
 struck at by the Legislature, and there is mow an absolute maximum 
 of election expenditure, beyond which the candidate is a trespasser 
 upon forbidden ground. The total aggregate election expenses 
 incurred by candidates throughout the United Kingdom at the 
 election of 1880 (the last before the Corrupt and Illegal Practices 
 Prevention Act of 1883) was ,1,736,781. At the 1885 election 
 it was ^1,026,645; in 1900, ^777,429; and in 1906 ^958,921, 
 out of an aggregate statutory maximum of ,1,215,630. In order 
 that these maxima shall not be exceeded it is enacted that 
 within thirty-five days of the election the candidate (or 
 his election agent) must make a sworn return, showing 
 what he spent and how he spent it, and furnishing vouchers and 
 receipts for all the items over 2. The making of a false return 
 is a corrupt practice, punishable as wilful and corrupt perjury. 
 Scarcely, however, has there been time for the realisation of the 
 greater purity and dignity of the elections by means of the aboli- 
 tion of direct bribery and of its indirect concomitant, lavish ex- 
 penditure, before a third and even more insidious source of pro- 
 digality has sprung into being, in the shape of the " outside organi- 
 sations " which we have already discussed, with what was, it is 
 hoped, an unrestrained candour of expression. 
 
 The law, then, as we have already seen, defines the maximum 
 number of persons who should be employed for payment at an 
 election. It also fixes maxima of expenses, differing according to 
 the character of the constituency, county or borough. In a county 
 (or division thereof) the maximum is .650 for the first 2,000 
 electors and ^60 for every complete 1,000 electors above the 
 original 2,000. Upon 3,999 electors the candidate may there- 
 fore expend ^710, and upon 4,000 .770. The addition of a 
 
 148
 
 THE ELECTION EXPENSES. 
 
 jingle elector to the register augments the candidate's statutory 
 potentialities of expenditure by no less than ^60. In boroughs 
 the candidate is permitted to expend ^350 on the first 2,000 
 electors and ^30 extra for every complete 1,000 electors above 
 that aggregate. There are provisions for a slight reduction of these 
 amounts in the case of joint candidates that is to say, that where, 
 in a double-member constituency, the candidates " hunt in 
 couples," publishing a joint address, or joint circular, hiring or 
 using the same committee-rooms, and employing or using the same 
 sub-agents, clerks, messengers, and personation agents (except 
 where the joint use is " accidental, casual, trivial, or unimpor- 
 tant "), the respective pairs of candidates are to be deemed " joint 
 candidates." Inasmuch as this alliance will considerably reduce 
 the necessities of expense, the statutory maximum is, for two joint 
 candidates, to be reduced by one-fourth, and for more than two* 
 joint candidates by one-third. At Newcastle-on-Tyne, for in- 
 stance, twoi candidates who choose to fight separately (though be- 
 longing to the same party and supporting the same programme) 
 would be entitled to spend ,1,400 each. If they became joint 
 candidates their joint statutory maximum would be ^2,100, in- 
 stead of ^2,800, the sum of the separate maxima. 
 
 "Joint" and Separate Candidates. 
 
 The reader will note the distinction between a pair of candi- 
 dates, contending, as a pair, for a double seat, and two separate 
 candidates, representing the same political programme, fighting 
 for a single seat. In this latter case each candidate is permitted 
 to expend the full statutory maximum. The only weakness here 
 is the opening left for hopeless candidatures which enable a 
 second, or even a third, statutory maximum to be expended 
 against the candidate on the other side, though there is not the 
 least prospect of the election of the candidate who expends it, and 
 the only result (and occasionally the only purpose) of the process 
 is to assist the candidate who is benefited by the diversion of votes 
 from the opponent against whom the scheme is directed For in- 
 stance, let A, a Unionist, and B, a Liberal, be the candidates in 
 a contest (with fairly even chances) where the maximum statutory 
 expenditure is ^1,010. According to the accepted canons of 
 election forecast, the appearance of a Labour candidate will 
 weaken the position of B, the Liberal, and improve the pro- 
 spects of A, the Unionist. But even if the Labour candidate is 
 only put up maliciously, in order to cause the loss of the seat (or, 
 less creditably still, to glut a personal 1 grudge), he will 
 be entitled to spend the ^1,010, not in furthering his own 
 chances, but in assailing B for the benefit of A. B, however, will 
 
 * As there is now no triple-member constituency, this provision has 
 ceased to be effective. 
 
 149
 
 THE ELECTION EXPENSES. 
 
 have no right to spend more than the statutory maximum, though 
 he is in fact fighting two opponents. He fights ^2,020 with 
 ; 1,010. But in these rare cases an election agent may perhaps 
 discover that it is quite possible to collect evidence of such a 
 close connection between the hopeless candidate and one of his 
 apparent opponents (between the Labour candidate and A in the 
 instance given) as shall, on petition, sustain a charge of agency, so 
 as to involve the inclusion of some of the items of the hopeless 
 expenditure in the return of the candidate whom they really 
 assisted. As this would carry the expenses of the latter candidate 
 over the statutory maximum, it might involve the loss of the seat. 
 Inasmuch as this is the only weapon available to a candidate 
 whose interests are threatened by a hopeless candidature of this 
 kind, the collection of evidence for the establishment of agency 
 will naturally engage his close attention. The risk is one which 
 is not (and, consistently with sound ideals of electoral freedom of 
 choice, cannot be) capable of being provided for in any other 
 way. 
 
 Some Illustrative Maxima. 
 
 A few instances of the maximum expenditure in various con- 
 stituencies, together with the amounts actually spent (shillings 
 and pence omitted) by the respective candidates at the election of 
 1906, will help to elucidate the questions before us : 
 
 Maximum 
 expenses 
 
 Birmingham, West* 680 
 
 Do. 680 
 
 Blackburn i,42St 
 
 Do 950 
 
 Do 950 
 
 Manchester (N.W.) } 6^0 
 
 Do. 650 
 
 Lincolnshire (Sleaford) 1,190 
 
 Do. 1,19 
 
 The amounts appearing under the head of " personal expenses " 
 are the result of the legislative provision that externally to the sums 
 incurred in the " conduct and management " of the election, a candi- 
 date may spend an unlimited aggregate of money on " personal 
 expenses." These are his reasonable travelling expenses and 
 his reasonable expenses of living at hotels or elsewhere for the 
 purposes of and in relation to the election. As long as they do 
 not exceed ^100 the candidate pays them himself and merely in- 
 forms his election agent (for the purposes of the return of election 
 expenses) what was their aggregate. If they exceed ^100 they 
 must be paid through the election agent. They form no part of 
 the statutory maximum, however large they may be. A candidate 
 
 * Mr. Joseph Chamberlain was the successful candidate. 
 
 Two joint candidates. 
 J Mr. Winston Churchill was the successful candidate. 
 
 ISO 
 
 n Actual 
 
 "Personal" 
 
 expenses. 
 
 expenses. 
 
 631 (U.) 
 
 
 
 628 (L.) 
 
 s i 
 
 ii7o (U.) 
 
 90 
 
 339 (Lab.) 
 
 
 640 (L.) 
 
 
 
 612 (L.) 
 
 75 
 
 647 (U.) 
 
 89 
 
 i,o66(L.) 
 
 4 JI 
 
 1,165 
 
 118
 
 THE ELECTION EXPENSES. 
 
 who has his permanent residence in, or near, the constituency 
 which he is contesting will (as in the case of Mr. Joseph Chamber- 
 lain in the statistics above) return his " personal expenses " as nil. 
 A candidate who has one residence in the constituency and others 
 elsewhere will be well advised to return in his personal expenses 
 the extra cost incurred by him at his local residence 
 by reason of his continuous use thereof during the con- 
 test. The maximum of personal expense, however, is 
 likely to be incurred by a candidate who has neither a 
 permanent nor an occasional residence in the constituency. In 
 such a case the personal expenses (as they may include the renting 
 of an entire domestic establishment for the campaign period) 
 may rise to a rather high figure. And, of course, if the personal 
 expenses, though they are technically unlimited, were to amount to 
 thousands of pounds, their exact nature and purpose would be 
 liable to be severely scrutinised in an election petition. A candi- 
 date may, for instance, entertain at his own house the various 
 social equals who are assisting him in the campaign. They do 
 not assist him merely in order to get dinner, bed, and breakfast in 
 return. But the entertainment of large numbers of electors, who 
 vrcre not the social equals of the candidate, . and the inclusion of 
 the cost thereof as " personal expenses," would place the candidate 
 in dire peril of a successful charge of treating. 
 
 By far the most perplexing and pregnant question connected 
 with the election expenses is that of discovering the precise period 
 over which they should extend. At some point or another the 
 election agent must draw the line and say that a meeting (for in- 
 stance) which was held previously to that time is not an election 
 item and therefore should not appear in the return of election ex- 
 penses. The whole of the difficulties and dangers arising in this 
 way have already, however, forced themselves upon our attention 
 and been discussed in detail. The period of candidature is also 
 the period of election expenses. The settlement of the one is the 
 settlement of the other. As we have seen, in the chapter on 
 " Candidate and Candidature," that there is a simple solution of 
 the difficulty, the problem of the period (as distinguished fromi the 
 amount and the purposes) of the election expenses, need not here 
 detain us. The reader will, however, bear in mind that, as re- 
 gards those contributions to charitable and other purposes, which 
 are known as the laying down 1 of " ground bait " or the " nursing " 
 of the constituency, it was suggested in Chapter IV. that they 
 should form part of the statutory maximum, so as to act as a 
 kind of compensating balance between ,a lavish and an austere, or 
 between a rich and a poor, candidate. We may now proceed, 
 therefore, to the consideration of election expenses as such, without 
 reference to the allied question of candidature, or any other col- 
 lateral problem.
 
 THE ELECTION EXPENSES. 
 
 Banish the Tradition of Lavishness. 
 
 The first essential of an intelligent and effective solution of 
 the election expenses problem is the banishment, from the mind, of 
 the existing system, so far as it is likely to fetter a vigorous and 
 unbiassed consideration of this vitally important subject. The 
 tradition of large and lavish expenditure at election time is wholly 
 arbitrary : and yet even sound and adventurous political thinkers 
 seem unable to shake themselves free from it. Although election ex- 
 penditure on a large scale is a relic of the days when the political 
 spirit wag sluggish and uninformed, and when communication vras 
 difficult, expensive, and slow, there still survives the idea that the 
 prodigal scattering of money is an essential concomitant of a 
 contest. If we bring ourselves to realise modern conditions of 
 rapid and almost instantaneous political information, if we con- 
 sider for a moment through what a multitude of channels political 
 opinions, experience and knowledge rush, in torrent fashion, 
 even to the remotest hamlets of the land, we shall see that an en- 
 lightened and educated democracy does not need the expensive 
 educational and stimulative mechanism by which it was necessary 
 to stir their forefathers into some interest in national affairs. 
 Again, lavish expenditure, especially of the theatrical sort, which 
 is associated with .modern election, \vo-rk, does not coalesce with 
 the atmosphere of dignity, intellectual quietude, and serious deli- 
 beration by which, as the present writer believes, the exercise of 
 the electoral function should be surrounded. If the problem of 
 election expenses is regarded from this standpoint, and if the 
 undergrowth of unessential and misleading tradition be ruthlessly 
 swept away, it will present itself in such a clear and unmistakable 
 aspect as almost to offer its own solution. 
 
 Gratuitous Publicity. 
 
 We must not overlook the very much increased amount of gra- 
 tuitous publicity received by a modem candidate, as compared 
 with that which was at his disposal even at a period of time so 
 politically recent as twenty or thirty years ago. Political know- 
 ledge, interest, and enthusiasm are much more widespread, partly 
 owing to the more extended suffrage, partly to the higher level of 
 general intelligence to which the operation of the various Education 
 Acts has lifted the entire nation. There are very few con- 
 stituencies in England, and comparatively few in Scotland and 
 Wales, that are out of the reach of the unremitting vigilance of 
 party evening newspapers; and these are, if anything, too 
 " keen " to publish the very latest items and pronouncements. Any- 
 thing of an important official character will always be printed as 
 a matter of news, not only by the newspapers which support the 
 candidate responsible for it, but also by those on the other side. 
 These instruments of rapid and effective publicity are reinforced 
 
 152
 
 THE ELECTION EXPENSES. 
 
 by the great London and provincial morning newspapers, which, as 
 a rule, devote a very large space to election news and enjoy a cir- 
 culation that penetrates to every house in the country. This 
 newspaper publicity, which often extends to the interviewing of the 
 candidate, the printing of his election address as a matter of news, 
 the publication of long and even verbatim reports of his meetings, 
 and the general rousing and encouragement of his supporters (to- 
 gether with the application of the reverse process to the other 
 side) is almost entirely gratuitous. The local papers will generally 
 expect an " order " for the insertion of the election address of the 
 candidate whom they support, but beyond that the whole of the 
 newspaper publicity costs nothing at all, though in value and 
 thoroughness of permeation to the inmost recesses of the constitu- 
 ency it probably surpasses all other agencies. So far, indeed, 
 have we travelled on this road that many candidates now possess 
 their own newspaper or, at all events, ,are in political control of a 
 local organ: although a candid writer is bound to add that a 
 search of the election return, with a view to the discovery of the 
 precise -amount and exact nature of the expenses incurred in this 
 manner, will not invariably be successful. This is a matter to 
 which we must return at a later stage. Finally, above and be- 
 yond all these trumpet tongues of the Press, there is the far-flung 
 publicity which is almost the necessary consequence of the dis- 
 cussion of political topics in every workshop, on every doorstep, 
 at every street corner, and in every bar, refreshment house, railway 
 carriage, or other place where human beings congregate and ex- 
 change opinion. A good meeting sends a thousand missionaries 
 on .propagandist work throughout the constituency, telling what 
 they heard, and more important what they saw and what they 
 thought. 
 
 The Essentials of Publicity. 
 
 Provided with all these multifarious agencies for the gratuitous 
 dissemination of hiis sentiments and the extension of his propa- 
 ganda, it may at first blush be asked what more a candidate re- 
 quires. Why should he spend any money at all, except a mere 
 trifle on postages, clerks, and a few handbills ? In the first place, 
 then, it is clearly desirable that a candidate should place a con- 
 sidered and deliberate statement of his views, in black and white, 
 before each individual constituent. To that pronouncement, which 
 is now universally made and called the election address, he can 
 be " pinned." By it his claims upon the constituency can be 
 weighed with an exactness and precision which would be out of 
 the question if the excited atmosphere of public meetings were 
 the essential and unalterable locus of any attempt to obtain infor- 
 mation with regard to his principles and programme. This docu- 
 ment he will require to send to every elector, and it will in the 
 great majority of cases pay him best to send it by post. As he
 
 THE ELECTION EXPENSES. 
 
 will probably enclose with it a bundle of leaflets with regard to the 
 achievements or promises of his party (and possibly of himself as 
 well), together with some special literary exposition of those pro- 
 blems of national policy upon which he lays particular stress, we 
 may assume that penny postage will be required. If we allow 
 another penny postage to every elector for the middle of the cam- 
 paign, and a third penny postage for another despatch at its close 
 (by way of a last appeal), we shall have provided for all the postal 
 necessities. iSo far as postages are concerned, therefore, three 
 separate penny communications to each elector (or six halfpenny 
 postages, if the candidate prefers) will be ample for all purposes ; 
 and their amount, with a small additional sum for general postages, 
 might well be made a statutory postal maximum. 
 Restriction of Bill-Posting. 
 
 The next step is the resolute and severe restriction of bill-post- 
 ing. Under the existing system, a candidate will frequently spend 
 a third or a half, and occasionally a greater proportion, of the statu- 
 tory maximum upon the purchase of more or less ornate placards 
 and the payment of bill-posters, who cover every available inch of 
 space for which an exorbitant rent is often charged with this 
 superfluous display. Present conditions of electioneering work 
 often leave a candidate no alternative but acquiescence in this 
 mischievous custom. The double-crown, though it is a large 
 poster (20 in. by. 30 in.), forms only a puny element of the 
 bill-posting arrangements at a modern (especially a county) elec- 
 tion. Posters have become so large and elaborate that positions 
 capable of accommodating them are scarce and dear. If they are 
 among the "protected stations" belonging to a professional bill- 
 poster a huge rent is charged for their use. If they belong to a 
 private elector no payment can legally be made for permission to 
 post bills, though, as a matter of fact, many an elector has re- 
 ceived substantial sums for the exclusive use of a prominent corner 
 or a conspicuous gable-end. In recent elections use has been 
 made (generally just at the close of the fight, the rent of the posi- 
 tions being prohibitive as a continuous expense throughout the 
 contest) of giant posters with the legend " Vote for Brown " in 
 characters so huge that each letter is composed of several sheets 
 and is sometimes 9 ft. or 10 ft. high. 
 
 The truth of the matter is that the gorgeous exhibitions which 
 adorn the official and unofficial committee-rooms at modern elec- 
 tions and the lavish pictorial decoration of expensive "protected 
 stations " could not, as a rule, be paid for, in addition to other and 
 more necessary items, out of the funds which fall within the statu- 
 tory maximum. These brilliant arrays of the products of modern 
 colour printing art are often paid for by the various societies 
 and associations who busy themselves in every election contest, 
 and who not only carry on extensive bill-posting campaigns on 
 
 154
 
 THE ELECTION EXPENSES. 
 
 their own account, but often send thousands of posters, as a gift, to 
 the candidate whom they favour. (The legal position of these 
 societies, their methods of work, and the necessity for their regu- 
 lation, are discussed in detail in Chapter VI.) The purchase of 
 these myriad placards, the employment of a small army of bill- 
 posters (working, at the close of thei contest, under great pressure 
 and at high wages for all-night labour) to affix them to their posi- 
 tions, and the rent of the " stations " constitute an enormous ex- 
 pense, for which the return is at best ephemeral and at worst perni- 
 cious. 
 
 Misleading Election Placards. 
 
 At the outset, it .must be confessed that many of the assertions 
 made, or inferences suggested, by election posters are wholly false. 
 Specific instances might easily be given, but are omitted lest any 
 element of partisanship should .be supposed to tinge the present 
 discussion. Let it suffice to say that (except as regards any false 
 statement of fact with regard to the! .personal conduct or character 
 of a candidate) no penalty attaches to false, or even to deliberately 
 false, statements made (with all the consideration and realisation 
 of the consequences involved in putting them into the form of 
 posters) in the course of an election. For instance, let it be said 
 on an officially-issued poster that, during a certain Administration, 
 our foreign trade fell off at the rate of ^100,000,000 a year, the 
 fact (well known to the publisher of the poster) being that it actu- 
 ally increased at that rate during the period purported to be re- 
 viewed. There is no penalty for this falsity,* even if it can be 
 shown, on the clearest evidence, to .have influenced the result of 
 the election. (The question of false statements is further dis- 
 cussed in general in Chapter IX.) Similarly there is (with the 
 exception mentioned above) no penalty for wilfully misleading the 
 electorate by supplying, with intent to deceive, the premisses of an 
 inference which, indeed, follows from them, but is false because 
 they themselves are false. This kind of election trickery is mainly 
 carried out by means of caricatures, which purport to be figurative, 
 but are, by many voters, accepted as the representation of reali- 
 ties. Probably the limit of current practice is reached when a 
 speaker points to the poster and asks if " that " is what the electors 
 are prepared to support. He means (of would, if challenged, pro- 
 fess that he meant) to inquire if they favour those things which, 
 in exaggerated or distorted form, the poster satirically pictures; 
 but the ignorant voter Jcnoiws naught of satire, conceives that he 
 sees the .reproduction of an actual episode, and votes accordingly. 
 Of this class of (misrepresentation and illicit influence it may be 
 said that its potency, in the form in which it is now effected, 
 weakens every year, though unless it is dealt with by means of 
 
 * Unless, indeed, the placard were held to be a " fraudulent device or 
 contrivance " within the meaning of 46 and 47 Viet., c. 51, s. 2. 
 
 155
 
 THE ELECTION EXPENSES. 
 
 some such enactment as is here suggested it will develop into 
 forms of greater insidiousness, capable of outwitting a more 
 highly educated electorate, and will continue in that way to warp 
 and distort the political judgment of the country. 
 
 The Abuses of Bill-Posting. 
 
 The bill-posting element of a campaign develops in an excited 
 contest (especially a by-election) into a system of sheer waste. Bill- 
 posters consume the bills by hundreds and thousands merely to 
 " make good for trade," and thereby perpetuate the tradition that 
 an election is an opportunity of making money and not a time of 
 national deliberation. Opponents tear the bills down or cover 
 them with paint and muH, or efface them with the placards issued 
 by their own side, and it becomes necessary to replace them. To- 
 wards the end of an excited contest there are very frequently two 
 well-organised forces at work on the pictorial and literary display 
 of each candidate one, composed of his opponents, tearing down, 
 defacing, "covering out"; the other, of his own bill-posters, re- 
 placing them in order that his "show" shall retain its imposing 
 beauty unimpaired until the close of the poll. It is almost incon- 
 ceivable that such methods as this should be the customary (and, 
 from the strategic point of view, the necessary) concomitants of a 
 process whose primary purpose is to elicit a civic judgment and 
 not to offer opportunities for the display of skill in the work of de- 
 facement and replacement. 
 
 No candidate, however, can afford to disregard his bill-posting. 
 Any slackening of his efforts is at once read as an indication that 
 he is conscious of weakness, or that support is falling off, or that 
 (worst of all) the "money is giving out." The current index of a 
 candidate's position is often furnished by the hoardings and the 
 " fly-posting." This, if favourable, is not only the consequence of 
 the greater vigour and audacity of his work, but often results 
 from the fact that a popular candidate has many supporters who 
 offer him free posting facilities which the other candidate cannot 
 obtain. So far does this influence extend that in a close contest 
 a falling off of the bill-posting during the last day or two would 
 probably turn the battle against the slackening side. The change 
 would be instantly noted by supporters and opponents spreading 
 a kind of disheartening infection through the ranks of the one and 
 a corresponding enthusiasm through the files of the other. The 
 side which could adorn the walls and hoardings with the simple 
 injunction, "Vote for Brown," repeated 10,000 times would have 
 an appreciable and probably decisive advantage over the party 
 whose " Vote for Jones " could count only 4,000 points of 'van- 
 tage. Yet is there, in such an empty appeal as this to the grega- 
 rious instincts (or the utter intellectual apathy) of the electorate, a 
 single element of civic value, a single force whose operation is 
 worth protecting and preserving? 
 
 156
 
 THE ELECTION EXPENSES. 
 
 The Necessity for Restriction. 
 
 The answer can only be an emphatic negative. These 
 things tend to obscurity and not to clearness in 
 the formation and expression of the electoral will. The 
 maximum size of an election poster might well be fixed 
 at that which is known as a double-crown (20 in. by 
 30 in.), with the proviso that each poster shall be com- 
 plete in itself and shall not be designed to form part of any 
 scheme of display on a larger scale. There is nothing that re- 
 quires to: be said to an electorate which cannot be put within the 
 ample limits of a double-crown poster; and the restriction as to 
 size is the first step towards sweeping away the extravagance and 
 the appeals to passioni and prejudice, and the occasional vulgarity 
 to say nothing of the wasted time and energy which now cha- 
 racterise the bill-posting arrangements of an election contest. No 
 elector will be rendered less well-informed, and no legitimate 
 struggle for publicity will be stifled, by the adoption of the double- 
 crown as the maximum area of ink and information which a can- 
 didate or his supporters or opponents may place before the electors 
 in the shape of a single poster. The proposed restriction is fatal 
 to displays of colour -and exhortation which occupy the whole 
 side of a house or the entire area of a posting station with a 
 single picture or scheme ; and it is remedial at the same time with 
 regard to the expense which these things involve, to the unquiet 
 and .politically unfit frame of mind which craves for such stimulus, 
 and to the futile competition among candidates and their bill- 
 posters which is thereby generated. The number of posters also 
 requires restriction. If the maximum were fixed at 10 per cent, 
 of the total number of electors on the register (fractions of 100 to 
 count as a complete 100) no injustice would be done and no 
 element of political education imperilled. In a constituency con- 
 sisting of 10,000 electors this proportion represents 1,000 double- 
 crown bills, or over 4,000 square feet of printed appeal to an elec- 
 torate which (as we have seen) is being aroused and stimulated in 
 numerous other ways. 
 
 Instead, however, of such a drastic suggestion as this, let us 
 consider what would be the effect on the election expenses if the 
 candidates were limited to one double-crown poster for each 
 elector, counting them in round thousands. We should include in 
 this number any posters which Avere presented to the candidate by 
 societies or individuals. Thus, in a constituency of 8,500 the 
 candidate would be entitled to 9,000 double crown bills. In the 
 statistics which follow (and which represent, as far as the selection 
 of the constituencies goes, a page taken haphazard from the 
 Government Blue-book of election expenses, 1906 election) some 
 actual figures are shown in comparison with the suggested ex- 
 penditure. 
 
 157
 
 THE ELECTION EXPENSES. 
 
 "8 fl 
 
 " 
 
 
 
 
 a, > 
 
 m 
 
 O ^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 A 
 B 
 
 500 
 500 
 
 239! 
 262 j 
 
 6,848 
 
 42 
 
 S S { 
 
 112 
 135 
 
 A 
 B 
 
 650 
 560 
 
 268} 
 270 j 
 
 8,799 
 
 54 
 
 109 f 
 
 105 
 107 
 
 A 
 
 920 
 
 441 1 
 
 
 
 f 
 
 54 
 
 B 
 
 920 
 
 495 ) 
 
 20,938 
 
 126 
 
 261 ^ 
 
 1 08 
 
 C 
 
 920 
 
 365 J 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 *22 
 
 A 
 
 650 
 
 
 
 
 I 1 
 
 160 
 
 B 
 C 
 
 650 
 650 
 
 454 [ 
 
 2ISJ 
 
 11,987 
 
 72 
 
 
 230 
 
 *7 
 
 A 
 B 
 
 590 
 59 
 
 211 1 
 
 181 f 
 
 9,453 
 
 60 
 
 ii?| 
 
 32 
 
 *2 
 
 A 
 
 1,400 
 
 671] 
 
 
 
 f 
 
 * ! 5 
 
 B 
 
 1,400 
 
 602 1 
 
 37,417 
 
 228 
 
 468 j 
 
 *94 
 
 D | 
 
 2,100 
 
 9>3 j 
 
 
 
 i 
 
 217 
 
 A 
 B 
 
 59 
 
 59 
 
 222 1 
 324 I 
 
 9,653 
 
 60 
 
 121 j 
 
 153 
 
 Al 
 
 
 
 
 
 f 
 
 
 BJ 
 
 975 
 
 452] 
 
 
 
 
 221 
 
 East Marylebone 
 West Marylebone 
 Middlesbrough 
 
 Monmouth District 
 
 Morpeth 
 Newcastle-on-Tyne (2) 
 
 Newcastle-under-Lyme 
 Northampton (2) 
 
 Norwich (2) 
 
 Nottingham (West) 
 Do. (East) 
 Do. (South) 
 
 Some Cogent Examples. 
 
 These constituencies include metropolitan divisions of typical 
 character, like East and West Marylebone, strongholds of 'demo- 
 cracy like Middlesbrough, New'castle-on-Tyne, Northampton, and 
 the three divisions of Nottingham, as well as a cathedral city 
 like Norwich, andi co^lnty divisions like Morpeth and Mo'n- 
 mouth. The successful and unsuccessful candidates are repre- 
 sentative men of widely different schools of political thought, 
 
 * In these cases the proposed expenditure is greater, not less, than 
 that actually incurred. The reason lor these apparent exceptions, and 
 some discussion of their significance, will be found in the text. 
 
 153 
 
 ^ I 
 
 DJ 
 
 975 
 
 692 } 12,047 
 
 78 
 
 isH 463 
 
 E l 
 F{ 
 
 975 
 
 124 j 
 
 
 l*"5 
 
 A 
 
 920 
 
 296 ~) 
 
 
 r *9 
 
 B 
 
 920 
 
 414 }. 20,903 
 
 126 
 
 261 { 27 
 
 C 
 
 920 
 
 547 J 
 
 
 i 260 
 
 A 
 B 
 
 800 
 800 
 
 ^} .6,533 
 
 1 02 
 
 -I ^6 
 
 A 
 B 
 
 680 
 680 
 
 ?8o} I2 '5 88 
 
 78 
 
 "{ ,S 
 
 A 
 B 
 
 710 
 710 
 
 43i} I3)848 
 
 84 
 
 { :^
 
 THE ELECTION EXPENSES. 
 
 such as the Right Hon. Thomas Burt, Lord Robert Cecil, Mr. 
 J. Havelock Wilson, Sir Harry Johnston, Lord Henry Cavendish- 
 Bentinck, and Mr. J. H. Yoxall. The table shows, however, that 
 in appealing to all these varied electorates these candidates found 
 it essential to spend a very large proportion: of their statutory 
 maximum of expenditure upon what the Parliamentary Return 
 describes as "Printing, Advertising, Stationery, Postage, and 
 Telegrams." There are a few cases, indeed, where the amount 
 is either absolutely or comparatively very small; but the ex- 
 pi anastion is that the contest where this occurs was not what can 
 be called a serious struggle. The third candidate in the Mon- 
 mouth District spent ^215, as compared with the ^454 of the 
 second and the ^352 of his successful rival; but he polled only 
 1,678 votes, against 3,939 and 4,531 respectively recorded for 
 the other candidates. These figures offer an instance of a candi- 
 dature which is not prosecuted with all the instruments whose use 
 the statutory expenditure would permit. The converse case was 
 presented, for instance, in West Newington (not included in the 
 table) where the successful candidate, secure in an impregnability 
 shown by his poll of 4,446, against 2,425 obtained by his oppo- 
 nent, spent only ^220 in all, out of a statutory maximum of .560. 
 If proof were wanted! that there is no necessary proportion between 
 the lavish display of electoral posters arid the abundant distribution 
 of election literature, on the one hand, and 1 the evocation of the 
 political opinon of the electorate on the other, we should have it 
 to our hand in these figures. 
 
 What alteration would have been made in these expenses if the 
 candidate had been restricted in each case to (i) the equivalent of 
 such a number of double-crown bills as equalled the number of the 
 electorate in round thousands; (2) a reasonable allowance for the 
 expense of posting 20 per cent, of these bills on "protected 
 stations" the remainder being dealt with by means of "fly post- 
 ing " and distributed for display in windows, etc. ; and (3) three 
 separate penny postages to each elector? The figures are worked 
 out in the table already set forth. Thus, in the first constitu- 
 ency whose name appears on the page, a supply of 7,000 posters 
 (one for each elector, counted in round thousands), at 2 a 
 thousand, will cost ,14. The posting of 20 per cent. (1,400) of 
 these, at ^i per hundred, will cost another ^14. A third ^14 
 is added for miscellaneous printing, and the total is ^42. So in 
 Norwich we get 21,000 posters, cost ^42; posting 4,200, cost 
 ^42; and miscellaneous printing, ^42; total, ^126. 
 
 The double-crowni bills have been charged at 2 a thousand, 
 at which high figure an extremely ornate two-colour poster could 
 
 159
 
 THE ELECTION EXPENSES. 
 
 be obtained* The bill-posting has been charged at i per 
 hundred for 20 per cent, of the total number, which will provide 
 handsomely not only for the actual posting, but for a three weeks' 
 display of the bills on protected stations. As many of them, such 
 as announcements of meetings, replies to attacks, and the like, 
 will not be posted until the latter periods of the contest, the cost 
 will actually be much less; but an extravagant figure has been 
 purposely taken. 
 
 The " Giant " Poster Not Required. 
 
 Doubtless, it will be objected that the double-crown bill em- 
 ployed as a single unit, complete in itself, is not capable of dis- 
 playing those huge studies in colour and caricature whose produc- 
 tion on an enormous scale has now become a recognised part of 
 election enterprise. These posters, it will be urged, are often pro- 
 duced in the highest style of the art of modern colour printing. 
 They educate the electorate, it will be said, because they put a 
 political point more vividly than hours of explanation or columns 
 of newspaper argument, and because the proper appreciation of 
 their satirical suggestion is in itself a valuable training for the 
 electoral mind. All this, and more, may be conceded ; and yet 
 the objection to the huge pictorial poster will still outweigh all the 
 sentiment in its favour which can be evoked by the enumeration 
 of its advantages. The primary objection is the expense. If 
 the large coloured poster is allowed at all, without restriction as to 
 size and, therefore, as to costliness, candidates will be compelled 
 to vie with each other in these by-products of the contest, and 
 the fruit of the rival ry, like the rivalry itself, is an alien and alto- 
 gether undesirable element of political deliberation. Even if the 
 candidates could be induced to refrain from these pictorial prodi- 
 galities the " outside organisations," whose presence and activity 
 make the most tawdry features of a modern election, would (with or 
 without the cognisance and approval of their respective proteges) 
 employ the giant poster for the awakening of just those unruly 
 
 * In anticipation of a challenge of these figures, the writer asked 
 the Argus Printing Company, of Temple Avenue, E.G.. (the printers 
 of this book), to estimate for double-crown election posters. Their 
 figures are : 
 
 1,000, in plain matter, set right across, all black i 7 6 
 
 1,000 in plain matter, set right across, all one colour i 10 o 
 
 1,000, in plain matter, set right acrcss, black and one colour i 17 6 
 
 1,000,, in plain matter, set right across, two colours 200 
 
 Tabular matter xos. per 1,000 extra. 
 
 It will be observed that on every thousand black and single colour 
 non-tabular posters there would be a considerable saving on the 2 
 per thousand, which is the basis of the present discussion. More 
 over, the estimate is for a single thousand the first which has to beai 
 Ihe cost of composition and " making ready " for the entire order, 
 however large. After the first thousand there would be a large reduc- 
 tion in further copies of the same poster. 
 
 160
 
 THE ELECTION EXPENSES. 
 
 faculties of the electoral mind which show their best side in 
 silence and oblivion. The only way, therefore, is to fix the maxi- 
 mum at a poster of given size, like the double-crown, and to 
 prohibit all that are larger. 
 
 With One Single Exception. 
 
 To this prohibition there might well be one single exception. 
 A candidate should be entitled to expend a sum not exceeding 
 5 per cent, of his total statutory expenditure in the provision of 
 posters larger than double-crown, and showing (i) portraits of any 
 deceased (but not living) person (other than a person mentioned 
 in the Bible), to whose character, [principles, or aims the candi- 
 date desired to call .attention in the furtherance of his candidature, 
 and (2) correct (but not adapted) reproductions of pictures, in 
 public or private galleries (other than those representing persons 
 mentioned in the Bible) ; but no suich reproduction shall be used 
 for election purposes if the event occurred less than twenty years 
 before the first day of the year in which the election takes place, 
 or shall contain any printed matter other than words briefly de- 
 scriptive of the person or event which it represents, any acknowledg- 
 ment of copyright or of permission to reproduce, and a single request 
 (printed in letters not deeper than one-tenth of the total depth of 
 the poster, and in any case not more than 8 in. deep) to support 
 the candidate exhibiting the reproduction. The object of the first 
 of these provisions is to exclude the representation of current or 
 recent political events, which might defeat the educational by 
 admitting the controversial purpose of the exhibition,* and the 
 object of the second is to prevent an unscrupulous candidate 
 from employing the artistic poster merely as a means of display- 
 ing his own name in letters of extravagant size. 
 
 The comparative moderation of the pictorial and literary dis- 
 plays" which would be permissible under these provisions offers an 
 automatic solution of the election problem which is presented by 
 the " covering out " process. Where each candidate is allowed 
 to display as much as he pleases of the produce of the printer's 
 art, the temptation will always exist to " cover out " the opponent's 
 bills, in the manner, and for the purpose, already described. Bu* 
 where the supply of placards is strictly limited a check will be 
 given to these illicit ambitions by the reflection that if the oppo- 
 nent's supply should be the more carefully administered, his bills 
 may be finally posted up after that of the opposite side has reached 
 its statutory limit and been exhausted. At the same time, the de- 
 facing of bills by the posting of other bills over them', or in any 
 other way, should be made an illegal practice (with proper excep- 
 tions for the protection of persons who carry on the business of 
 displaying posters in return for payment, and who should, of 
 
 * See also the remarks on False Statements in Chapter IX. 
 M 161
 
 THE ELECTION EXPENSES. 
 
 course, be entitled to remove or deface political posters where 
 the period of paid display had expired). There is no hardship in 
 these suggestions, for the moderate display of posters which is con- 
 templated under the present scheme could be provided for without 
 difficulty by means of the wall space available, freely or otherwise, 
 in every constituency, especially as the statutory limit of display 
 would cause a sharp fall in the price asked for the use of " pro- 
 tected stations." It is, perhaps, almost superfluous to add that 
 the obligation to file a sworn return of the election expenses, to- 
 gether with the actual receipted accounts of the various persons 
 paid, supplies a ready and effective means of enforcing the observ- 
 ance of the limit in the amount of election posters provided by a 
 candidate. Those which are presented to him should be compul- 
 sorily included, at a fair valuation, in the return, of election 
 expenses. 
 
 The Candidate's Newspaper. 
 
 In Kennington (1886, 4 O'M. and H., 93) it was specifically held 
 that the expense of publishing a newspaper in furtherance of the 
 candidate's interests was not an election expense. Yet Mr. Justice 
 Field, in so deciding, said that he had " no doubt whatever that 
 the respondent would not have published the paper at all unless 
 he had thought it would assist him. : ' This decision leaves the law 
 in a very unsatisfactory state. It is quite a common practice for 
 candidates to own, to support, or to control newspapers, and any 
 serious attempt to deal with the problem of election expenses will 
 be vitiated by a failure to grapple with this practice. What is 
 required is a provision (i) that the expenses of purchasing a news- 
 paper circulating in the constituency, if incurred within tibe period 
 of candidature, shall be an election expense; (2) that if the news- 
 paper be not purchased within the period, all matter published 
 in its columns* in furtherance of the candidature of its owner, shall 
 appear in the return of election expenses charged at the current 
 local rate, per column, for election addresses, such rate being as 
 nearly as can be calculated, the average price charged by the 
 newspapers published in the constituency; (3) where a candidate 
 owns or acquires the control of, or any smaller interest in, a news- 
 paper he shall charge in his election expenses either (a) the price 
 paid for the control or other interest if incurred within the period 
 contemplated in (i) ; or (b) the price per column, as if he were sole 
 proprietor, as in (b) ; (4) payments returnable under these pro- 
 visions should include the price of debentures (whether registered 
 or to bearer) acquired by the candidate ; the amount of mortgages 
 and charges created in favour of the candidate; and all other 
 payments made to the newspaper or newspapers by the candidate 
 
 * Under the Tasmanian Act all reports of election meetings, for the 
 insertion of which a payment is made, must bear the word " advertise- 
 ment " at the head of each column. 
 
 162
 
 THE ELECTION EXPENSES. 
 
 or by any person acting on his behalf. Newspapers should be the 
 subject of specific provision, as well as of a special clause, in the 
 candidate's declaration of election expenses which latter should 
 not be sworn to, as at present, but, for the sake of more scrupu- 
 lous accuracy, made upon the honour of the candidate. 
 
 Time Limit for Payment. 
 
 There are time limits with reference to the payment of election 
 expenses. Within fourteen days of the poll all persons having 
 any claim against the election agent must send in their accounts. 
 Those which fail to arrive within the statutory period are barred, 
 and can only be paid by the leave of the court. These provisions 
 secure a rapid, and yet not too rapid, statement, of the election 
 claims, while their origin and nature yet remain fresh in the 
 agent's mind, and susceptible of check. The provisions, however, 
 need tot be amended by the enactment that in the case of all ac- 
 counts over the sum of ^i, the claimant must send with the 
 account the written order of the election agent for the goods, and 
 that no account shall be a valid claim unless so accompanied. 
 This provision would serve two purposes. In the first place it 
 would compel an election agent to give contemporaneous orders 
 for all election goods, so that there could never be any doubt of 
 the character and extent of his expenditure. In the second place 
 (and this is by far the more important consideration) it would put 
 a preremptory end to the pernicious idea, now so widely enter- 
 tained, that any person is at liberty to 1 consider himself ordered 
 to render services or to supply goods, and to send in an account 
 for them, after the election, in the full assurance that he will 
 receive payment out of the ample resources which the occasion 
 has called into 1 welcome existence. One man will send in an 
 account for ^2, being payment due to him for a week's canvassing. 
 The fact that he was never asked to canvass, and that no sane 
 election agent would ask him (since paid canvassing is illegal) 
 does not weigh with such a person, or with his neighbours. Their 
 view is that he worked, and that the candidate for whom he 
 laboured now refuses to pay him, out of sheer meanness, no doubt. 
 Another man will have supplied 5,000 posters, which the election 
 agent never saw, much less ordered. But they were ordered by Mr 
 A B, who happens to be a prominent supporter of the candidate 
 whose agent receives the claim for payment. The election agent 
 must therefore either adopt Mr. A B's order (a course fraught 
 with peril, both as affording evidence of Mr. A B's agency, and 
 as adding a previously unknown factor to his aggregate of election 
 expenditure) or else stand upon, his strict legal rights and repu- 
 diate the order. In that case great damage will be done by the 
 circulation of the news that after having supplied election printing 
 
 163
 
 THE ELECTION EXPENSES. 
 
 to the order of Mr. A B, the printer has been " done out of 
 his money." These perils and complications would be swept 
 away by the enactment suggested that no claim for a greater sum 
 than i 'be valid unless accompanied by the election agent's 
 written order. Any person who worked without being engaged, or 
 supplied goods on irresponsible instructions, would then only have 
 himself to blame for the consequences. The provision would 
 become known as easily and as widely as the statutory necessity 
 for a receipt stamp. The Tasmanian Act, as a matter of fact, 
 contains the very excellent provision that : 
 
 160. Any person incurring or authorising any electoral expense on 
 behalf of a candidate without the written authority of the candidate or of 
 his agent authorised in writing, shall be guilty of a contravention, of 
 this Act. 
 
 After the receipt of the claims, the election agent has fourteen 
 days in which to pay them and get in the receipts. After that he 
 has another seven days within which to arrange all the documents 
 in the form of a return of election expenses, which must be sent, 
 within thirty-five days of the election, to the Returning Officer. 
 This must be sworn to by the election agent and by the candidate. 
 In this respect the colonial plan of a declaration upon, honour, 
 instead of a sworn declaration, is much the better. The form is 
 given on page 106. If either candidate or agent should know- 
 ingly swear to the accuracy of what he knows to be a 
 false return, he commits perjury. The offence is also a 
 corrupt practice, and therefore entails serious consequences in 
 rendering the guilty person incapable of voting, or of sitting in 
 Parliament. Legal means are provided for the payment, after the 
 time limit, of claims which are bona fide disputed, as between 
 claimant and election agent, for instance. The non-transmission 
 X>f the return is also penalised. The provisions of Section 33 (i) of 
 46 and 47 Viet., c. 51, contemplate the inclusion in this return 
 of the names of any persons (whether the candidate or others) from 
 whom money, securities, or the equivalent of money was or were 
 received for the purpose of the election expenditure. But these 
 provisions are frequently ignored as regards the other persons, so 
 that a return will seldom (if ever) disclose that the candidate's 
 expenses were paid out of the central party fund. This absence 
 of information would be unobjectionable if the party funds them- 
 selves were subject to public scrutiny and a responsible audit. 
 A candidate whose claims to public confidence are real and sub- 
 stantial may quite probably find it impossible to pay the heavy- 
 penalties (in the shape of election expenses) to which the attempted 
 realisation of his aspirations will expose him. Pending the as- 
 sumption of these expenses by the public, there is no valid 
 reason why they should not be paid by a political organisation. 
 But the public is entitled, in the case of the organisation, fo know 
 
 164
 
 THE ELECTION EXPENSES. 
 
 how the funds originated, and what aggregate proportion of them 
 was used in the furtherance of candidatures the specific candida- 
 tures themselves not being necessarily enumerated. 
 
 Where, as a result of inadvertence, accidental miscalculation, or 
 some other reasonable cause of a like nature,* expenses have been 
 incurred in excess of the statutory maximum, the High Court, or 
 an election court, may, on application made (and notice given in 
 the constituency and to the opposite side), grant " relief." The 
 precise nature of this antidote is explained in Chapter VIII. 
 
 Returning Officer's Charges. 
 
 Beyond the expenses incurred by the election agent, and the 
 " personal expenses " of the candidate, there are the expenses 
 of the Returning Officer, which are chargeable to the candidates 
 each paying half if there are two, a third if there are three, 
 and so on. These expenses, as we have seen', ought to be 
 assumed by the public, subject to certain restrictions which were 
 outlined in the chapter on Candidature; and there is, as was 
 previously said, the less objection to this because they are at 
 present calculated on a lavish scale. To* exhibit the excessive 
 charges in detail would take us far from the main path of the 
 argument. One small example, therefore, may suffice. By 46 and 
 47 Viet., c. 51, s. 35 (i), it is provided that the Returning Officer 
 must, within ten days after he receives a return of election expenses 
 from the election agent of a candidate, publish a summary thereof 
 in no fewer than two newspapers circulating in the county or 
 borough for which the election was held, accompanied by a 
 notice of the time and place at which the return, declaration, and 
 accompanying documents may be inspected. In respect of this 
 publication the Returning Officer may charge the candidate 
 two guineas for a county or district borough and one guinea for 
 a borough other than a district borough election. This expen- 
 diture is simply waste. The persons who take a critical interest 
 in the return are perfectly well aware of the time and place where 
 they may inspect it, and are not likely to be satisfied with a perusal 
 of the summary; while those who take no critical interest either 
 do not know, or do not care, what the summary signifies. The 
 provision appears to be intended as an automatic check on a 
 candidate who has exceeded his statutory maximum, but for this 
 purpose it is absolutely futile. A candidate, successful or unsuc- 
 cessful, who has transgressed in that manner is fully alive to the 
 perils of the situation without the necessity of notice given, in a 
 technical matter, to a non-technical public; and even if he were 
 not, he can fully rely upon the gratuitous assistance of his oppo- 
 nents in a post-election process of whose nature and necessity they 
 
 * 46 and 47 Viet., c. 51, s. 23 (b). 
 165
 
 THE ELECTION EXPENSES. 
 
 are excellent judges. The provision should be repealed, and elec- 
 tion expenses reduced by shearing off a small but utterly wasteful 
 item. 
 
 Broadly speaking, the working of the various provisions with regard 
 to election expenses is the least open to criticism of any of the 
 miultifarious operations which take place under the election law. 
 Except in the development of the " outside organisations " (unfore- 
 seen when the various Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Acts 
 were passed), they deal, in fairly adequate fashion, with the neces- 
 sities which they were designed to meet. If they contemplate the 
 movement of the political machinery at private, rather than 
 public, expense; if they permit lavish expenditure upon pernicious, 
 or at least objectionable, elements of the election campaign; and 
 if they are so vague with regard to the announcement of candida- 
 ture as to leave too much to judicial discretion still, they secure 
 to a very real extent the record of identities, the fixation of respon- 
 sibilities, and the circumscription of political zeal within legal limits 
 which only expand on good cause shown to a wary and competent 
 tribunal. They were well up to the standard of the day which 
 witnessed their enactment, and time has perhaps vitiated them to 
 a less extent than is the case with any other of the contemporary 
 provisions created to regulate election procedure. 
 
 Summary of Suggestions. 
 
 Banish the old and pernicious tradition of lavish election ex- 
 penditure. 
 
 Restrict the bill-posting, both in character and amount ; reduce 
 the postages to three penny-stamp despatches (or their equivalent) 
 to each elector. 
 
 The election agent's written order for the goods or services must 
 accompany every election account amounting to more than i. 
 
 Expenses of newspapers, o<wned or controlled by candidates, to 
 fall into the statutory aggregate and be included in the return. 
 
 Other suggestions have been made in the earlier treatment of 
 cognate topics. 
 
 j66
 
 CHAPTER Vlil. 
 
 Corrupt Practices. 
 
 The expression " corrupt and illegal " as a part of the title 
 of the various Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Acts is 
 the reverse of felicitous. The species (and not the genus) is made 
 to occupy the premier position, for every corrupt practice (in the 
 election sense) is illegal, as being opposed to the law; but every 
 illegal practice is not corrupt. The public and its advisers con- 
 stantly confuse the two classes of offence, so that A B is said 
 to ibe charged with " corrupt practices " when the alleged act, at 
 'worst, is only an illegal practice. The corrupt practices, in the 
 election sense, are bribery, treating, undue influence (i.e., intimi- 
 dation, threats, or menaces, for instance), personation, and the 
 making of a false declaration with regard to the return of election 
 expenses. This list is exhaustive. The illegal practices are the 
 minor offences, such, for instance, as providing bands and 
 banners, paying for the hire of conveyances to take voters to the 
 poll, or exceeding the statutory maximum of election expenses. 
 
 Many attempts have been made to define these two classes of 
 offence so as to bring the essential difference into logical pro- 
 minence. For instance, Mr. Justice Field, whose remarks are 
 most frequently quoted when the distinction between the two 
 classes is sought to be described, said in the Barrow petition 
 (4 O'M. and H., 77), that " a corrupt practice is a thing the mind 
 goes with. Art illegal practice is a thing the Legislature is deter- 
 'mined to prevent, whether it is done honestly or dishonestly. 
 Therefore the question here is not one of intention, but whether 
 in point of fact the Act has beeni contravened." This explanation 
 is not wholly satisfactory, or entirely lucid. It may be amplified 
 and illuminated by pointing out to the reader that a corrupt prac- 
 tice is such that no man of ordinary intelligence could commit it 
 without being fully conscious that he was doing wrong. There can 
 be no corrupt practice without a corrupt intention. That which 
 lawyers call the mens rea the corrupt or vicious mind, consciously 
 bent upon the performance of an act known to be wicked must 
 be present and actively operative in the case of a man who 
 bribes, or (generally speaking) treats a voter : or (with one slight 
 limitation in the case of each offence, which will be explained in 
 the proper place) personates or intimidates him. But it is other- 
 wise with an illegal practice. A man of the highest character 
 might 'hire a trap to take voters to the poll without doing anything 
 that was morally wrong, and without the slightest idea that he 
 was committing an offence against the law. Again, A B pre- 
 pares, with his own hands, a placard containing certain statements 
 which he is anxious to- bring to the notice of the electors on the 
 
 167
 
 CORRUPT PRACTICES. 
 
 day of the poll, and pays a voter to display the placard on the 
 wall of his house. There is nothing ethically wrong here. In 
 fact, the proceedings may have their origin in a high degree ot 
 moral enthusiasm. But (unless the voter so paid carries on the 
 regular business of displaying advertisements for payment) an 
 illegal practice has been committed; and if A. B. is the election 
 agent of the candidate, " relief " will have to be obtained. 
 
 The Meaning of " Relief/' 
 
 The expression " relief " has already confronted us more than 
 once, and perhaps it will be convenient at this stage to explain 
 its meaning. " Relief " is a rather happily-selected term in elec- 
 tion law. That law is itself so highly technical, and its bristling 
 technicalities are capable of such diverse interpretation and appli- 
 cation according to the temperamental bent of the judicial mind, 
 that in the absence of some mitigating expedient there is scarcely 
 one election in a hundred that would stand against critical attack 
 in an election petition court The general election of 1906, for 
 instance, provided us with a case where an important election docu- 
 ment had been accidentally issued without the name and address 
 of the printer and publisher ; and with another case where a sub- 
 agent had paid for the hire of a conveyance to take voters to the 
 poll. In both these cases, but for the provision of " relief," the 
 respective candidates must have retired from the field as soon as 
 the error was discovered, or, if it had not been discovered till 
 after the election, must have vacated the seat if it had been won. 
 " Relief," then, is a power conferred upon an election petition court 
 (and upon one of the judges where the matter arises by way of 
 application, and not upon petition) to excuse a candidate or other 
 person liable from the consequence of a technical breach of, or 
 non-compliance with, the myriad requirements and provisions of 
 the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Acts, so far as they 
 are concerned with " illegal " practices. There is (with the slight 
 exceptions defined in 46 and 47 Viet., c. 51, sect. 22, for the 
 benefit of a candidate reported by an election court to be guilty, 
 by his agents, but not personally, of treating or undue influence) no 
 relief for corrupt practices ; and it will only be granted for illegal 
 practices if the court is satisfied that the error arose from 
 accidental inadvertence or accidental miscalculation, and that in 
 other respects there has been an honest and bona-fide endeavour 
 to comply with the law. For example, a candidate who accidentally 
 publishes a poster without the name and address of the printer 
 will be relieved ; but if he had done it deliberately, as an election 
 stratagem, and then, having been discovered, sought relief from 
 the consequences of his wrong-doing, he would not get it. And 
 so, probably, a candidate who had frequently been present in 
 public-houses while his health was drunk (though no charge of 
 
 168
 
 CORRUPT PRACTICES. 
 
 actual treating was made against him or his agents) would probably 
 be refused relief for an illegal practice by way of punishment for 
 his extreme indiscretion and failure to adjust his conduct not only 
 actually to the letter, but loyally to the spirit, of the election 
 law. Whenever the la,w relating to election procedure is over- 
 hauled and reformed, a power to grant relief for corrupt practices 
 (where committed entirely without the knowledge of the candi- 
 date or the election agent) ought to be conferred on the judges. 
 With this explanation of the nature of " relief " we may resume 
 the consideration of the larger subject, treating the various corrupt 
 practices under separate heads. 
 
 SECTION I.-Bribery and Treating. 
 
 Roughly speaking, bribery is the deliberate purchase or sale oi 
 votes for money or money's worth. The legislative definition, 
 originally given in the Corrupt Practices Prevention Act of 1854 
 (17 and 18 Viet., c. 102) and adopted by 46 and 47 Viet., c. 51, is 
 extremely wide, and the breadth of its scope can best be under- 
 stood by exhibiting the whole of the provisions in a kind of bird's 
 eye view. Every person is guilty of bribery who directly or in- 
 directly 
 
 1 any money or fto or for any [ 
 
 to vote or re- 
 frain from voting ; 
 or to induce such 
 voter to vote or re- 
 frain from voting : 
 
 or to induce such 
 person to procure 
 or endeavour to 
 procure the return 
 of any person, or 
 [vote of any person. 
 
 The offence is also committed by the voter or other person who, 
 either on his own account or for another, receives, or agrees or 
 contracts to receive, the gifts, loans, offers, promises, procurements 
 or agreements, either before, during, or after an election ; any per- 
 son who provides money with intent that it, or any part of it, shall 
 be expended in bribery ; and any person who pays money in dis- 
 charge or repayment of money so expended. The reason for the 
 enormous scope of the definition is to be found in the extremely 
 elusive character of the offence, which, generated in secrecy, and 
 perhaps agreed upon merely as the result of a nod or a wink, offers 
 one of the profoundest legal and ethical problems for the solution 
 of the Legislature. To some extent, indeed, the definition over- 
 reaches itself, in that it penalises both briber and bribee for what 
 is a serious criminal offence, and therefore makes it impossible 
 to charge one without the other. For instance, if A, a clergyman 
 
 169 
 
 Gives 
 Lends 
 
 any money or 
 valuable con- 
 
 to or for any f 
 voter 
 
 Procures 
 
 sideration : 
 
 
 Agrees to give 
 Agrees to lend 
 Agrees to procure 
 Offers 
 
 > 
 
 to or for any 
 person on be- 
 half of any 
 voter 
 
 Promises 
 Promises to procure 
 Promises to endeavour 
 
 any office, 
 place or em- 
 ployment 
 
 to or for any 
 other person 
 
 to procure 
 

 
 CORRUPT PRACTICES. 
 
 of the highest character, is given ;i by the candidate, in 
 order that he may employ it for the relief of an indigent voter, and 
 the money is subsequently alleged to have been a bribe, it will 
 be necessary, in the technical sense, to charge A with bribery. 
 But in the main the definitions are excellent attempts to define 
 the almost indefinable, and to grasp in the legal hand the psycho- 
 logically impalpable and intangible. The reader will observe that 
 at the root of all the many instances enumerated there is the ele- 
 ment of individual bargaining directed to control an individual 
 vote. This is the essential distinction between bribery and treat- 
 ing. Bribery is performed in individual cases, treating in the 
 mass. Bribery is directed to incite or control the vote ; treating, 
 in the main, to confirm its existing tendency and to enthuse, or at 
 least to excite, the voter. Voters known to be favourable are not 
 bribed, for the act would be superfluous, but they are occasionally 
 treated. The giving of meat, drink, and entertainment to large 
 numbers of persons can be made to " square " with recognised 
 social conventions, so as to be explainable, if challenged, in that 
 way. This is not the *dase with money bribery, since it is not the 
 custom to distribute pecuniary gifts. There may, of course, be 
 such a thing as wholesale bribery on such a scale that the election 
 could not possibly be regarded as the free expression of political 
 opinion or allowed to stand. This state of things is known as 
 general bribery and voids the election at common law, quite apart 
 from statute. 
 
 The History of Bribery. 
 
 Early bribery, from the middle of the seventeenth century down 
 to the time of the first Reform Bill, seems to have taken the form 
 which we should now describe rather as treating than as bribery. 
 The supply of meat and drink on a lavish scale was its distin- 
 guishing feature. Bribery in the true sense of the word i.e., 
 money bribery, was probably always an offence at common law. 
 Lord Glenbervie defined it in that sense when he said (2 Doug., 
 400) : " Wherever a person is bound by law to act without any 
 view to his private emolument, and another, by a corrupt contract, 
 engages such person, on condition of the payment or promise of 
 money or other lucrative consideration, to act in a manner which 
 he shall prescribe, both parties are by such contract guilty of 
 bribery." Bribery in this form was known and had been punished 
 by the House of Commons as early as 1571 in the Westbury case. 
 The truth probably is that the same circumstances wthich called 
 canvassing into being (see page 139) were responsible for the 
 generation of bribery. The voter had it in his power to confer 
 a means of obtaining the funds or honours which might be the 
 reward of the member's active service or of hiis passive subserviency 
 to an ambitious interest ; and the member paid in advance for the 
 
 170
 
 CORRUPT PRACTICES. 
 
 commodity whidh was to be so useful to him. Whitelocke (1605- 
 1675) was long the standard authority both for the illegitimate 
 character of bribery and the permissibility of treating. As late as 
 the second Southwark petition (1796, Clifford, 156-232) the peti- 
 tioner quotes Whitelocke as having spoken of the tenderness of 
 the law of Parliament, " as it permits no exemptions or restraints 
 against the freedom " of elections, " so it forbids solicitations, 
 bribings, or gratifyings of sheriffs, ihead officers, or others, by any 
 persons, or giving money or rewards (it were well if it extended to 
 drink and entertainments) to freeholders or inhabitants, to obtain 
 their suffrages." To this the respondent replies that he is in this 
 quotation armed with an authority supplied by the petitioner 
 himself "that at the time when Whitelocke wrote, treating was 
 not an offence punishable by any known law, or which created 
 any incapacity." But, in any case, the gross abuses to which 
 treating led very soon induced the House of Commons to give 
 serious attention to them. In 1677, in consequence of a report 
 from the Committee of Election and Privileges, to whom it was 
 referred " to consider of a paper containing a vote against drinking 
 and bribery," the House passed the famous Treating Resolution : 
 
 Resolved, etc., that if any person, hereafter to be elected into a 
 place, for to sit and serve in the House of Commons, after the teste 
 or the issuing out of the writ or writs of election . . . shall, by 
 himself or by any other on his behalf or at his charge, at any time 
 before the day of his election, give any person or persons having voice 
 in such election, any meat or drink, exceeding in the true value about 
 ten pounds in the whole, in any place or places but in his own dwelling 
 house, or habitation, being the usual place of his abode for six months 
 last past ; or shall, before such election be made and declared, make 
 any other present, gift, or reward, or any promise, obligation, or en- 
 gagement to do the same, . . . every such entertainment, present, 
 gift, reward, promise, obligation, or engagement is by this House de- 
 clared to be bribery, and such entertainment, present, gift, reward, 
 promise, obligation, op engagement, being duly proved, is, and shall 
 be a sufficient ground, cause, and matter to make every such election 
 void as to the person so offending, and to render the person so elected 
 incapable to sit in Parliament by such election. 
 
 Resolved, that the said order against excessive drinking at elections 
 be a further instruction to the Committee of Elections. 
 
 Legislation Against Bribery. 
 
 This was followed by further endeavours to grapple with this 
 troublesome question. On November 22, 1680, there is a bill "to 
 prevent the offences of bribery and debauchery " ; and on October 
 23, 1689, a bill "to prevent abuses occasioned by excessive ex- 
 penditure at elections . . ." was read a first time. Ultimately 
 the Act of 7 William III., c. 4, provided that no person, within 
 certain limited periods, should give to any elector, or elective body, 
 any entertainment, or money or promise thereof, " in order to be 
 elected, or for being elected." In the next session of Parliament 
 
 171
 
 CORRUPT PRACTICES. 
 
 the election of Henry Fairfax for Aldborough (Yorks) was declared 
 void, he having, "contrary to the Act made in the last session, 
 spent great sums of money in treating the electors." The mere 
 record of these facts, however, is misleading if we fail to bear in 
 mind that not only were the political ideals of the period adjusted 
 to totally different ethical standards, but that treating was often 
 an essential weapon, which the candidate, even in the popular 
 cause, could by no means afford to discard. At the Buckingham- 
 shire election of 1685 an attempt was made by the Court party 
 to defeat Wharton, because he was one of the members who had 
 carried the Exclusion Bill up to the Bar of the Lords. It was 
 originally announced tfhat the poll would take place at Aylesbury, 
 but it was shifted, at a moment's notice, to Newport Pagnell, 
 where, meanwhile, Wharton's opponents had engaged every avail- 
 able inn and lodging. The result was that the Whig freeholders 
 who supported Wharton had to sleep in the meadows under the 
 open sky, and they and their horses must have starved but for the 
 ^1,500 a huge sum. which Wharton spent in the provision of 
 meat and drink. All this is very foreign to modern modes, but, 
 looking at all the circumstances, censure would verge upon the 
 hypercritical. 
 
 From this point down to the passing of the first Reform Bill 
 corruption, as an element of, or an excrescence upon, the electoral 
 mechanism develops along two distinct but parallel lines. By 
 means of bribery and treating the voter is corrupted personally 
 and individually. By means of tfne pocket borough system he is 
 bought and sold in the aggregate, as the political property of various 
 parties who make a pro.1t out of the infamous traffic. Bribery 
 becomes more open and more lavish until the recognised quotation 
 of a vote ranges from one to twenty guineas, but in some cases 
 (as at Grampound) rises to ^300.* Treating expands in the same 
 shameless fashion. The "Annual Register" for 1761 asserts 
 (page 101), apparently in all seriousness, that the provisions con- 
 sumed " by the voters of a small borough on the day of electing 
 their members " (and, of course, at the expense of the members) 
 included 980 stone of beef, 315 dozen of wine, 72 pipes of ale, 
 and 365 gallons of spirits. These were the main items of a dinn' , 
 which included veal, mutton, poultry, and pastry as well, and 
 followed upon a breakfast supplied to the same concourse of 
 gluttons at an expense of ^750. Even allowing for a gooH 
 deal of exaggeration, these are terrible figures alike in their 
 exhibition of the low ideals of a comparatively recent past, and 
 in their warning against the power and 1 insidiousness which still 
 survive in these appeals to the primeval instincts of humanity. As 
 
 * " Dictionary of English History." As recently as 1819, according to 
 the report of a trial in the " Annual Register " for that year, .35 per 
 vote was recognised as a reasonable quotation. 
 
 I 7 2
 
 CORRUPT PRACTICES. 
 
 late as the Herefordshire petition (1803, i Peck, 184), it was 
 sought to be established, on the basis of a speech made by Lord 
 Mansfield, that "there may be a giving of money, meat, and 
 drink to an elector, by a candidate, and during an election, which, 
 notwithstanding, not being given with corrupt intent or with a 
 view to influence the election, is not an offence within the Statute 
 of William III.'' In the second Southwark case (1796), it was 
 possible to quote Smith v. Rose* and Ridler v. Moore, t to show 
 that publicans had been allowed to recover the amount of their 
 bills for drink supplied, which could not have been the case had 
 the mere act, without the collateral evil motive, been considered as 
 a crime; though an exactly opposite view was taken in Ribbans 
 v. Crickett (35 Geo. III., i Peck, 215), where it was said that 
 such a contract was " bottomed in malum prohibitum, of a very 
 serious nature in the opinion of the legislature, as appears by the 
 preamble of 7 and 8 William III., c. 4." Language used in this 
 second Southwark case clearly indicates tihat the distinction be- 
 tween 'bribery and treating, now clearly recognised (see speech 
 for the defence in Clifford's Report, page 228), was that bribery 
 was the giving of money, and treating the giving of meat and 
 drink. All legislative attempts to deal with the evil had proved 
 practically futile. The Bribery Oath the voter's sworn declara- 
 tion that he had not been bribed was not asked for lest he should 
 add perjury to bribery by a sworn denial (Bribery Committee, 1835, 
 Question 1294). As we shall see when we come to consider the 
 character and tendency of corrupt practices in their influence upon 
 the electoral machinery, there are obvious psychological reasons 
 why legislation isi almost powerless to deal with an evil of this 
 kind, as long as the law is considerably in advance of general pub- 
 lic sentiment. This is the explanation why the legislation, real or 
 attempted, of 1729. 1762, 1768, 1782, 1786, and 1809 was ineffec- 
 tual to restrain the growth of what had become a frightful civic ex- 
 crescence. But the Reform Act of 1832 introduced new elements 
 into the Legislature. The study of the evidence submitted to the 
 Select Committee appointed in 1835 to consider the most effectual 
 means of preventing bribery, corruption, and intimidation at elec- 
 tions, indicates, indeed, a regrettable state of affairs, but exhibits 
 with equal clearness the growth of more wholesome opinions. 
 Thus it happened that the sterner legislation of 1841, followed 
 by the Act of 1852 (which conferred extended powers of inquiry into 
 election offences upon Royal Commissioners), and that of 1854 
 (which made bribery a misdemeanour) was able to operate amid 
 a healthier public sentiment. Of course, there were sporadic 
 revulsions, such as offended the public eye after the General 
 Election of 1880. But it was this outbreak which caused the 
 
 * Cliff, 103. t Cliff, 371. 
 173
 
 CORRUPT PRACTICES. 
 
 enactment of the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Act of 
 1883 arid thus fitly crowned the edifice of sound and salutary 
 enactment in a matter vital to the wholesome political evolution of 
 the nation. 
 
 The Pocket Boroughs. 
 
 So far, then, of corruption applied to the individual elector, 
 either as an individual, or collectively with others of the same 
 low civic ideals as himself. The root of the other species of cor- 
 ruption (the purchase and sale of aggregates of electors) was to 
 be found in tihe economic changes that were passing over the 
 country. The towns that had been important in the Middle Ages 
 still retained their control of the representative system, sulch as it 
 was. But very many of them were becoming of less and less im- 
 portance in the economic life of the country, while the newer 
 centres of population and activity had no constitutional means of 
 impressing their fresher ideals of civic life and duty upon Parlia- 
 ment. In the older centres, as the number of burgesses fell away 
 the remainder became the easier to control, partly because of the 
 intellectual stagnation which follows hard upon civic decay, and 
 partly because of the greaiter economic dependence which was a 
 consequence of dying trade and vanishing population in cities 
 whose long streets had once roared with the traffic of a mediaeval 
 fair, but were now little more than villages and perhaps mere 
 groups of mounds. The two sources of weakness, by their com- 
 bined influence, threw these old constituencies bodily into the 
 hands of landlords and speculators. Boroughs were bought and 
 sold quite openly at prices which seemed to have reached their 
 superior limit in the sum of ^100,000 paid for Gatton, a place 
 containing twenty-five houses and rather more than 100 inhabi- 
 tants. One of these transactions took place by order of the Court 
 of Chancery. But these pocket-borougih values fell heavily as it 
 became evident that the reforming spirit must soon sweep away 
 the whole obnoxious system. About the time of the Reform Act 
 eight seats went for ^4,000 the lot, and long before the political 
 advent of the present electoral generation the only relic of the 
 older mode was (and perhaps is) the persistence of a tendency to 
 keep certain seats in the hands of certain families. But inasmuch 
 as in these instances the voters have not outgrown the idea that 
 territorial amplitude confers political capacity and an undeniable 
 claim to their suffrages, the state of things is not so much an abuse 
 as an antique. 
 
 Some Instances of Bribery. 
 
 The learned editors of " Rogers " adopt the general view that 
 "bribery at Parliamentary elections must always have been a 
 crime at common law; but they account for the absence of 
 prosecutions at a time when the offence was committed with 
 
 174
 
 CORRUPT PRACTICES. 
 
 striking frequency and conspicuous flagrancy by the hypothesis 
 that the House of Commons strictly conserved its own judicial 
 power over matters concerning elections and took the punishment 
 into its own hands. The result was to make bribery charges into 
 questions of privilege and consequently to render extremely rash 
 the pretensions of any individual to appeal to any other tribunal in 
 a matter of which the House of Commons took a peculiarly inti- 
 mate and authoritative cognisance. This power of the House of 
 Commons still exists unaltered. The judges who try an election 
 petition do so on behalf of the House of Commons and report 
 their decision to the Speaker as the chairman of the assembly 
 whence their own authority proceeds. It is clear, however, that 
 bribery in those early days must have been a much more gross 
 and objectionable electoral phenomenon than anything which we 
 have witnessed in our own age, or are apt to associate with the 
 idea. The validity of an election, for instance, was vainly assailed 
 where 214 persons (of whom seventy-eight were voters and actually 
 voted) were employed as clerks, messengers, bill-posters, and the 
 like. (Salisbury, 4 O'M. and H., 22.) Similarly, at Tamworth 
 (i O'M. and H., 78), the employment of 130 men "to keep the 
 peace " did not avoid the election ; though in the Oxford case 
 (W. and D., 106), where 198 messengers (152 being voters) were 
 employed, it did. The other Oxford case (3 O'M. and H., 155) 
 was an excessively flagrant one. No fewer than 744 persons were 
 employed as messengers, of whom 600 were voters and actually 
 voted. The fact that there was ever any doubt about the illegality 
 of such flagrant corruption as this, and that in some cases its 
 existence did not avail to avoid the election, is sufficient of itself 
 to show how immensely more healthy our political ethics have 
 become and how monstrous must have been the corrupt practices in 
 the period from which these cases date. 
 
 The Touchstone of the Offence. 
 
 In our own day, given the legal proof of the act or acts alleged 
 to constitute bribery, the whole question resolves itself into one of 
 motive. Was there a corrupt intent? That question is most 
 difficult to answer where the alleged bribery consists of donations 
 and subscriptions to charitable and other quasi-public institutions, 
 and the judges have displayed a marked reluctance to treat as 
 corruption this ambiguous generosity on the part of a candidate. 
 Of course, if it began on a lavish scale on the very eve of the 
 election, there would be no doubt of its character. Much more 
 frequently, however, it takes the form of long-continued and osten- 
 tatious gifts, such as we discussed very fully in considering the 
 period of candidature. It is submitted that the solution there 
 offered (the compulsory inclusion of all these gifts during a certain 
 period before the election in the statutory maximum of election 
 
 175
 
 CORRUPT PRACTICES. 
 
 expenses) is the best way of dealing with the matter. Flagrant 
 and lavish expenditure is in that way rendered impossible during 
 the period when it would be politically effective; the public is 
 enabled to know what was given, and how ; the generous candidate 
 suffers a counterbalancing disadvantage as against the poor candi- 
 date, who cannot bestow lavish gifts; and che judges are, to a 
 great extent, relieved of the onerous and odious obligation of 
 scrutinising and classifying motives. 
 
 Whatever be the view taken of these quasi-public donations, 
 the fact that they take place in the public eye, and that their 
 amount is known, deprives them of much of their otherwise mis- 
 chievous and sinister character. The really difficult problems of 
 bribery arise, and the dangerous assault upon electoral freedom and 
 responsibility is most insidiously made, where it is the mind of the 
 individual voter that is sought to be corrupted. This class of cor- 
 ruption, however, let us say frankly at the beginning, is now of 
 little menace as a present force in English politics. The writer 
 may, perhaps, justifiably reinforce his own opinion by the quota- 
 tion of an eminent American critic. " Bribery in England," says 
 Professor Lowell,* " is disappearing. In by far the greater part 
 of the constituencies it does not exist, and the elections are, on 
 the whole, pure; but in a few places the old traditions still per- 
 sist." Even this apparent persistence, moreover, is in some degree 
 due to the practice of alleging that an opponent's victory is due to 
 " bribery " or to " beer.' 7 Those who make these allegations are 
 always scrupulously careful to put them in such a shape as shall 
 not give any individual the chance of taking proceedings for libel. 
 But as long as it is the occasional custom for a defeated candidate 
 and his friends to denounce as corrupt the constituency which a 
 day or two before the candidate would have " deemed it an honour 
 to represent," we must be prepared for the assumption, even by ex- 
 perienced foreign observers of our electoral mechanism, that cor- 
 ruption still survives among us. In the form of intimidation, it 
 certainly does. In the form of bribery, treating, and personation, 
 on anything like an extensive, or even moderate, scale, it certainly 
 does not. As a matter of fact, voting by ballot is itself one of the 
 most valuable antidotes to bribery. It deprives the briber of any 
 guarantee that he will get value for his money. If he discovers 
 that he has been tricked if the bribee has not voted at all, or 
 else has voted against the party which provided the bribe there is 
 no remedy but in vituperation; and even that, being of necessity 
 indulged in private, loses half its charm. Bribery is so ex- 
 tremely dangerous and is so utterly opposed to the sentiments 
 of the vast majority of the electors, even of the very 
 poorest, that it becomes more rare and more abnormal 
 at every election. A candidate who is so foolish as to 
 * " Government of England," p. 237. 
 176
 
 CORRUPT PRACTICES. 
 
 commit it, or who would not instantly repudiate its com- 
 mission by others and expel the guilty persons from the entourage 
 of his party and organisation, would be quite a rara avis in Eng- 
 lish politics. But when allusion is made to the comparative 
 unimportance of bribery as a " present force," what is meant is that 
 both this offence, and the allied guilt of treating, are 
 alike appeals to the primeval instincts of individual acquisi- 
 tiveness and indulgence, though because these are checked by the 
 social conventions, it must not be imagined that they have lost their 
 resilience. The crushing pressure of the law may not safely be 
 removed for an instant. At the moment, however, we may well 
 believe as regards bribery in its special characteristics of secrecy 
 and individual commission, that its chief danger lies, not as a 
 menace to the freedom of the elector, but to the position of the 
 candidate. Nothing is easier than for a man to swear that the 
 candidate gave him a sovereign, accompanying the gift with a 
 significant wink. If the alleged act is corroborated by other evi- 
 dence and if the court believes that the candidate might have 
 been rash enough to commit bribery in the presence of witnesses, 
 he will probably have only his own cath between himself and 
 disaster. A vivid and actual instance, much to the point, may be 
 briefly detailed. The voter swore that the candidate gave him 
 a sovereign, with a hint that it was the purchase price of his vote. 
 Cross-examined, the voter remembered the occasion perfectly well. 
 Asked what the weather was, he replied that it was a bitterly cold 
 day and the ground was covered with snow. As the election had 
 taken place in the height of the summer, this answer was fatal to 
 the charge. Another voter, giving evidence in support of a 
 similar charge, remembered the occasion because he was selling a 
 certain kind of fish from a barrow when the money was given him. 
 But that kind of fish, it appears, was not in season at the tune, nor 
 could be for some months afterwards. In each case the skill of 
 the cross-examiner brings about the collapse of the charge, but it 
 is nevertheless permissible to reflect upon what might have hap- 
 pened with an equally unscrupulous but more skilful witness, able 
 to cast an air of verisimilitude around the whole alleged transac- 
 tion. 
 
 The Difficult Problem of Motive. 
 
 Given the alleged act, however, the question of motive imme- 
 diately arises. The difficulties of the interpretation of the law 
 may perhaps be made clearer by an actual case, slightly disguised. 
 On the evening before what was expected to be a very close poll 
 the adult daughter of one of the candidates (who was a prominent 
 and successful worker on his behalf, and undoubtedly his agent) 
 visited a voter, and presented him with a small sum of money 
 (about 2S. 6d.) and with the contents of a basket which held a jug 
 
 N 777
 
 CORRUPT PRACTICES. 
 
 of cream, a dozen eggs, and a pound of fresh butter. The man 
 was a widower, with two or three young children. He was a 
 semi-invalid, living in squalid circumstances, in a miserable 
 by-street. His political views were doubtful, if indeed they 
 existed in definite shape at all. The facts were not disputed, but 
 the voter himself was not called. He feared that his evidence 
 must in any case antagonise some of his friends, and frankly stated 
 thxt if he were compelled to enter the witness-box he would say 
 that he had forgotten all the circumstances. In support of the 
 contention that this was an act of bribery it was urged that the 
 lady had not been similarly kind to any other voter and that she 
 had never before, and never since, bestowed any benevolence on 
 this man. The reply was that the lady was actuated simply by- 
 natural womanly kindness and sympathy. Her attention had been 
 called to the man's desolate position and squalid, circumstances, 
 as well as to the impaired health which made active exertion im- 
 possible. It was the consideration of these facts, and not any 
 idea of securing a vote for her father, which took her to the 
 wretched home, with her basket of dairy produce, on the night 
 before the poll. There was some reason to believe that the reci- 
 pient of the gift did, in fact, vote for the lady's father, but this 
 was not certainly known. Was this bribery? There was only 
 one person who could have given anything approaching a positive 
 answer, and that was the lady herself. If (which was denied by 
 herself) she gave the bounty with the intent that it should influence 
 the vote, she was guilty of bribery. If she acted in natural 
 womanly sympathy with human misery, she was not. It is probable 
 that if the circumstances of this case were detailed to an average 
 audience (and they were kept in ignorance of the lady's political 
 views) there would be a. sharp division of opinion. The audience 
 would suffer from the disadvantage of not having seen the lady, 
 but otherwise it would be in a position to appreciate the difficult 
 problems which the law of bribery may present for the considera- 
 tion of an election court, as well as for those who have to draft the 
 charges in an election petition. In this instance, however, the 
 court declined to listen to the suggestion of a corrupt motive. But 
 the untechnical reader must not therefore imagine that baskets 
 of dairy produce may be freely distributed by a candidate's 
 dauglhter on the eve of the poll. Five baskets might, and ten 
 baskets almost certainly would, assume a sinister aspect when 
 viewed with the jealous eyes of an election petition court. It is 
 wholly a question of motive r and this, seeing that the only source 
 of positive information is but imperfectly available (even if it 
 is available at all) brings us face to face with a psychological 
 problem of the most abstruse and perplexing kind. 
 
 178
 
 CORRUPT PRACTICES. 
 
 Farther Typical Instances. 
 
 Equally complex psychological problems are presented in the 
 following cases, which the reader may profitably consider, as a 
 means of educating his judgment into acquaintance with the more 
 subtle workings of the election law : 
 
 (1) A, a voter, receives ^5 from an agent of the candidate. The 
 money is paid to secure A's vote, and also to obtain his influence 
 with certain other voters. With these latter, however, A, acting 
 under the stimulus of the ^5 bribe, successfully uses his best 
 powers of persuasion, but makes no attempt whatever to bribe 
 them. A's vote is unquestionably bad. What is the position of 
 the votes of the persons persuaded by him ? Are they bad also ? 
 
 (2) A candidate guarantees for B, a non-voter (but who has 
 relatives on the register) the sum of ^5, for solicitor's costs, in 
 order that he may take certain legal proceedings which otherwise 
 he could not initiate. The proceedings are successful, and the 
 solicitor's costs are paid by the defendants, so that the candidate 
 is never called upon under the guarantee. Is this bribery on the 
 part of the candidate? 
 
 (3) The son of C, a voter, has failed in mathematics at the 
 London University Matriculation examination in June. The can- 
 didate, D, a first-class honours man in mathematics, gives him 
 some hours' coaching during August, with the result that, when 
 he goes up again at the September examination, he passes in the 
 First Division, and is enabled to accept an appointment offered 
 to him conditionally upon his passing. At the election in October 
 C, who was formerly an opponent of D, votes and works for him. 
 Is D guilty of bribery? 
 
 In case (i) it was judicially held that the votes of the other 
 voters were bad. The soundness of this decision is open to 
 serious challenge. In case (2) it was held that there was no 
 bribery. Case (3) is imaginary, and is offered for the considera- 
 tion of readers and critics. 
 
 It may be desirable to add at this point that a wager, if designed 
 to corrupt a voter, will vitiate the vote. Suppose the candidates to 
 be A and B. A voter, C, who is in necessitous circumstances, is a 
 supporter of A, and intends to vote for him. D, the secret agent 
 of B, bets C ^100 to _^i that B will not be returned. C has now 
 a large interest in the return of B, for whom he ultimately votes, in 
 the desire to win the bet. Clearly this vote cannot stand. 
 
 A few other instances of acts which have been held to be 
 bribery will be of material illustrative assistance : 
 
 Taking shares off a voter's hands, so as to relieve him of the 
 liability tihereon. (Bewdley, 1880.) 
 
 Paying a substitute for the voter, in order that the latter might be 
 relieved from duty and be able to vote, without any loss of earnings. 
 (Plymouth, 1880.) Of the same class is the direct payment of wages 
 lost through coming to vote. (Stalybridge, 1869.) 
 
 179
 
 CORRUPT PRACTICES. 
 
 Agent of the respondent giving a voter a pair of boots. (Tewkesbury, 
 1880.) 
 
 Permission given by candidate to his tenants, being voters, to kill 
 rabbits (which their leases prohibited). (Launceston, 1874.) 
 
 Gifts of coal, sent to voters with the candidate's compliments. (He 
 was also the sitting member.) (Boston, 1874.) 
 
 The Psychological Element. 
 
 The reader will by now have begun to realise how difficult is 
 the examination and interpretation of circumstances which are 
 alleged to be the environment of a corrupt act. The election 
 judges, though as a rule they are not profound psychologists, 
 have seen the real import of these problems quite clearly, and 
 have even, from time to time, endeavoured to expound the scien- 
 tific mode of their solution. There is a singularly happy and 
 lucid passage in the judgment of Mr. Justice Grove (Boston, 1874, 
 2 O'M. and H., 164-165), where he says: "It is as well that the 
 public should know that when a judge pronounces an opinion upon 
 a certain state of facts he takes into consideration the existing 
 state of knowledge, and the existing circumstances : but when 
 upon a second occasion persons seek to avail themselves of that 
 ruling, and think they can do a wrong act, simply trying to keep 
 within the particular facts which upon the former occasion were 
 held not to be corrupt, they frequently do acts which must be 
 held to be corrupt. It may be that, upon precisely the same 
 apparent state of facts, an act which is not held cor- 
 rupt at one time .may be held corrupt at another 
 time : because knowledge goes on, and if the second act is a 
 mode of effecting a corrupt purpose, merely getting out of a judi- 
 cial decision upon the previous state of circumstances, then that 
 which in the first instance is not corrupt would in the second in- 
 stance become corrupt. It is well that persons should know that 
 these matters must depend upon the circumstances, and that 
 people cannot successfully evade the law by simply, as they 
 think, getting out of the terms which the judges use in their ex- 
 planation of the law." So, again, Mr. Justice Wills in Mont- 
 gomery (1892, Day's Election Cases, page 150) said: "The law 
 deals with substance, not with shadows. The law allows those 
 trivial matters which occur from time to time and cannot be 
 prevented, which really do no mischief except 'in the minds 
 of the suspicious, and nc* inference is to be drawn 
 against a person who simply eats and drinks in the way 
 of moderate refreshment .... That which might pre- 
 sent attractions to one man which he could not resist may to 
 another be possible to avoid. A hungry creature will go into the 
 trap for a bait at which the well-fed one will turn up his nose 
 with disdain. But it must be obvious (I have said enough and I 
 meant no more by what I said than to introduce what really is 
 
 1 80
 
 CORRUPT PRACTICES. 
 
 at the bottom of the decision in all these cases) that the judge 
 must satisfy his mind whether that which was done was really 
 done in so unusual and' suspicious a way that he ought to impute 
 to the person who has done it a criminal intention in doing it, or 
 whether the circumstances are such that it may fairly be imputed 
 to the man's generosity, or his profusion, or his desire to express 
 his goodwill to those who honestly help his cause, without resort- 
 ing to the illegal means of attracting voters by means of an 
 appeal to their appetite." For, as Mr. Justice Willes (Coventry, 
 1869, i O'M. and H., 106-107) remarked: "Eating and drinking 
 must go on, notwithstanding electioneering, in the ordinary and 
 usual course. When eating and drinking takes the form of entic- 
 ing people for the purpose of inducing them to change their 
 minds, and to vote for the party to which they do not belong, 
 then it becomes corrupt, and is forbidden by the statute. Until 
 that arrives the mere fact of eating and drinking, even with the 
 connection which the supper had with politics, is not sufficient to 
 make out corrupt treating." This aspect of treating was analysed 
 more at length by Mr. (afterwards Lord Justice) Bowen, who said 
 with regard to the Wigan (1881) election petition (where the 
 question of the provision of breakfasts on polling day was dis- 
 cussed) : " Can one close one's eyes to this fact in connection with 
 the last Wigan election, that it took place at a time of great dis- 
 tress in the town, when large numbers of colliers were on strike 
 and where the gift of a breakfast to a starving man was worth as 
 much to him on that morning as the gift of a pound would have 
 been perhaps, at a more prosperous time? In answer to the 
 suggestion that a cup of coffee and a piece of bread and cheese is 
 not such a pampering of the appetite as constitutes electoral treat- 
 ment, I desire to point out that a cup of water to a soldier who 
 is perishing for water on the battlefield would be worth all the 
 weight of the cup in gold and more. You must not measure the 
 treat by the actual thing which is given. Water or bread in itself 
 may appear a little matter; but you must take into consideration 
 the time at which and the circumstances in which it is given. 
 Now on this day hunger was abroad in the streets of Wigan." 
 
 General Corruption. 
 
 Having indicated the perplexing nature of the profound problems 
 underlying the expressions "bribery" and "treating," which are 
 so glibly employed in mutual recrimination by the more ardent 
 partisans at nearly every deletion, it will be desirable to add a 
 few notes for the purpose of completing, as far as the necessities 
 of our present purpose go, the survey of the legal elements. It 
 is important to bear in mind, therefore, that the general pre- 
 valence of any of the corrupt practices at an election will avoid 
 it, although no specific charge has been brought home to the 
 
 181
 
 CORRUPT PRACTICES. 
 
 candidates or their agents. This proposition as to generality, how- 
 ever, though entirely true as regards bribery, treating, or undue 
 influence, is limited in its application to the corrupt practice of 
 personation by the improbability, not to say the impossibility, of 
 anything like general personation at a modern election.* There 
 exists, however, a not uirncomimon practice of providing what is 
 euphemistically called " refreshment for the workers " on election 
 day. The practice ought not to be tolerated for a moment by a 
 careful candidate or a Capable election agent. The provision of 
 meat and drink in this way is excessively dangerous, even if it is 
 bona fide intended only for the convenience (and not for the 
 stimulus, much less the exhilaration) of the candidate's avowed 
 and whole-hearted supporters. In the first place, they may intro- 
 duce persons who are not whole-hearted supporters, in order that 
 the latter may share the bounteous provision which has been 
 made. In such circumstances the materials for a good prima- 
 facie case of treating are instantly created. But even if there is 
 the most severe and real restriction of the benefit to the avowed 
 and whole-hearted supporters of the candidate, it only needs proof 
 that the meat and drink were provided as a reward for services 
 rendered (and not, wi/th absolute gratuitousness, merely for their 
 "convenience) to transform the whole transaction into a case of 
 illegal payment if the service rendered were (for instance) can- 
 vassing (which may not be paid for) ; or of illegal employment if 
 the persons did the work of clerks and messengers, though their 
 number were external to the statutory aggregate of such assistants. 
 As the law stands, no such refreshment should be provided. When 
 the law is amended, its provision should be in terms prohibited. 
 
 " Time to Vote," for Workmen. 
 
 The question whether an employer might give his workmen a 
 holiday on the day of the poll, without risking the suggestion that 
 he was thereby bribing them, and consequently, if he were an 
 agent of the candidate, imperilling the whole election, was for 
 some time the subject of considerable perplexity. The doubts 
 are now set at rest by 48 and 49 Viet., c. 56, which legalises 
 the giving of a holiday under these circumstances, provided (i) 
 it is given to all alike ; (2) is not given as an inducement to vote 
 for any particular candidate ; and (3) is not refused to any person 
 in order to prevent him voting for a particular candidate. The 
 grant of these facilities is not only permissible, but mildly com- 
 pulsory, under the Tasmanian Act : 
 
 157. (i.) If an employee who is an elector notifies his employer 
 before the polling day that he desires leave of absence to enable him 
 to vote at any election, the employer shall, if the absence desired is 
 
 * There is a dictum to the contrary in Belfast (4 O'M. and H., 108), 
 where thirteen cases of personation were proved. 
 
 182
 
 CORRUPT PRACTICES. 
 
 necessary to enable the employee to vote at the election, allow him leave 
 of absence without any penalty for such reasonable period, not exceeding 
 two working hours, as is necessary to enable the employee to vote at 
 the election. 
 
 (2.) No employee sftall under pretence that he intends to vote at the 
 election, but without the intention of doing so, obtain leave of absence 
 under this section. 
 
 (3.) This section shall not apply to any elector whose absence may 
 cause danger or substantial loss in respect of the employment in which 
 he is engaged. 
 
 Penalty : 5. 
 
 Such legislative provisions are not only unobjectionable, but 
 praiseworthy. Their working requires, however, to be facilitated 
 by the holding of all elections on one day (all public-houses being 
 closed during the whole twenty-four hours, and all grocers' licenses 
 suspended for the same period). This provision would secure the 
 minimum of interference with business as a result of leave given 
 for the purpose of voting. In another few years it will be desirable 
 to make the polling-day a national and compulsory holiday 
 throughout the country. That proposal, and the objections to its 
 present adoption, are discussed in the proper place (post, Chap- 
 ter XL). 
 
 Paying Another Candidate's Expenses. 
 
 It seems clear that, in a double-member constituency, one can- 
 didate may agree to pay the expenses of the other who stands 
 with him!, although, in fact, this comes fairly near to the purchase 
 of the political influence of the second candidate. Sudh an agree- 
 ment, if challenged before an election icourt, would be liable to- 
 be very jealously analysed 'and examined. As there have been 
 several recent cases where, in double-member constituencies, one 
 joint candidate was understood to " find the money," and the other 
 to " find the brains," it may be that a case precisely in point will 
 ultimately engage the attention of an election court. 
 
 SECTION II. Undue Influence. 
 
 If it is possible to claim with some degree of confidence that the 
 potency of bribery and treating is steadily on the decline among 
 us, mainly because of the healthier public opinion which offers 
 an equal resentment to both, unfortunately it is not possible to 
 say the same of a yet more impalpable, pernicious and dangerous 
 force, the various manifestations of which are described in the 
 single term " undue influence." This is powerfully operative 
 everywhere more powerfully, perhaps, in county than in borough 
 elections, but in both cases far too widespread to be regarded with 
 equanimity by any serious observer of the electoral system. 
 
 Like bribery and treating, intimidation was originally practised 
 upon the aggregate of the citizens, as well as upon the individuals 
 separately. This was always contrary to the common law. as is 
 shown by the declaratory statute 3 Edw. L, c. 5, which forbids the 
 
 183
 
 CORRUPT PRACTICES. 
 
 distuibance of the right of free election by means of arms, as well 
 as by "malice and menacing." The maintenance of a standing 
 army by the King, and the interference of peers in elections, were 
 also regarded as dangerous to electoral freedom. The former 
 danger has been removed by the placing of the army under the 
 control of Parliament. The latter forms the subject of spasmodic 
 discussion in the House of Commons. The protests, however, are 
 invariably directed to alleged pre-election interference with the 
 freedom of election, although, as we shall see, there is an equally 
 objectionable and much more subtle form of interference by means 
 of attempts, subsequent to the poll, to quash the electoral verdict 
 by means of an appeal to another tribunal. Ministers of the 
 Crown, by the use of the powers of office, and the police, are other 
 sources from which the undue influence of the mass of the electors 
 has been supposed to come, or to be likely to emanate : and vari- 
 ous attempts have been made to neutralise or to destroy it, both 
 by resolution of the House of Commons and by statute. Undue 
 influence, as exercised upon the individual, must have been fairly 
 frequent during the period when bribery and treating flourished 
 in unchecked profusion. Any elector who had sufficient inde- 
 pendence of mind to seek the inspiration of his action in his 
 political judgment rather than in his pocket or his appetite, pro- 
 bably found himself in no enviable position. This would naturally 
 be the case with the pocket boroughs. If even the member him- 
 self was compelled to follow the owner of the borough to the 
 hunting field, as part of his entourage, the danger of an in- 
 dividual repudiation of the obligations of clientship can be easily 
 imagined. 
 
 Undue Influence Defined. 
 
 The modern definition of undue influence was attempted for the 
 first time in Sect. 5 of 17 and 18 Viet., c. 102, and this section, 
 repealed and substantially re-enacted by Sect. 2 of 46 and 47 Viet., 
 c. 51, is now the statutory authority on the subject. The section 
 provides that " every person who shall directly or indirectly, by 
 himself, or by any other person on his behalf, make use of or 
 threaten to make use of any force, violence, or restraint, or inflict 
 or threaten to inflict by himself or by any other person any tem- 
 poral or spiritual injury, damage, harm, or loss upon or against 
 any person in order to induce or compel such person to vote or 
 refrain from voting, or on account of such person having voted 
 or refrained from voting at any election, or who shall by abduc- 
 tion, duress, or any fraudulent device or contrivance impede or 
 prevent the free exercise of the franchise of any elector, or shall 
 thereby compel, induce, or prevail upon any elector either to give 
 or to refrain from giving his vote at any election, shall be guilty 
 of undue influence." By section 3 of the same Act undue influence 
 
 184
 
 CORRUPT PRACTICES. 
 
 is made a corrupt practice, and so becomes capable (if committed 
 by a candidate or his agents) of avoiding an election, subject to 
 precisely the same considerations with regard to motive as bribery 
 and treating. It is, however, a much more impalpable and insidious 
 influence than either of the other two of these triplets of corruption. 
 The use of brute force or violence is not a common form of undue 
 influence than either of the other two of these triplets of corruption, 
 difficult of excuse or explanation, for it to be a safe weapon to 
 use. It is in its other two forms the open, disguised, or under- 
 stood threat of pecuniary, or else of social, injury, damage, harm, 
 or loss, that undue influence is exercised at present. 
 
 Illustrations of Undue Influence. 
 
 A tradesman is not told in so many wordls that he will lose 
 custom if he votes for a certain candidate or identifies himself 
 with a specified civic cause. But he is " given to understand " that 
 such will be the case, and the hint is conveyed in manner so im- 
 palpable to the law perhaps even by a grimace or a gesture 
 that a prosecution for intimidation is out of the question. More 
 subtle still is the silent, umthreatened, withdrawal of custom. 
 The tradesman finds that his business increases if he is thought 
 to be supporting this side and that customers fall away when he 
 identifies himself with the other. He has not studied Mill's 
 theory of concomitant variations, but his mother wit enables him 
 to apply it to his own affairs. The result is frequently to make 
 him into a civic hypocrite, exhibiting the placards, cheering the 
 name, and attending the meetings of the candidate against whom, 
 in the secrecy of the polling-booth, he casts his vote. No electoral 
 system can be regarded as satisfactory which fosters, or even 
 tolerates, a furtive and cunning spirit as the accompaniment and 
 inspiration of a political duty. 
 
 But there are more insidious forms of intimidation. The candi- 
 date for an alms-house or a cottage provided out of the funds of 
 some society is made to understand that unless his own political 
 colouring harmonises wtih that of the local committee his hopes 
 will be in vain. The workman, again, is not often told in plain 
 English that if he votes for A, or seeks to aid him by canvassing 
 or the expression of opinion, he will be discharged. The threat 
 is more Wkely to take the form of a hint that if A gets in all the 
 men on the estate, for instance, will be discharged. If one of the 
 men does, in fact, receive his dismissal, before the poll, as a warn- 
 ing to the others, a prosecution is hopeless. At the best it will 
 not put the man back in the place that he has lost ; at the worst, 
 if the contest is close, it may lose tRe battle for the candidate from 
 whose side the prosecution comes, or in whose interest it appears 
 to be initiated. Moreover, the dismissal may, from the point 
 of view of the present discussion, be perfectly innocent. As
 
 CORRUPT PRACTICES. 
 
 Mr. Justice Willes said in Blackburn (1869, i O'M. and H., 204-5) : 
 " Where an employer has a mixed motive for dismissing his man, 
 where he has a reason for getting rid of him apart from his politics, 
 is the employer bound, in point of law, to abstain from getting 
 rid of him merely because of the general election coming on ? 
 Well, I think that in point of law, as an abstract question, he 
 is not bound to abstain. But I think any sensible man or sound 
 lawyer advising him would say, ' You may do so ; but take care 
 how you do so, because, unless you prove clearly that you have 
 a good ground for discharging your servant apart fromi the political 
 one, it is inevitable that your discharge of him will be imputed 
 to your dislike, not of the man himself, but of his politics.' :) 
 Occasionally this species of undue influence takes a curious form. 
 In the Northallerton case (1869, i O'M. and H., 168) a person 
 threatened to give up his pew in a Nonconformist chapel unless 
 the minister voted in a certain way. This was held to be intimida- 
 tion. The difficulty in all these cases, of course, lies in the un- 
 deniable fact that where a man possesses the power of legally 
 conferring benefits, and where he has the legal right to confer 
 them on such persons as he may in his absolute discretion select, 
 it is a matter of the extremest nicety, if not of utter impossibility, 
 to determine whether, in a given case, his choice was the result 
 of discretion alone, or of discretion tinctured by a political pur- 
 pose. An even more subtle (and, it is to be feared, not uncom- 
 mon) form of intimidation consists in telling the nervous voter 
 that there is a means of discovering how he votes, and that there- 
 fore he had better be careful. Unfortunately, there is a method 
 of finding out how some of the voters voted, which will be dis- 
 cussed in full when we come to consider the supposed secrecy of 
 the ballot. The flaw is only slight, but it is potent for evil 
 among a class of voters who are (sometimes not without reason) 
 fearful of the discovery of their exercise of the politically inde- 
 pendent judgment which the Third Canon requires, and which 
 it should be the highest aimi of tne electoral system to stimulate and 
 foster. It is very desirable if not, indeed, essential that this 
 flaw should be repaired. At a later stage of the discussion a mode 
 of repair will be suggested. 
 
 Spiritual Intimidation. 
 
 Direct spiritual intirriidation, the actual threat of divine dis- 
 pleasure if the vote is cast in a certain way, is extremely rare in 
 England, simply because it would be ineffective. Men who are 
 humblest in the realm of mystery, and docile in the hands of those 
 who purport to be the guides of its trackless labyrinths, are prone 
 to be among the most intractable amid the realities of civil strife, 
 resenting almost with fierceness the suggestion even of advice, to 
 say nothing of control or compulsion enforced by penalty. Of 
 what are called *he sipiritual or intellectual terrors the only potent 
 
 186
 
 CORRUPT PRACTICES. 
 
 one is the appeal to the gregarious instinct of mankind, enforced 
 by the intimation that every decent man, or every religious 
 man, or every educated man, is opposed to a certain candidate. 
 Many a voter who would be impervious to all other weapons goes 
 down before this pricking of his imitative faculties, this rousing 
 of his instinct, even far too keen and potent, to go with the crowd. 
 It has elsewhere been pointed out, in dealing with the question of 
 the desirability of having all elections on one day, what a tremen- 
 dous impulse is given to the fortunes of the party which draws first 
 blood by the desire of undecided or immature political thinkers 
 to be on the winning side. 
 
 Trickery as an Undue Influence. 
 
 There are a few other methods of undue influence which must 
 be mentioned in order to complete our survey of the subject. 
 Forcible abduction is not likely to occur in our day. It would 
 not be worth while, and it is altogether too full of risk for the 
 perpetrators. Abduction, by a trick, and for a time only, is not 
 an uncommon election device. The voter is got out of the con- 
 stituency on the day of the poll, and kept away till the ballot boxes 
 close. This kind of thing, whether carried out by an employer 
 who deliberately sends a workman on a distant " job " on the day 
 of the poll, or by the workman who punctures the tyres of his 
 employer's motor-car, or by the eager partisan who takes one or 
 more voters to the seaside on the poll- day (see an instance 
 described in detail in Chapter XI.) is extremely pernicious, but 
 very difficult to strike at. The proof of the evil motive generally 
 fails. The master has the legal right to send the workman where 
 he will, and the partisan cannot be prevented from taking a friend 
 for a day at the seaside. In both cases the inspection of the 
 mind, which would alone reveal the motive, is impracticable by 
 a human tribunal : and in the absence of that channel of investiga- 
 tion, it is generally useless to attempt to bring the offence home. 
 
 Another of the more obscure forms of undue influence is now 
 practically non-existent. It consisted in the attempt to mislead 
 the voter, by means of some fraudulent device or suggestion. For 
 instance, the voter receives a specimen poll card with the " X " 
 marked opposite the name of a certain candidate, and a printed 
 intimation that unless he marks his ballot paper in that way, his 
 vote will be lost. Those who sent the missive would iclaim that 
 their meaning was that the voter must signify his wishes by the 
 " X," and in no other way, and that if he failed to carry out these 
 instructions, his vote would certainly be lost. If that were really 
 what was intended, the intimation would have been quite legi- 
 timate guidance. But what the voter frequently understood (and 
 what, it was alleged, he was intended to understand) in these 
 cases was that unless he placed his " X " opposite the name of the 
 
 187
 
 CORRUPT PRACTICES. 
 
 candidate in whose interest the misleading missive had been sent 
 to him, his vote would be lost (see Stepney, 4 O'M. and EL, 55). 
 With an electorate whose educational standard rises higher every 
 year the opportunities for devices of this kind are fast fading 
 away. More subtle modes of procedure have been discovered, 
 some of which, elsewhere in this essay (see, for instance, the dis- 
 cussion of False Statements at Elections), are treated in detail. 
 
 Another very curious device, which is probably fraudulent within 
 the meaning of the section (see Northallerton, i O'M. and H., 169), 
 is worked by means of "pairing." A and B, voters on opposite 
 sides, agree to pair. B, in pursuance of a fraudulent intent, 
 breaks his tacit pledge, and votes, thereby destroying A's vote 
 by a discreditable trick. This device, however, can never have 
 been very prevalent, and like others which depend for their suc- 
 cess upon a low educational or ethical standard, is now so rare 
 as to be negligible as an electoral influence. 
 
 General Intimidation. 
 
 Finally, while individual intimidation will avoid an election 
 only if committed by a candidate or his agents, the election may 
 also be avoided if there is sudh general violence and intimidation 
 (such, for instance, as the presence of mobs of roughs in the 
 streets, assaulting voters) that men of ordinary nerve and courage 
 are deterred from going to the poll. But even where these dis- 
 orderly elements are present, a modern election court would pro- 
 bably require some proof, or, at all events, the grounds of some 
 presumption, that the result of the poll would have been different 
 if there had been no intimidation. Clearly, if the intimidation 
 were exercised against the supporters of the candidate w*ho was, 
 nevertheless, successful, it would be absurd and unfair in the 
 extreme to avoid the election because of it. Election rioting, 
 which was rampant as recently as 1880, is now becoming rather 
 the exception than the rule. Its place is taken by a systematic 
 besetting of the voter, which we shall examine when we come to 
 discuss the mode and circumstances of the poll, and which requires 
 to be sternly dealt with by means of legislation. 
 
 Legitimate Anger is not Intimidation. 
 
 Wihile, however, the elimination of all these undesirable in- 
 fluences from the electoral arena represents a consummation to- 
 wards which sound political emprise must be steadily directed if 
 it is to invigorate the civic organism with some breath of a higher 
 and purer atmosphere, it were wise not to lose sight of certain diffi- 
 culties which are inherent in the existing social and business 
 system. This is a competitive age. Business is conducted by 
 means of a series of competitive organisations, progressively 
 arranged as to size and power, and each grouped round some central 
 
 188
 
 CORRUPT PRACTICES. 
 
 figure to which it looks for impulse and guidance, and under 
 whose orders it acts for the preservation of the corporate interest. 
 The central inspiration of the great wholesale business is its 
 manager, whether he is chief proprietor or not ; and thence, down- 
 wards in descending scale of power and responsibility, we see de- 
 partmental managers, larger and smaller retail traders, their staffs 
 and their dependents. Loyal co-operation is the first condition of 
 efficiency in an intricate organisation like this. Nobody would 
 argue that the hopelessly incapable man should be allowed to re- 
 tain his place in it, since he could only do so at the cost of a 
 severe check upon the active operation of all the other elements. 
 And it is surely also true that he whose political instincts or prin- 
 ciples are such as to bring him into conflict with the interests of 
 the general body may be expelled therefrom, and that the process 
 of expulsion shall not be called intimidation. A brewer's 
 traveller who develops into a prohibitionist, and becomes con- 
 spicuously identified with the prohibitionist propaganda, might 
 well be removed from his position without any infringement of the 
 principles of political freedom. The same fate would as- 
 suredly overtake the member of a trade union who, while enjoying 
 the benefits of corporate protection and collective bargaining, ad- 
 vocated the passage of laws under which trade unionism should be 
 a criminal offence. The prohibitionist propaganda may be all 
 that its advocates claim, but its interests can by no means be re- 
 conciled with those of a brewer ; and in a competitive age the man 
 who earns his living by assisting in the conduct of a traffic which 
 he denounces and endeavours to suppress cannot complain if he 
 is compelled to abandon a position distinguished only by its in- 
 consistency. Freedom to denounce what is believed to be a hurt- 
 ful traffic is one thing ; freedom to simultaneously share in its 
 gains is quite another. The fault is not with the brewer who 
 seeks to protect himself from wounds at the hands of those whom 
 he has a right to consider friends, but with the competitive system, 
 under which men are split up into quasi-military and mutually 
 hostile bands. For that system the brewer is not responsible ; but 
 as long as it subsists he has a right, within legitimate civic limits, 
 to square his conduct with its needs and demands, which he does, 
 for instance, when he rids himself of a hostile servant, whose 
 actions are a hindrance to him in the competitive battle that 
 society forces him to wage. In answer to the argument that the 
 instinct of self-preservation would justify the assailant in main- 
 taining, as long as he could, his pecuniarily advantageous connec- 
 tion with that which he assailed, the reply would be that the same 
 instinct of self-preservation would justify his co-operators in get- 
 ting rid of so dangerous an associate: The same reasoning is 
 equally applicable where any propaganda, hostile to the corporate 
 
 189
 
 CORRUPT PRACTICES. 
 
 interests of any trade or similar organisation, is carried on by 
 those who at the same time share in the benefits derived from the 
 operation of that which they oppose. He who essays the dual role 
 cannot be politically honest; and to strike at political dis- 
 honesty is not intimidation. 
 
 SECTION Ill.-Personation. 
 
 Before the extension of the franchise, and under the old system 
 of open voting (as distinguished from the ballot), the opportunities 
 for personation must have been practically non-existent. When 
 the whole electorate of a constituency could sometimes be num- 
 bered on the fingers of one hand, and in many cases did not 
 exceed 100 persons, the voter who came up to the hustings to 
 prove his title to vote must be personally known to every witness of 
 the proceedings. Voting on a registered qualification at once opens 
 the door to the practice of personation ; and the opening becomes 
 wider as the register increases in bulk, and the attainment of per- 
 sonal acquaintance with all the individual voters becomes propor- 
 tionately more difficult. The earliest English Act striking at this 
 offence is 60 George III. and i George IV., c. u, s. 36 a com- 
 paratively recent statute, evidencing the quite modern character 
 of the offence. Personation is now defined by 35 and 36 Viet., 
 c. 33, s. 24, which provides that a person shall be deemed guilty 
 of personation at an election who " applies for a ballot paper in 
 the name of some other person, whether that name be that of a 
 person living or dead or of a fictitious person, or who, having 
 voted once at any such election, applies at the same election for a 
 ballot paper in his own name." Opportunity for self-personation 
 arises where the same voter has more than one qualification in the 
 same county or borough, and is on the register for each. The 
 divisions which we call constituencies are only created for con- 
 venience, and therefore a person who is on the register in two 
 divisions is, in fact, given the opportunity (in the absence of the 
 provision against self-personation) of voting twice over. For in- 
 stance, let the voter reside in Mile End, and have a shop in 
 Whitechapel. He will be on the register in both constituencies: 
 but as they are themselves only divisions of the old borough of 
 the Tower Hamlets, the voter would, if he voted on both qualifica- 
 tions at a general election, have given two votes in what is, in 
 fact, only one constituency. Hence, as soon as he has voted on 
 one qualification, he is guilty of self-personation if he attempts to 
 vote on the other, at the same election, 
 
 The Prevention of Personation. 
 
 The established machinery for the prevention and detection of 
 personation consists oC the professional vigilance of the returning 
 
 190
 
 CORRUPT PRACTICES. 
 
 officer or the presiding officer* and his assistants, supplemented by 
 the partisan activity of the personation agents. If the presiding 
 officer has doubts about the identity of an applicant for a ballot 
 paper, he must, if required to do so by one (or both) of the persona- 
 tion agents, " put the question " that is, he (generally) administers 
 an catht, and then asks, "Are you the same person whose name 
 appears as A B on the register of voters now in force for [the 
 constituency, described with technical exactness] " ? (6 and 7 
 Viet., c. 18, s. 81.) The form of this question should be carefully 
 noted. It is not an inquiry whetfier the voter's name is A B, 
 but whether he is the person represented on the register as A B. 
 Thus, if the person on the register appears by mistake as " C. B.'' 
 it will be quite proper for A B (who is really the elector to whom 
 the entry " C B " refers) to take the oath and proceed to vote. 
 If the question is not directed against the identity of the voter, on 
 the suggestion that he is personating some other person, it may 
 take the other form allowed by the same section, and directed 
 against self-personation : " Have you already voted either J here 
 or elsewhere at this election for [the constituency, described with 
 technical exactness] ? " 
 
 The offence of personation is complete as soon as the ballot 
 paper has been applied for, even if in consequence of challenge 
 the applicant does not take the oath or proceed further. He is 
 liable to immediate arrest on the initiative either of the presiding 
 officer or of the personation agents. But if he takes the oath he 
 must be allowed to vote, and the entry " protested against for per- 
 sonation " is then made against his name on the presiding officer's 
 marked register. 
 
 Where a voter, on applying for his ballot paper, discovers that 
 an application has already been made for it irt his name (i.e., that 
 he has been either accidentally or corruptly personated) he may, 
 upon answering the question and taking the oath, vote upon a 
 " tendered paper." This is a ballot paper in the same form as the 
 ordinary paper (except that it is pink, while the others are white), 
 but it is not counted by the returning officer in ascertaining the 
 result of the poll. 
 
 * The returning officer is the responsible head of the whole official 
 machinery at an election. A presiding officer is the responsible head of 
 a single polling station only, and of course acts under the instructions 
 of the returning officer. The returning officer may himself, if he choose, 
 be the presiding officer at one of the stations. 
 
 t The form is given in 6 and 7 Viet., c. 18, s. 81. 
 
 f This word applies to counties only. For some reason or other it is 
 omitted from the corresponding borough formula given in 48 and 49 
 Viet., c. 23, s. 13 (4).
 
 CORRUPT PRACTICES. 
 
 The Machinery Criticised. 
 
 The existing machinery for the detection of personation (pro- 
 vided that it includes skilled agents acting in the interests of the 
 contending parties) is quite adequate, if properly and intelligently 
 worked, even for dealing with an electorate based upon the 
 principle of universal suffrage. It would, no doubt, be somewhat 
 strengthened if returning officers made it an invariable practice 
 to employ such persons as rate and! tax collectors in the capacity 
 of presiding officers. These men have a very extensive personal 
 knowledge of the electorate, and their known presence in the 
 polling booth acts as a wholesome check on the ambitions of the 
 would-be personator. They are, in effect, public personation 
 agents, and the addition of the party personation agents, as 
 auxiliaries, creates a barrier which only the most reckless of 
 would-be personators is likely to endeavour to pass. Agreement 
 between the contending parties not to employ personation agents 
 (which is understood to have taken place, for instance, at the 
 Wolverhampton by-election in 1908*) is a most reprehensible 
 arrangement, the general adoption of which would lead to endless 
 confusion and impropriety, especially in town constituencies where 
 there is a " rush " to the polling booth between; six and eight p.m. 
 Its first symptom would 'be an appreciable increase in the per- 
 centage of the total electorate which had apparently gone to 
 the poll ; but no purpose would be served by discussing its 
 further effects, since it is inconceivable that an arrangement so 
 alien to sound electoral principles should secure general accept- 
 ance. 
 
 The entire absence of arrangements for the prevention of per- 
 sonation being unthinkable, and the presiding officer's efforts, 
 useful as they are, being limited by the fact that the detection of 
 personation is only a single, and to some extent an incidental, 
 department of his duties, there must either be party agents or a 
 public official specially appointed for the detection of persona- 
 tion. But a public official, even if the political circumstances 
 of his appointment were ineffective to deflect his watchfulness, 
 would never be likely to display the zeal of party agents, especially 
 as the position, offering at best the reward of a few guineas at 
 intervals of years, would not attract men of the same ability and 
 eagerness as an election agent can always secure. For the party 
 agents, it should be said, are provided! with " marked copies " of 
 
 * As the majority was only 8, the absence of personation agents 
 rendered the result quite inconclusive as a test of political strength, 
 though, of course, quite valid from the legal point of view. The 
 opinion here expressed with regard to the serious inadvisability of 
 dispensing with personation agents is confirmed by the fact, not gener- 
 ally known, that preparations were made (under distinguished legal 
 auspices) for challenging the Wolverhampton election, largely on the 
 ground of alleged personations. 
 
 192
 
 CORRUPT PRACTICES. 
 
 the current electoral register, which show clearly all the persons 
 whose application for a ballot paper should be watched for and 
 challenged. As the cases will exhibit the extreme complication even 
 of this minor department of the electoral mechanism, it will be 
 worth while to set out in detail the circumstances which may give 
 rise to wilful or accidental personation, both of which are, froni 
 the electoral point of view, equally undesirable. 
 
 Detailed Sources of Personation. 
 
 VOTER DEAD. 
 
 VOTER ABROAD (and either certain not to come to the poll, if 
 in a distant land, or his appearance very doubtful and to be 
 carefully observed, with the " question put " if necessary). 
 
 VOTER IN PRISON. 
 
 VOTER TOO ILL OR TOO INFIRM TO ATTEND. 
 
 VOTER NEVER VOTES (there is a large class of such persons 
 known to the registration agents. The public would be 
 astonished, in the absence of personation agents, by the number 
 of attempts which would be made to take advantage of the 
 despised and unused electoral privilege of these habitual 
 absentees). 
 
 VOTER LIVES so FAR AWAY (i.e., he is a distant out-voter) that 
 he is unlikely to attend. This class of voter is occasionally (and 
 more frequently than the public imagine) subjected to a per- 
 sonating process which spoils his vote and may sometimes add a 
 vote to the other side. If the distant out-voter is successfully 
 personated before he actually arrives at the polling station, 
 he will be compelled to record his own actual vote on 
 " a tendered paper," which does not go into' the ballot box. 
 Thus his own vote has been spoiled, and it is quite possible that 
 the vote recorded in his name has been given for the candidate 
 to whom he is opposed. This is another of the comparatively 
 obscure processes which occasionally operate, in a close contest, 
 to change the political complexion of a constituency. 
 
 VOTER is ON THE REGISTER FOR ANOTHER DIVISION of the same 
 borough (for instance), and must be asked, should he attempt 
 to vote, if he has already voted in the other division. 
 
 VOTER'S HOURS OF LABOUR ARE SUCH THAT HE is UNLIKELY TO 
 VOTE. 
 
 VOTER is KNOWN TO BE AWAY FROM HOME, and is not likely 
 to vote. 
 
 VOTER is LIABLE TO BE UNINTENTIONALLY PERSONATED, as 
 where father and son, of the same name, live in the same house, 
 the one as lodger, the other as occupier. If the lodger applies 
 for a ballot paper first, not stating that he is the lodger, he may 
 receive the occupier's ballot paper. The latter will then, on 
 attempting to vote, be required to do so on a " tendered paper " 
 o 193
 
 CORRUPT PRACTICES. 
 
 (which is not counted when the result of the poll is ascertained), 
 and therefore his vote will be temporarily lost. The result of 
 such occurrences might be to apparently change the political 
 colour of the constituency, and the matter would require a 
 petition to adjust it. There was an actual case in 1895, where 
 the majority was only four at the count. It would have been 
 five, but for an unintentional personation, as the involuntary per- 
 sonator voted for the successful candidate. If the poll of the 
 latter had been four votes less, the unintentional personation would 
 have produced a tie, where otherwise there wouldl have been a 
 majority of one. Such are the curious and unforeseen circum- 
 stances which operate to accelerate, or retard, our political evolu- 
 tion 
 
 VOTER MAY BE CONSCIOUSLY, BUT NOT QUITE FELONIOUSLY, PER- 
 SONATED. This will occur where father and son, of the same 
 name, live at the same address, but only one of them is a voter. 
 To bring home the guilt of personation to the non-voter would be 
 a task of some difficulty, since he would say that he saw what 
 he believed to be his own name on the register. An intelligent 
 election agent, therefore, sees that the personation agent is pro- 
 vided with a rough description of the real voter (e.g., " man about 
 70 years of age ") which will enable him to baulk the inadver- 
 tence, or the misplaced electoral enthusiasm, of the wrong man. 
 
 Popular Views of Personation. 
 
 It would be a mistake to imagine that the establishment of 
 universal adult suffrage is likely to do away with personation. 
 As far as the accidental species is concerned (amd especially in 
 the case of adult sons living with their fathers on a qualifica- 
 tion which is not at present sufficient to give the franchise to all) 
 there would be a large increase, which would necessitate a cor- 
 responding reinforcement, or at least stimulation', of the means 
 for preventing it. And with regard to wilful personation, as 
 adult suffrage would increase the absolute number of involuntary 
 absentees who were ill, or in prison, or otherwise debarred from 
 physical attendance at the polling booth, there would also be an 
 augmentation of the aggregate of attempts at personation. The 
 idea that the franchise was an essential right of each adult, which 
 would be created by the grant of adult suffrage, would foster 
 the determination, in a certain class of mdnd, that it should not 
 be lost as the result of accident. If the voter could not vote 
 himself, somebody would be provided (in the euphemistic phrase 
 which is generally used of this class of election enterprise) to 
 "vote for him." Here, again, we are among the problems of 
 electoral psychology, for a resolution to personate a voter does 
 not necessarily involve moral turpitude, though it must, if at- 
 tempted or carried out, involve legal guilt (except in such cases 
 
 194
 
 CORRUPT PRACTICES. 
 
 as that of the father occupier, and the son-lodger, as given 
 in the list above). If A, an eager but infirm politi- 
 cian, anxious that his vote should not be lost, sendls B to per- 
 sonate him, with instructions how to mark the ballot paper, B 
 may quite honestly perform his mission as between himself and 
 A, but he will none the less be guilty of the full offence. 
 Of his wickedness, or even his legal guilt, however, you will 
 vainly try to persuade the ordinary voter. To him the fact of 
 the instructions having been given is an all sufficient answer to 
 the charge; and, what is more, personation carried out merely 
 for the gratification of party zeal, ox even to " dish " an out- 
 voter by " voting for him " before he reaches the poll himself, is 
 regarded by a large and intelligent section of the electorate as 
 legitimate sport, very much in the same light as poaching in a 
 rural district. 
 
 Personation, and the aiding, abetting, counselling, and procuring 
 of personation are not only corrupt practices, but felonies. In 
 this case, however, as in that of the other corrupt practices, the 
 corrupt mind is essential to the offence. A voter whose name is 
 William Smith, but who appears on the register as John Smith, 
 may properly apply for a ballot paper in the name of John Smith, 
 for he is the person signified by that name on the register. But if 
 the voter actually is John Smith, and William Smith seek to 
 obtain the ballot paper by giving the name of John Smith, it will 
 be very difficult to save him from a conviction, for personation. 
 
 SECTION IV. False Return of Expenses. 
 
 The last of the Corrupt Practices is committed by a candidate 
 or election agent who knowingly makes a false declaration (before 
 a justice of the peace) verifying the accuracy and completeness of 
 the return of election expenses. This offence is wilful and cor- 
 rupt perjury, and is (by Section 33 (7) of 46 and 47 Viet., c. 51) 
 also made a corrupt practice, so as to entail the disabilities for a. 
 corrupt practice, which are not attached to the ordinary offence 
 of perjury. Mere failure to make the return (as distinguished from 
 making it falsely) is only an illegal practice. These provisions 
 with reference to falsity of the return are properly drastic, but no 
 charge of wilful falsity has ever arisen under them in connection 
 with the return of the expenses of .a Parliamentary candidate. The 
 charge of omitting various items from the return, which almost 
 always forms part of the petitioner's case on an election petition, 
 has to do with technical, not corrupt, omissions. That is to say, 
 it is concerned with expenses which the election agent, in the 
 bona-fide exercise of his discretion, did not consider to be election 
 expenses (see page 100), and therefore omitted: not with those 
 which, well knowing that they were election expenses, he cor- 
 ruptly endeavoured to conceal. In one of the colonial election 
 
 '95
 
 CORRUPT PRACTICES. 
 
 schemes, as we have seen, the declaration of the accuracy of the 
 return is made on the candidate's honour, not upon his oath. 
 
 "Corruptly" Procuring Withdrawal. 
 
 The payment, or promise of payment, of money to induce or 
 procure the withdrawal of any person from being a candidate is, if 
 done "corruptly," only an illegal payment. This provision, 
 which is one of the paradoxes of the election law, will be dis- 
 cussed in full among the illegal payments themselves. It is men- 
 tioned here only to make it clear that, in spite of the use of the 
 word " corruptly," the offence is not a corrupt practice. 
 
 SECTION V. General Considerations. 
 
 The questions which arise out of the alleged commission of cor- 
 rupt practices form by far the most difficult problem of all those 
 which present themselves to the student, or the reformer, of our 
 electoral machinery. It is concerned with the very subtlest and 
 most impalpable of forces, operating in a manner at once potent 
 and mysterious; and its complexity is increased by the mixed 
 sentiments of the electorate with regard to it, so that a candidate 
 or an election agent, 'acting upon the clearest and most unmistak- 
 able evidence, might initiate a successful prosecution for corrupt 
 practices, only to disover that this public-spirited action had 
 caused such a transfer of the votes as had lost the battle for his 
 own side. The truth is thiat with regard to .this class of election 
 offence, as also with regard to ,so many others, no adequate steps 
 can be taken without an appeal to the law ; and the law, in 
 election matters, is considered by many voters to be a biassed 
 outsider, whose entrance to the arena is an unsportsmanlike inter- 
 ference with the progress of the game. 
 
 At this point, then, we approach some of the greatest psychologi- 
 cal difficulties of the electoral system. It is a mere political proverb 
 that the petitioning candidate is always unpopular. The idea is 
 that he is not a man who can take his beating with good humour, 
 but goes behind the backs of the electorate to get their verdict 
 reversed. The electorate regards these tactics as unsportsman- 
 like, and as savouring of censure upon and appeal against itself. 
 Hence it is that the party leaders who resolve upon a petition 
 must always be prepared to see their position worsened, even if 
 they win. Precisely the same considerations will be found applic- 
 able in the case of a prosecution for an election offence. The 
 writer does not hesitate to say that unless he had been sure of a 
 majority of not less than 600 in a constituency of average size, he 
 would not, as election agent, sanction a prosecution for any elec- 
 tion offence, however grave, because of its disastrous effect, 
 if successful, on the poll of his own candidate. If 
 on an electorate of 10,000 he had come to the deliberate judg- 
 ment that a majority of 600 might be obtained, he would expect 
 
 196
 
 CORRUPT PRACTICES. 
 
 to see it reduced to 200 at most as the result of a prosecution 
 of any member of the opposite party, even on the 
 clearest evidence, for an offence against election law. The re- 
 proach of " unsportsmanlike " conduct, the odium of appeal to ain 
 alien tribunal, the certainty that the offender will have friends 
 in the party which prosecutes him, and that they will show their 
 resentment to the utmost of their power, are all factors which 
 must be taken into the survey miadle by an election agent when he 
 is called upon to pronounce on the question of prosecution or no 
 prosecution. From, the ethical point of view there is much to be 
 said in favour of putting the law in motion : from the tactical point 
 of view nothing at all. The words are written with the deepest 
 regret that it should be so, but they are words of troth. 
 
 The Psychological Perplexity. 
 
 We are now indeed in the presence of one of the leges damnata, 
 the hopeless problems of election law 'hopeless, that is to say, 
 under existing circumstances and with current prejudices as the 
 necessary subject matter of an election agent's anxiety. It may 
 well be said that the agent ought not to be studious to conciliate 
 the unworthy prejudices which are aroused by an effort to sup- 
 press breaches of the law. The answer is that, according to our 
 present electoral lights, an election agent is judged by the re- 
 sults of his tactics, and that he, in plotting his plan of campaign, 
 has to consider the electors as they are rather than as he, how- 
 ever nobly and disinterestedly, would strive to make them. To the 
 suggestion that there should be a Government official at every 
 election, as there is a representative of the Public Prosecutor at 
 the trial of every election petition, in order that every suspicion 
 may be noted and followed up, the answer is (i) that even were 
 such an official present, he would be regarded, in his activities, 
 as inspired by the opponents of the party against which those 
 activities were directed, and the result would be much the same 
 as in the case of a direct prosecution by the opponents themselves ; 
 (2) that as long as political services are the qualification, or one 
 of the qualifications, for promotion in the national service, a man 
 who owes his position, as potential State prosecutor, to a given 
 party, cannot dispassionately consider that party's shortcomings 
 in the electoral arena; and (3) that the less the influence of 
 officialism upon the methods by which the citizen conveys his 
 opinions to his representatives at the helm of the State the better 
 for the citizen and for the State as well. Even with a State official 
 as prosecutor, it is certain that the warped and stunted kind of 
 public opinion which resents such prosecutions, being unable to 
 revenge itself upon the prosecuting authorities, would seek satis- 
 faction in striking at the candidate in whose interest, as this sec- 
 tion of the electorate would suppose, the proceedings had been 
 instituted. 
 
 197
 
 CORRUPT PRACTICES. 
 
 The Larger Tribunal. 
 
 There is only one tribunal, vast and irresistible, as well as 
 perpetual in its deliberations, that is competent to deal ade- 
 quately with these troublesome and perplexing questions. We 
 are concerned with an electoral generation which is immeasur- 
 ably superior to its immediate ancestry, even in the mere intellec- 
 tual qualification for the exercise of the franchise, to say nothing 
 of the political experience which is as potent a factor in the equip- 
 ment of a people as it is in, that of an individual. We can, sub- 
 ject to one condition, instil into the electorate a realisation of the 
 essential social and political turpitude of offences against the elec- 
 tion law, and in that way remove from the path of a candidate or 
 his election agent the temptations to pander to the " sporting " 
 ideas of a constituency. Since these are no more the characteristics 
 of real and manly sport than are the proclivities of the ordinary 
 pigeon-shooter, there need be no hesitation in sweeping them 
 away, no fear that the healthy manliness of the race will be 
 sapped by their absence. We can in the same way instil into the 
 would-be intimidator (howsoever he works) a wholesome fear of 
 public displeasure, even if he is secure from appearance at the 
 bar of a judicial tribunal. Contemporaneously with this whole- 
 somely ir-inatory process we may encourage the development of the 
 individual electoral judgment by enabling it more fully to realise 
 at once its privilege and its power; and by removing the existing 
 slight flaws in the secrecy of the ballot, we may secure the maximum 
 independence of judgment, and consciousness of freedom from 
 external interference. While we are doing this we are raising the 
 morale of the entire electoral organism, so that the very methods 
 by which we seek to protect it will of themselves generate the 
 means and the capacity for self-protection on a higher plane of 
 political hardihood. The one condition necessary to the vigor- 
 ous prosecution of this programme is that the election law 
 shall be up to the standard of reasonableness which is current 
 among the people who are asked to co-operate in its enforce- 
 ment ; and the present electoral law of England, being out of date 
 and out of consistency with the needs of an electorate which is 
 every day becoming more intelligent and thoughful, does not meet 
 the necessities of that stipulation. But only in that way can we avoid 
 the almost repulsive conclusion that, except in its coarser physical 
 manifestations, corruption is an evil with which legislation is incom- 
 petent, if not, indeed, wholly impotent, to deal. The vicious thing 
 must be destroyed by means of the only weapon against which 
 it is not invulnerable the growth of a sound and vigorous public 
 opinion, hostile to corruption alike in its coarse and in its subtle 
 manifestations, and capable of inflicting upon those who employ 
 it the same social and .political ostracism, the same exclusion from 
 the pale of decent-minded citizens^ as forms the penalty of any 
 
 198
 
 CORRUPT PRACTICES. 
 
 other disgraceful offence against the recognised canons of a 
 decent life. There are offences which break no law, but which 
 expose -the offender to a surer and more terrible penalty than that 
 which commences with the dock. The candidate, the citizen, or 
 the body of citizens, to whom the guilt of bribery, corrupt treating, 
 or intimidation has been brought home by moral, though not neces- 
 sarily by legal, proofs, may come in this way to be visited with 
 a .civic displeasure as severe as those social penalties meted out to 
 him who, under the hospitable shelter of his friend's roof, seduces 
 his friend's daughter. 
 
 The Elevation of Public Sentiment. 
 
 That these elevating influences can really be brought to bear, 
 and are actually working in our midst, will be evident to any 
 observer of the drift of public sentiment who will compare its tone 
 with regard to election offences, say, in 1880 (the last general 
 election before the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Act 
 of 1883), with that which now prevails. The advance is im- 
 measurable, and there is every reason to believe that it will pro- 
 ceed at an accelerated pace, and yet with confidence, and dignity, 
 and certainty. Meanwhile, the existing modes of punishment for 
 corrupt practices moist be maintained in operation, up to the 
 limit of their effectiveness, as non-psychological weapons em- 
 ployed against an enemy wrapped in psychological intangibility. 
 These existing modes of punishment are not quite ideal. 
 Throughout the consideration of corrupt practices the attention 
 of the reader has been drawn to the " corrupt " element as the 
 essential of their existence. Self-personation, in the honest belief 
 that the second vote was as much a constitutional right as the first,, 
 and in ignorance of the law, is not a " corrupt " practice. But 
 when we remember that the power of ultimate decision in these im- 
 palpable matters of motive, in subtle questions of knowledge and 
 intention, is ultimately committed to the two judges who form 
 an election petition court, and who are both of them, in all pro- 
 bability, ex-politicians, we cannot regard the modus operandi, in 
 these delicate questions, as altogether unobjectionable. The 
 power in this way committed to the judiciary of confirming or 
 nullifying an electoral judgment is open to the same objection 
 which was urged against the corresponding power to decide upon 
 length of candidature. But in that case there is a simple remedy 
 available, in the shape of the fixation of the period of candidature 
 at a definite time. With regard to bribery and the allied corrupt 
 practices, the Gordian knot is far from being so easily cut. If the 
 political opinions of the parties could be kept from the jury's 
 knowledge, a special jury would be the ideal tribunal. As it is, 
 the jury would fall into two well-defined political sections as soon 
 as, in a charge of corrupt practices, the politics of the respective 
 
 199
 
 CORRUPT PRACTICES. 
 
 parties became known to the jurymen. Unsatisfactory and im 
 perfect as it is, the present tribunal of two judges is the best that 
 the circumstances permit, and we must perforce be content with it. 
 
 The Corrupt Practices are Crimes. 
 
 The corrupt practices (the existence of the corrupt element being 
 demonstrated) are all crimes. Personation is a felony, punish- 
 able on indictment by imprisonment, with hard labour, for a term 
 not exceeding two years. The other corrupt practices are mis- 
 demeanours, punishable on indictment by imprisonment, with or 
 without hard labour, for a term not exceeding one year, or by a 
 fine not exceeding 200. A person may (provided he does not 
 elect to 'be tried by a jury) be found guilty of corrupt practices by 
 an election court. In that case the maximum penalty is six 
 months' imprisonment, with or without hard labour, or a fine not 
 exceeding ^200. A witness on the trial of an election petition 
 is not permitted to refuse to answer a question on the ground, that 
 the answer may criminate, or tend to criminate, himself, or on 
 the ground of privilege. But if he answers truly he is entitled to 
 a certificate of indemnity from the court, which bars a prosecution 
 in the event of his evidence having revealed, or suggested, his 
 guilt. In this way the facts are elicited, while the witness is not 
 (provided he answer truly) forced to criminate himself. The 
 Public Prosecutor is represented by counsel at the trial of every 
 election petition, in order that his attention may be called to any 
 offences which are disclosed in the course of the proceedings. 
 
 In addition to the penalties under the criminal law there are 
 grave disabilities. The report of an election court that a corrupt 
 practice (other than treating or undue influence) has been com- 
 mitted by, or with the knowledge and consent of any candidate, or 
 that treating or undue influence has been committed by such 
 candidate, renders him incapable for ever of being elected for 
 the county or borough in respect of which the offence was com- 
 mitted, and if he has been elected, his election is void. If the 
 candidate is guilty by his agents (and not personally) the in- 
 capacity lasts for seven years from the date of the report of the 
 election court to the Speaker, and if the candidate has been 
 elected, his election is void. A person convicted on indictment of 
 any corrupt practice is incapable, for seven years from the date 
 of the conviction, of being registered as an elector, or of voting 
 at any election, or of holding any public or judicial office, and 
 if he holds it, it is ipso facto vacated. Treating at an earlier elec- 
 tion may imperil the validity of a later one. 
 
 Summary of Suggestions. 
 
 The section devoted to General Considerations will be found to 
 incorporate such suggestions as are reasonable and feasible with re- 
 gard to this most difficult portion of the elective process. 
 
 200
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Illegal Practices. 
 
 The distinction between corrupt and illegal practices has already- 
 been explained (Chapter VIII.). Many of the illegal practices 
 have also been discussed as to their nature, and suggestions 
 offered, where necessary, for their better repression or more facile 
 avoidance. Some of them are what Professor Lowell calls " prac- 
 tices tending to lower the tone of elections." With the exception 
 of " false statements " (see Section i of this chapter, infra) the 
 various illegal practices have been brought within the limits of 
 more or less adequate definition, and prohibited, in consequence 
 of the inquiries into the working of the electoral system which 
 took place after the general election of 1880. It became evi- 
 dent at the time that, besides the old-fashioned election offences, 
 such as bribery, treating, and undue influence, there had sprung 
 into existence a new class, which found their origin and sustenance 
 either in excessive, but colourable, expenditure on objects which 
 were prima-facie legal, or else in the lavish provision of the most 
 mischievous stimuli, such as bands of music, flags, banners, and 
 cockades. As recently as 1880 the election expenses of a distin- 
 guished modern statesman, a member of Mr. Asquith's Govern- 
 ment, included ^967 for the conveyance of voters to the poll. 
 This was at the time a legitimate, or at all events a lawful, 
 expenditure, though now, of course, it has been made an illegal 
 practice. 
 
 The enactments against illegal practices define, then, in a more 
 or less adequate fashion the acts prohibited by the rules of the 
 electoral contest. Except in the case of " false statements " (where 
 the legislation dates from 1 1895) they represent current opinion 
 a quarter of a century ago on the subject of undesirable factors 
 in the fight. Naturally the ruthless test and criticism which 
 came with the lapse of years have brought many flaws to light. 
 The " false statements " legislation does not go far enough. The 
 absolute prohibition of payment for the conveyance of electors 
 to the poll goes too far. Much of the statute law, and of the 
 resulting case law, is vague, and therefore violates the Fourth 
 Canon of self-government by leaving an undue control of the 
 electoral power in the unfettered discretion of an election court. 
 But when all is said and done, the fact remains that the provi- 
 sions against illegal practices represent the rules made .by the 
 organism for its own protection against the illicit influences 
 which, almost in our own generation, took the place of the coarse- 
 ness and shamelessness of the older election regime. They are 
 a sound basis for the noble fabric of self-protection which the 
 political experience of the race, adding its store to the wisdom 
 
 2OI
 
 ILLEGAL PRACTICES. 
 
 of the ages, will ultimately erect upon them. And, whether we re- 
 gard them 1 merely as the existing rules for the conduct of an elec- 
 tion contest, or contemplate them from a mere elevated point of 
 view as almost the first elaborate effort to encourage and protect 
 the process of political evolution, and to keep it on the upward 
 path, we shall find it necessary to subject them to such an examina- 
 tion as will be effective for our present purpose, while at the 
 same time it does not sacrifice the legal accuracy of statement that 
 is absolutely essential. The reader is asked to bear in mind 
 that, as he is studying the noblest organism in the world, the 
 mastery of its self-enunciated laws for the guidance of its own 
 evolution is worthy of all his intellectual intrepidity and strenuous- 
 ness, and will repay it in the finer, clearer, and more distant vision 
 that comes, as surely as the astronomer's " telescopic eye," with 
 patient labour and steady gaze. 
 
 Strictly speaking, those acts which are generally known as illegal 
 practices fall into two groups : (i) illegal practices, technically so 
 described, and (2) illegal payments, employment, and hiring, 
 which are only illegal practices if committed by the candidate, 
 his election agent, or a. sub-agent.* The two classes of offence 
 will be clearly distinguished in the course of the discussion. All, 
 or nearly all, the illegal practices exhibit the characteristic of 
 extreme technicality, just as most of the corrupt practices are 
 distinguished by psychological subtlety. In fact, the extremely 
 technical character of the law relating to illegal practices has 
 long been patent to every close observer, to say nothing of those 
 who have been brought as candidates or election agents into actual 
 personal contact with its difficulties. This department of the law 
 of elections combines the most extreme vagueness in its prohibi- 
 tions with the most severe penalties for their breach, and with 
 an absolute restriction upon the seeking, by a perplexed candi- 
 date or election agent, of professional advice or assistance. Inas- 
 much, however, as no purpose would be served by a prolonged 
 disquisition upon the technical quagmires of the law with regard 
 to illegal practices, it is proposed here to treat them with suffi- 
 cient fulness for their nature as elements of the electoral 
 mechanism to be intelligently comprehended, and for that purpose 
 to examine each of them separately in the order of their im- 
 portance. Where, as in the case with many of them, they have 
 already occupied our attention as parts of some topic which has 
 been dissected at an earlier stage of the present dissertation, it 
 will suffice to refer the reader to the earlier treatment of the sub- 
 ject without a repetition. 
 
 * A sub-agent (who can only be appointed in county elections) is a 
 minor agent in charge of the interests of a candidate in a certain dis- 
 trict, acting under the instructions of the chief election agent. He is, 
 so to speak, the local election agent. 
 
 2O2
 
 ILLEGAL PRACTICES. 
 
 (1) False Statements (Illegal Practice). 
 
 The most important of the illegal practices is the offence which 
 was first created by the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention 
 Act of 1895, prohibiting the making or publishing of a false 
 statement with reference to the personal character or conduct 
 of a candidate for the purpose of affecting his return. The offence 
 is not committed if the person charged can show that he had 
 reasonable grounds for believing and did believe that the state- 
 ment was true. The candidate is not liable, and the election 
 cannot be avoided, unless the false statement was made by the 
 candidate himself or by the election agent, or unless the candidate 
 or the election agent authorised, or consented to, or paid for, 
 the circulation of the false statement, or unless an election court 
 reports that the election of the candidate was in fact procured, 
 or materially assisted, by the false statement. The Act of 1895 
 was passed in consequence of the outrageous growth of the prac- 
 tice of slanderous personal attack at elections. Of one candidate 
 it was falsely stated that he had sent a man to hard labour for 
 stealing two pennyworth of oats, after having, as a military officer, 
 had the man flogged in India many years before. Of another it 
 was alleged that he had made his fortune by scuttling ships; 
 of a third that he had been guilty of bribery at the previous elec- 
 tion. The only remedy for these attacks, prior to the passage 
 of the Act, was an action at law, which would not have been heard 
 till long after the successful dissemination of the libel had, per- 
 haps, cost the victim his seat. Damages he might get, but there was 
 no process short of waiting for the next election by which the seat 
 wrested from him in this grossly unfair manner could be recovered. 
 The cases decided under this Act up to the present time are 
 not numerous. A false statement that the candidate was guilty 
 of lying, cowardice, and bribery was held within the Act (St. 
 George's, 5 O'M. and H., 104). So also was a statement that there 
 was a " dark passage " in the life of the candidate, the reference 
 being to a family tragedy for which the candidate was in no way 
 responsible. (1896, 12 T.L.R., 199). The Court of Appeal 
 took the same view of a false statement that a candidate had 
 locked out his pitmen for six weeks till stocks were cleared out 
 and coal reached fabulous prices. After that it was alleged that 
 the candidate found "that his 'conscience' would not allow him 
 to starve the poor miner any longer." (1905, n T.L.R., 537.) 
 But where the gravamen of the charge was that the candidate's 
 private conduct, as an employer of labour, was inconsistent with 
 his public professions as a politician, Baron Pollock held that 
 these were not statements of fact with regard to the " personal 
 character and conduct " in the sense contemplated by the Act. 
 (5 O'M and H., 53.) Similarly Lord Justice (then Mr. Justice) 
 Buckley declined to regard as within the Act a statement that 
 
 203
 
 ILLEGAL PRACTICES. 
 
 the candidate was a " Radical traitor, always found on the side 
 of Britain's enemies," and one of a band of persons who " were, 
 during the summer of 1899, in correspondence with the Boers " 
 (The Times, October 3, 1900.) Finally, the Court of Appeal declined 
 to consider as within the Act the statement that a candidate had 
 obtained the support of a prominent politician by " false pretences," 
 or the suggestion that, as the Lord Chancellor put it, he " feigned 
 political opinions in order to obtain support." (Goodhart v. 
 Marks, Daily Telegraph, January 19, 1906.) The Act charged 
 upon, the candidate in the alleged false statement need not be 
 necessarily an unlawful one. Baron Pollock pointed out that 
 such a charge as that of shooting foxes, brought against a candi- 
 date in a hunting constituency, or of drinking a glass of sherry, 
 made with reference to a temperance advocate who is a candidate, 
 are calculated to bring these persons into social odium, and are 
 within the Act. But this dictum is limited by the local character 
 of the social odium; in the case of the candidate who is said to have 
 shot foxes. That allegation would not be within the Act if made 
 against the candidate for Whitechapel, where the shooting of a 
 fox excites no indignation. 
 
 The Checks on False Statement. 
 
 Including this excellent piece of legislation, we shall note that 
 the accuracy of statements made, verbally or otherwise, during 
 an election, is subject to three checks : (i) The Act of 1895 itself, 
 which, as we have seen, penalises any false statement of fact 
 with regard to the personal character or conduct of a candidate, 
 and renders it, indeed, fatal to the election if brought home 
 to the candidate himself or his election agent ; (2) the general law 
 as to libel and slander; and (3) the common sense of the con- 
 stituency, which varies in different parts of the country and in 
 different places within the same electoral area. The Western 
 peasantry might accept a story which it were futile to offer to the 
 shrewd artisans of the North or the Midlands, and a candidate's 
 political professions will often be found to undergo an appreciable 
 modification according as he is addressing a critical audience in 
 a town or a group of agricultural labourers in a rural centre of 
 his constituency. This observation, however, is merely introduced 
 for the purpose of making it clear that in the adaptation of his 
 arguments to the temper and mental standpoint of his audience 
 a candidate is strictly within his rights. But although he may 
 mould his arguments to suit his tactics, sound principles of poli- 
 tical responsibility require that neither he nor his supporters shall 
 apply the same plastic arts to the facts themselves. The Act 
 passed in 1895, in merely penalising false statements in regard 
 to the personal character and conduct of a candidate, does not 
 go far enough. What is wanted is, that any false statement of 
 fact whatsoever, deliberately made by a person who knew, or with 
 
 204
 
 ILLEGAL PRACTICES. 
 
 reasonable diligence might have known, that it was untrue, shall 
 bring down upon him the penalties attaching to an illegal prac- 
 tice. Not one-fiftieth part of the assertions circulated, verbally 
 and otherwise, during an election have reference to the personal 
 character and conduct of the candidate. Not one-hundredth part 
 of them is such as to be susceptible of forming the basis of an 
 action for libel or slander, so as to bring them, ,and those respon- 
 sible for their circulation, to the touchstone of an oath. Yet an 
 election is, more than any other time in the political history of a 
 community, the period during which its verdicts are rendered, 
 as a result of deliberations based upon the public dissemination 
 and discussion of political topics and political opinions, and the 
 judgments built up from this material may have the most momen- 
 tous consequences in the life and history of the nation, and for the 
 happiness, progress, and prosperity of its people. A person who 
 deliberately contrived to mislead a court of justice would expose 
 himself to severe punishment, even if the question at issue did 
 not involve more than the affairs' of a single individual and a less 
 sum than ;ioo. Clearly, where the nation is deliberating on 
 national affairs, and where the balance of opinion may turn for 
 the happiness or the misery of untold millions, the penalty for 
 deliberate untrufch should be swift, severe, and certain. The elec- 
 toral tribunal, in truth, ought to be more and more assimilated in 
 character and method to the procedure of a court of justice. The 
 same dignity of movement, the same absence of appeal to base 
 passion and vulgar prejudice, the same responsibility of statement 
 and conduct in the parties who ask for a verdict, the same aooount- 
 ableness and truthfulness in those who are brought in to aid the 
 respective parties by their testimony, ought to characterise an 
 election as characterises a court of justice. 
 
 Instances of Unshackled Mendacity. 
 
 Let us take a few statements, such as are likely to be widely 
 disseminated on placard and platform during an election contest : 
 
 (1) During the last Government by the party which A (a candidate) 
 supports, our foreign trade fell off at the rate of ^30,000,000 a year (the 
 fact being that it steadily increased). 
 
 (2) The party to which A belongs is financed by capitalists and 
 sweaters, the enemies of the working classes (this being totally untrue, as 
 the party is able to demonstrate from its audited accounts). 
 
 (3) On the last occasion when a certain measure was before the House 
 of Commons, A and his party all voted against it (the fact being that 
 both A and his party voted in its favour). 
 
 (4) In a neighbouring and influential constituency B has been re- 
 turned by a majority of 1,000 (the fact being that B has been defeated by 
 that majority). This falsehood would only avail if its circulation could 
 be brought about (before the public knew the real facts) during the 
 last hour or two of the poll in the constituency where it was circulated. 
 In that way, acting through mass-suggestibility, it would gain scores of 
 votes for B's party. 
 
 205
 
 ILLEGAL PRACTICES. 
 
 These are four samples, from, an array which might be extended 
 to dozens, of the kind of assertions which form the stock-in-trade 
 of many an active politician at election times. There, is no check 
 upon this kind of thing. If the majority in the constituency 
 where these falsehoods were circulated should be 100, and 200 
 electors were willing to swear that they voted for the successful 
 candidate in the belief that one of these mendacious allegations 
 was true, and that they would otherwise have voted for his oppo- 
 nent, nothing could be done. The election petition machinery, 
 wide as is its sweep, does not touch (save at the one point of the 
 candidate's personal character and conduct) the gigantic evil of 
 mendacity. 
 
 Mere expressions of such opinion as a reasonable man may 
 hold and express, however extravagant, may not be suppressed, or 
 even threatened, without a sacrifice of political freedom, which is 
 altogether out of the question. A reasonable man might even 
 allege that A, a candidate, is unfit to represent the constituency 
 because he is a Quaker, and the writer knows of no sound political 
 principle which would justify any interference with his liberty to 
 give public expression to' his views, eccentric as they are. But if A 
 is not a Quaker, and the speaker knows it (or could with reasonr 
 able diligence have discovered it), he ought to be within reach of 
 the law as a person guilty of an attempt to poison the springs of 
 civic deliberation. Still more clearly should he be legally respon- 
 sible is he alleges that the ground of A's unfitness, as a Quaker, is 
 that Quakers worship the Virgin Mary.* That is a definite proposi- 
 tion, capable of facile and instant test, which no man has any busi- 
 ness to utter, even in the heat of an election, when the means of 
 inquiry lie ready to* his hand in countless profusion. Finally, the 
 summit level of mendacity, or of the carelessness which is its docile 
 agent, is reached in such expressions of .alleged political fact as 
 have been set forth above. No election should stand which can 
 be shown to have been brought about by such assertions, and in 
 order to put a summary stop to their perversion of the electoral 
 judgment, no responsible individual or society which gives utter- 
 ance or publication to them ought to escape the penalty. 
 
 False Statements in Support of Candidate. 
 
 It must not be supposed that the whole of this evil arises in the 
 course of attacks upon a candidate. It may, and frequently does, 
 operate the other way. A candidate is stated to be identified with 
 a certain group of social propagandists. The statement is calcu- 
 lated, let us say, to jeopardise his chances in a close and exciting 
 
 * It is just possible that this latter assertion might be held to be a false 
 statement of fact with regard to the personal character or conduct of 
 the candidate. It should be noted, however, that such a charge imputes 
 nothing that is really discreditable, though it might awaken religious 
 hostility to a tremendous extent. 
 
 206
 
 ILLEGAL PRACTICES. 
 
 contest. His reply to it, then, is that it is untune and that he is 
 not, and never has been, a member of the group in question. The 
 denial saves him from his peril and he gains the contest, but it 
 subsequently appears that the denial was untrue and that the 
 original assertion was strictly accurate. As the charge did not 
 relate to his personal (as distinguished from his political) conduct 
 and character, there is no means of bringing him to account, or of 
 setting aside an election obtained by palpable falsehood. The 
 rroan who is capable of uttering a deliberate lie from a public plat- 
 form is the representative, for seven years, of the people whom he 
 deceived, and there is no means by which they can get rid of him. 
 There is, indeed, one obscure method by which he might be at- 
 tacked, sunposing that he were not adroit enough to have foreseen 
 the risk and protected himself, by the form of his reply to the 
 charge, from incurring the danger of an inquiry. If the original 
 statement was made Sy his opponent, and if he states that it is 
 untrue, that is an inferential charge of mendacity against the 
 opponent, which might enable the latter to sustain proceedings 
 under the " False Statements " Act But the man who is 1 equal to 
 the utterance of deliberate falsehood is not likely to charge it upon 
 his opponent, and this means of challenge is for all practical 
 purposes inefficient and, indeed, worthless. 
 
 Penalise All False Statements of Fact. 
 
 The way to deal with these evils is to extend the Corrupt 
 and Illegal Practices Prevention Act of 1895, so that it shall 
 prohibit not only false statements of fact as to the personal cha- 
 racter and conduct of a candidate, but all false statements of fact 
 whatsoever, as well as any disguised assertion of the kind which, 
 if made with regard to a person, and proved to have been generally 
 understood to apply to him, and to be false, would support pro- 
 ceedings for libel or slander, although not made in direct terms. 
 The Act, as it stands, contains a provision protecting a person 
 who honestly and on reasonable grounds believed the false state- 
 ment to be true, and this must, of course, apply equally to the 
 much larger class of assertions which it is here proposed to bring 
 within its scope. With this limitation by way of protection for 
 honest belief the widened sweep of the Act would inflict no hard- 
 ship. However eccentric or extravagant the beliefs upon- matters 
 of fact (as distinguished from matters of opinion) which a man 
 may entertain in his mind, and which may guide his own conduct 
 in the discharge of the electoral function, no legislation can touch 
 them. But as soon as they are to be employed to influence the 
 electorate they must be applied to the touchstone of truth, and 
 he who fails to make the test must put them into' circulation at 
 his own peril of penalty in case 'they are found to be counterfeit. 
 It is submitted that the whole course of policy which is here 
 
 207
 
 ILLEGAL PRACTICES. 
 
 outlined would have for its results the addition of dignity, certainty, 
 and caution to the conduct of an electoral propaganda, and these 
 are elements which are wholly desirable, both in their influence 
 upon the action of the individual elector and upon the character 
 of the electorate as a corporate whole. 
 
 The recklessness of statement to which the present system 
 gives rise is well illustrated by the familiar " last minute " placard 
 or handbill, for which every candidate has to be prepared, if, in- 
 deed, he is not compelled by strategic necessities to issue " last 
 minute " literature of his own.. The " last minute " appeals (gene- 
 rally made to the passions and prejudices of the electorate, and 
 not to its sober and reasoned judgment) fall like snowflakes all 
 over the constituency on the eve of the poll, or are delivered 
 through the post on the morning of the election ; or and this is 
 the perfection of election art are handed to voters at the doors 
 of the polling booth during the last two hours of the poll, when 
 there is no time for the opposite side to make any effective reply 
 to the falsities thus employed to divert the votes of the electo- 
 rate rapidly and irrevocably from one candidate to another. The 
 " last minute " placard is not unknown, but does not admit of being 
 " worked " so rapidly as the handbill, either as regards its number 
 or its locus on the very steps of the polling booth. However false 
 the assertions (unless they are within the Corrupt and Illegal Prac- 
 tices Prevention Act of 1895), and however censurable and odious 
 the appeal to the lowest passions and the basest and most igno- 
 rant prejudices of the electorate, there is no remedy available to 
 the candidate who has been defeated by this contrivance, nor yet 
 to the constituency which has been fooled by a vile trick into 
 giving a verdict contrary to its genuine and sober judgment and 
 into supporting a cause with which it is not really in sympathy. 
 If we are going to raise the exercise of the electoral judgment into a 
 higher and serener atmosphere, this kind of thing must be peremp- 
 torily put an end to. In what manner it might be done, without 
 the least danger to electoral freedom, and with the best of results 
 for the discharge of the electoral function, amid surroundings of 
 greater dignity and responsibility, we shall see when we come 
 to consider the day of the poll. 
 
 (2) Improper Payment of Election Expenses (Illegal 
 Practice). 
 
 The question of election expenses has already been treated at 
 length in a special chapter, and it would be superfluous to re- 
 traverse the ground. All that need be said here is that the Acts 
 prohibit (i) any incurring of expense or any payment in excess 
 of the statutory maximum of election expenses (46 and 47 Viet., 
 c. 51, s. 8 and 25) ; (2) any payment otherwise than by or through 
 the election agent (except the small payments mentioned on page 
 
 208
 
 ILLEGAL PRACTICES. 
 
 147) (sec. 28); (3) any payment of accounts sent in after the 
 expiration of the statutory period for their receipt (14 days after the 
 declaration of the election) (sec. 29 (3)); (4) any payment what- 
 soever (unless it be made by leave of the court) after 28 days from 
 the declaration of the election (sec. 29 (5)); and (5) any payment 
 which is otherwise legal, if, being over forty shillings, it is not 
 vouched for by a bill stating the particulars, and by the receipt 
 (sec. 29 (i)). 
 
 (3) Payments for Conveyances (Illegal Practice).* 
 
 Section 7 (a) of 46 and 47 Viet, c. 51, enacts that no payment 
 shall, for the purpose of promoting or procuring the election of 
 a candidate at any election, be made on account of the conveyance 
 of electors to or from the poll, whether for the hiring of horses 
 or carriages (which includes payments for the stabling and baiting 
 of horses, gratuitously sent from a distance for the purpose of 
 conveying electors to the poll Lichfield, 5 O'M. and H., 30) 
 or for railway fares, or otherwise. In the case of the person 
 making or receiving the payment (whether candidate, election 
 agent, or any other person) it is an illegal practice. The lending of 
 any public, stage, or hackney carriage for the conveyance of elec- 
 tors to the poll is prohibited by s. 14 of 46 and 47 Viet, c. 51. In 
 the lender a breach of this section is an illegal hiring. This is an 
 offence which, like the allied offences of illegal payment and 
 illegal employment, subjects the offender to penalties (a fine 
 not exceeding ;ioo 46 and 47 Viet., c. 51, s. 21). 
 
 The prohibition of payments for the conveyance of voters to 
 the poll is subject to two exceptions : (i) A voter may pay for such 
 a vehicle to carry him to or from the poll. If, however, on his 
 way thither he gives a " lift " to a fellow elector, he has been 
 guilty of a technical breach of the law, unless his companion share 
 the expense, as well as the luxury, of the ride. (2) The other ex- 
 ception is a special statutory provision that is to say, payment 
 is permissible (46 and 47 Viet., c. 51, s. 48) for the convey- 
 ance of voters across " the sea or a branch or arm, thereof " (if they 
 cannot reach the poll otherwise), and such payment forms no part 
 of the statutory maximum. This is a fair and reasonable provision, 
 inadequate only in that it permits conveyance "to" the poll, but 
 gives none for the re-conveyance of the voter to his home. It 
 needs, therefore, a slight modification in order to cure this obvious 
 flaw, and also a slight extension to meet the needs of another small 
 but highly intelligent section of the electorate. There is now a 
 fairly large class of men employed in the public service in light- 
 ships and lighthouses, many of whom are electors. It is very 
 
 * The reader will note that in the lender of the vehicle the offence is 
 only an illegal hiring; but the receipt of payment makes it an illegal 
 practice. 
 
 P 209
 
 ILLEGAL PRACTICES. 
 
 desirable that these men should be enabled to vote, though the 
 best opinion is that the needs of their case are not met by the 
 permissive section to which reference is made above, so that the 
 candidate who paid for a vessel to convey them to the poll 
 would not be protected from the consequence of the illegal pay- 
 ment. The public authorities who control the lightships and 
 lighthouses might therefore be required (weather permitting) to 
 make the necessary arrangements for relieving these men of their 
 duty for such time as is necessary for them to vote, and to allow 
 them to be conveyed ashore for that purpose, on receiving not less 
 than four days' notice from the candidates or their agents that 
 arrangements will be made to bring them ashore. Accounts of 
 the money expended for this purpose, with vouchers, should be 
 filed with the return of election expenses, but should form no 
 part of the statutory maximum. What is contemplated here is 
 the making of arrangements at the joint expense of the candidates, 
 but if one candidate refuses to join, the other or others should 
 l>e entitled to proceed with the arrangements on their own account. 
 There is no doubt that the great majority of men of this class 
 belong to one political party, so that the candidate on the othei 
 side might well be disinclined to assist, out of his own pocket, in 
 the augmentation of his opponents' poll. The adaptation of 
 the postal vote (see Chapter XI.) to such cases as these would 
 render the special arrangements superfluous. 
 
 The Purpose of the Prohibitions. 
 
 The wide scope of the Act, therefore, makes it impossible, 
 not only for the candidate to pay for the conveyance of voters 
 to the poll, but also for him to accept, or for jobmasters to give, 
 the gratuitous use of vehicles which are on other occasions let 
 out for hire. An enthusiastic jobmaster, who closes his yard 
 to business on the day of the poll, and bona fide gives the use 
 of all the vehicles for the purpose of bringing voters to the poll, 
 would, consequently, commit a grave breach of the law (46 and 47 
 Viet., c. 51, s. 14). These seem at first sight to be extremely 
 drastic provisions. They have been considered, however, to be 
 the only means of preventing the improper employment of voters as 
 drivers, and the illicit corruption of jobmasters and other pro- 
 prietors of vehicles by the wholesale hire of their plant on 
 election day. As early as 1679 it was remarked that "horses 
 were hired at a great charge for the conveyance of electors.'' 
 The charges must have been great indeed if in an age when paid 
 conveyance to the poll was almost a necessity it attracted atten- 
 tion. But the fact that the payment for the conveyance of voters 
 to the poll was the subject of statutory authorisation as late 
 as 21 and 22 Viet., c. 87, s. i, will show how rapid has been the 
 supersession of the necessity, as a result of economic changes. 
 
 210
 
 ILLEGAL PRACTICES. 
 
 When we know that in a single constituency (Middlesex) in 1880 a 
 sum of nearly ^1,000 was paid for the conveyance of electors 
 to the poll, we shall realise that the abuse died hard, and sur- 
 vived well into our own generation. 
 
 The Statute Goes Too Far. 
 
 Unfortunately, the statutory remedy has proved inadequate 
 in one respect, and mischievous in another. The state of things 
 which now exists with regard to the use of vehicles on election day 
 is such as to border upon chaos. Each candidate worries his 
 friends for the loan of all their available vehicles, with a present 
 preference for motor cars. When the vehicles are secured, every 
 effort is made to display their number and character in such a 
 manner as to create a contrast disadvantageous to the other side. 
 The result is to add another element of confusion, noise, and more 
 or less vulgar display to what is already, in the best of circum- 
 stances, an appalling aggregate, exhibited on precisely the one 
 day when it is pernicious and baneful in the extreme. The annoy- 
 ance to the friends of the candidate who .are asked (and expected) 
 to lend their vehicles is a minor element of objection. The in- 
 auspicious factor is the appeal to the gregarious instinct of the 
 electorate by means of the mass-suggestibility which prompts them 
 to vote for that which appears, judging from the greater amount of 
 its vehicular accommodation, to be the " winning side," and also 
 the utter prostitution of the electoral judgment which is involved 
 in the peremptory requirement to be taken to the poll in a private 
 victoria or a motor car, as a condition of voting for the candidate 
 who provides the conveyance. At the last General Election one 
 of the Labour candidates, who happened to have the use of a 
 motor car, secured seven votes, by conveying to the poll a group of 
 men who stipulated for a ride in the car as the condition of voting. 
 The Labour candidate only did that which is, under the present 
 circumstances, quite legitimate, in order to secure these votes. The 
 blame of such a transaction applies not to him, but to the voters 
 whose ideal of electoral duty was consistent with the bartering of 
 their judgment in return for the novelty of a ride in a motor car. 
 The need for the prohibition of any pandering to these sorry pro- 
 clivities of a section of the electorate, however, must not blind us 
 to the real necessities of another class of elector. The invalid, 
 the infirmi, and the aged, may well be conveyed to the poll (in the 
 absence of the postal vote, as to which see Chapter XI.) in order 
 that their ballots may (in compliance with the requirements of the 
 Third Canon) siwell the proportion of the aggregate electoral 
 judgment which actually finds its way into the ballot boxes ; but 
 except for these classes conveyance to the polls by means of facili- 
 ties provided by the candidate needs to be sternly and absolutely 
 prohibited. By extending the hours during which the poll is open 
 
 211
 
 ILLEGAL PRACTICES. 
 
 we shall remedy the admittedly hard case of the workman who 
 cannot vote unless hurriedly conveyed to the poll in his dinner 
 hour. By the rapid and general increase in cheap transit facilities 
 we are every year making it easier for people to get from place to 
 place, and therefore to the poll. By the provision of more polling 
 stations in county elections we ought to remove the necessity for 
 the voter to go outside the boundary of his own village in order to 
 exercise the franchise. With all these improvements, is it not 
 possible to abolish the abuses of the conveyance system, while yet 
 retaining it for the use of the aged, the invalid, and the infirm? 
 This can undoubtedly be done, and in the following way : 
 
 (1) Absolutely prohibit the lending or borrowing of vehicles of any 
 kind for the conveyance of voters to the poll, except that an employer of 
 labour may permit the use of his own conveyances to take his own em- 
 ployees (but no others) to or from the polls (and may, of course, use 
 his own carriage for his own conveyance to the poll) : but so that, never- 
 theless 
 
 (2) A candidate may use his own carriages (having been his own pro- 
 perty, or his wife's, for a period of not less than three months before the 
 election), "to a number not exceeding five, for the conveyance of voters 
 to the poll ; but he shall include in his return of the election expenses 
 the estimated value of the use of such carriages, with horses and drivers, 
 on election day, such value being the price at which he could have 
 hired them, had they not been his own. 
 
 (3) A candidate who does not use his own carriages may, if he choose, 
 hire them, to a number not exceeding five, and the cost of such carriages 
 sihall appear in his return of election expenses. There is probably no 
 necessity to put a limit upon the seating capacity of the vehicles, for the 
 reason given in (5). 
 
 (4) The fact that a vehicle is commonly let out on hire shall impose 
 upon its owner no obligation to lend it to a candidate for the conveyance 
 of electors to the poll, if he does not desire to do so. (This is a neces- 
 sary provision, not only because the owner of the vehicle may desire 
 to save his vote if the vote is to be sacrificed by the lending of the 
 vehicle, which we shall discuss later but also because the loan of 
 vehicles for the purpose of conveying voters to the poll is a transaction 
 not altogether unattended, especially as regards tihe tyres of motor cars, 
 with risk to the vehicles.) 
 
 (5) No person other than a voter who is an invalid, or aged, or infirm, 
 may be conveyed to or from the poll in such conveyances. 
 
 (6) The fact that a voter is aged, or infirm, or an invalid, shall be 
 sufficiently evidenced by the written certificate of two persons, being 
 
 electors, to the effect that : " We certify that A B, of Street, is in 
 
 our opinion [being aged, or infirm, or an invalid, as the case may be] 
 not able to go to the poll without the assistance of a vehicle." No voter 
 shall be conveyed to the poll unless such certificate has been produced 
 to the driver or other person in charge of the conveyance, who shall hand 
 all such certificates to the election agent. 
 
 (7) Penalties, by means of summary jurisdiction, for (a) lending or 
 borrowing, in breach of provisions ; (b) giving a wilfully false certificate 
 with regard to a voter's incapacity to go to the poll without a convey- 
 ance ; (c) conveying voters to the poll without the production and re 
 ceipt of the certificate. 
 
 212
 
 ILLEGAL PRACTICES. 
 
 The carriages may not, in accordance with these provisions, be 
 lent gratuitously. They must, therefore, be paid for. There is, 
 however, no real need to disfranchise the lender. This is not done 
 with the billposter or the printer who, in the ordinary course of his 
 business, receives large sums from, the candidate. The necessities 
 of the case might be met by the stipulation that, unless a candi- 
 date uses his own carriages, they shall only be hired from a person 
 whose business it is to lend vehicles for payment, and who has no 
 fewer than three such vehicles in his yard. In no case ought the 
 driver, even if paid, to be disfranchised. If the actual lender 
 were threatened with a resulting disfranchisement he could, if he 
 chose, decline to lend his conveyances, and so preserve his vote ; 
 but the driver has not the same option, and therefore it would be 
 unfair to disfranchise him because he happened to be selected on 
 election day to drive a vehicle hired by a candidate. 
 
 Practical and Effective Provision. 
 
 Let us consider for a moment how these provisions will work. 
 The candidate and the election agent will be relieved of the trouble 
 of appealing to all their friends and supporters for the loan of 
 vehicles on election da.y. The friends and supporters themselves will 
 be saved the necessity of acceding to these requests, or of framing 
 more or less veracious excuses. The ambitions of the lazy, childish, 
 novelty-hunting, and supercilious voter will be sterilised, and the 
 sick, infirm, and aged will be provided for in a candid, legal, and 
 responsible fashion by means of the certificate system. All that will 
 be necessary for the working of the plan will be lists of such voters 
 as require to be fetched to the poll, and the preparation of certifi- 
 cates of their inability to proceed thither unless provided with a 
 conveyance. Under the gentle restraint of these regulations all the 
 vulgar ostentation, the almost lethiferous excitement, and the 
 appeals to the gregarious instinct, now so lamentably conspicuous 
 among the vehicular phenomena of poll-day, will disappear. 
 Finally (and perhaps this would be the happiest of all the conse- 
 quences of the adoption of these proposals), the poor and the rich 
 candidate are placed upon precisely equal terms. The rich man 
 who has the services of a dozen carriages of his own and a 
 hundred which are lent to him (sometimes exhaling the aroma of 
 aristocratic names, to operate as a political narcotic upon a certain 
 type of elector) is no longer given a huge advantage over an oppo- 
 nent with limited means, who has no carriage of his own and but 
 few friends capable of lending them. Rich and poor candidates 
 are in this respect placed upon precisely equal terms. To the ob- 
 jection that the power to hire vehicles is a retrograde step, the 
 writer would answer that the absolute prohibition of hiring has 
 shown itself to be a remedy almost worse than the disease. It 
 gives an enormous and intolerable advantage to the wealthy candi- 
 date. On the ether hand, the absolute prohibition of the lending 
 
 213
 
 ILLEGAL PRACTICES. 
 
 of vehicles must exclude from the ballot-box aggregate the ex- 
 perience of the aged voter, as well as the political judgment (often 
 rendered all the keener by physical weakness) of the invalid and 
 the infirm. This involves a violation of the Third Canon of self- 
 government. The only solution, of the problem lies in the via 
 media permit the use of carriages; limit their number; allow the 
 less wealthy, or the poor, candidate to hire them if he choose, up 
 to the limit; and bring their cost, whether actual or only con- 
 structive, into the return of election expenses. In that way we 
 have at once recognised the necessities of the case, and yet kept 
 the whole arrangement within the firm and comprehensive grip of 
 the law. 
 
 The limit to five carriages is, perhaps, too small for large con- 
 stituencies. If that view were adopted, it is suggested that five 
 carriages should be the limit for constituencies with an electorate 
 of 10,000 or less. When the electorate is larger, one carriage in 
 every borough (or division thereof), and two carriages in every 
 county (or division thereof) might be added to the permissible maxi- 
 mum for every 2,500 electors, or part thereof, above the first 
 10,000. 
 
 (4) Payments for Exhibiting Bills (Illegal Practice). 
 
 Section 7 of 46 and 47 Viet., c. 51, makes it an illegal practice 
 to pay, or contract to pay, money to any elector on account of the 
 use of any house, land, building, or premises for the exhibition of 
 addresses, bills, or notices. The person who pays and the person 
 who receives are alike guilty. But payment may be made to, and 
 received by, an elector whose regular business it is to exhibit bills 
 for payment. The restriction of this prohibition to the case of 
 any elector is quite unnecessary. The provision ought to be 
 widened, so as to forbid the payment of any person, other than a 
 person whose ordinary avocation as an advertising agent is to 
 exhibit bills and advertisements for profit, and whose business was 
 established not less than six months before the date of the nomina- 
 tion. 
 
 (5) Committee-Rooms in Excess (Illegal Practice). 
 
 A payment or contract for payment for committee-rooms in 
 excess of the number allowed in the First Schedule of the Act 
 (46 and 47 Viet., c. 51) is made an illegal practice by sec. 7 (i) (c). 
 (For the number, see the schedule itself.) There is nothing in 
 these provisions as to committee-rooms which (from the point of 
 view of the present essay) calls for any further comment than that 
 already offered on page 130. 
 
 (6) Voting by Prohibited Persons (Illegal Practice). 
 
 Voting by any person who knows that he is prohibited by statute 
 from voting, or knowingly inducing such person to vote, are offences 
 
 214
 
 ILLEGAL PRACTICES. 
 
 which, by Section 9 of the Act 47 and 47 Viet., c. 51, are made 
 illegal practices. This provision, the breach of which is in some 
 cases (see 30 and 31 Viet., c. 102, s. n) a misdemeanour, must not 
 be confused with the prohibitions directed against personation, 
 which is a felony. Section 9 is intended to meet such cases as 
 that of the voter who, being employed (or having been employed 
 see 30 and 31 Viet., c. 102., above) for payment at the election, 
 nevertheless votes thereat. The enactment also reaches the elec- 
 tion agent or other person who, knowing of their incapacity, pro- 
 cures these employees to vote. In Stepney (Day's Election Cases, 
 117) it was shown that such persons did in fact vote, and that 
 the election agent did not take sufficient trouble to prevent their 
 doing so; but this was held insufficient to sustain a charge of 
 "procuring" them to vote. At page 128, where this subject has 
 already been mentioned, it was suggested that the employment of 
 voters at elections should be altogether prohibited, with a few 
 necessary exceptions which were specified. In the absence of 
 such a prohibition Section 9 is, and seems likely to remain, very 
 much a dead letter, because there is no effective machinery for 
 enforcing its provisions. 
 
 (7) False Statement of Withdrawal (Illegal Practice). 
 
 Publishing a false statement of the withdrawal of any candidate 
 for the purpose of promoting or procuring the election of another 
 candidate is an illegal practice (46 and 47 Viet., c. 51, s. 9 (2) ). 
 The publication of a deliberately false statement of the withdrawal 
 of a candidate was, of course, a potent and dangerous weapon in 
 days of slow and infrequent communication. In our own times it 
 would be as futile as foolish. The section might well stand, how- 
 ever, as a kind of cautionary notice; but it is not likely to be 
 infringed. The game would certainly not be worth the candle. 
 
 (7a) Disturbing a Public Meeting (Illegal Practice). 
 
 The Public Meeting Act, passed in the closing days of the ses- 
 sion of 1908, creates a new illegal practice. The operative clause 
 runs as follows : 
 
 Any person who at a lawful public meeting acts in a disorderly 
 manner for the purpose of preventing the transaction of the business for 
 which the meeting was called together shall be guilty of an offence, and 
 if the offence is committed at a meeting during the progress of and in 
 connection with a Parliamentary election, he shall be guilty of an illegal 
 practice within the meaning of the Corrupt and Illegal Practices (Pre- 
 vention) Act, 1883, and in any other case shall on summary conviction 
 De liable to a fine not exceeding ,5, or to imprisonment not exceeding 
 one month. 
 
 The whole of these provisions turn upon the exact meaning 
 which will be attached to the word " disorderly." Doubtless there 
 will soon be decisions to guide the inquirer. In their absence, it 
 
 "5
 
 ILLEGAL PRACTICES. 
 
 is not possible to determine whether an amendment or a counter- 
 resolution, carried, in the teeth of the promoters of a meeting, by 
 900 persons out of an audience of 1,000, would' be held to amount 
 to acting " in a disorderly manner for the purpose of preventing the 
 transaction of the business for which the meeting was called 
 together." 
 
 (8) Banners, Music, Marks of Distinction (Illegal Payments). 
 
 The offences so far defined and discussed exhaust the list of 
 acts which are illegal practices in any person, whether candidate or 
 election agent, or not. The remaining offences are illegal prac- 
 tices only if committed by the candidate cr the election agent. 
 
 The difference is important. An illegal practice, committed by 
 or with the knowledge and consent of any candidate, renders him 
 incapable (unless he obtain " relief," as to which see Chapter VIII.) 
 for seven years of being elected to, or of sitting in, the House of 
 Commons for the particular county or borough in respect of which 
 the offence was committed. If elected, his election is void. In 
 other persons the offences which we are now about to examine only 
 amount to illegal payment, employment, or hiring, as the case may 
 be. The punishment is a fine not exceeding jioo, and a five 
 years' incapacity for voting, or being registered as an elector. Only 
 two of these offences will require any lengthened consideration, 
 from the point of view here assumed. 
 
 The first class of illegal payments includes the spending of 
 money upon the means of garish display and irrational excitement. 
 Section 13 of 46 and 47 Viet, c. 51, enacts that a person who 
 knowingly provides money for purposes contrary to the Act shall be 
 guilty of an illegal payment. Reference has already been made 
 (ante, page 208) to the provision of such money in excess of the 
 legal maximum, or to replace money already so expended. Sec- 
 tion 1 6 goes on to provide that no payment or contract for payment 
 shall be made, for the purpose of promoting or procuring 
 the election of any candidate, on account of bands of music, 
 torches, flags, banners, cockades, ribbons, or other marks of dis- 
 tinction. To illustrate the difficulties with which the section en- 
 compasses a candidate it may be recorded that in a recent petition 
 it was held that printed portraits of the candidate, about 2 feet 
 by i foot in size, mounted on linen and strengthened by a lath 
 at the top and bottom, were " banners." Again, what is a " mark 
 of distinction " ? At Walsall a number of hat cards, provided by 
 the election agent at a cost of 2 i8s., and simply containing a 
 vignette portrait of the candidate and some ordinary injunctions 
 to " play up " and " vote for '' the candidate, were held to be 
 marks of distinction. Relief was refused, and the candidate lost 
 his seat. Yet if these cards were " marks of distinction,'' what 
 shall be said of the myriad portraits of candidates with the 
 
 216
 
 ILLEGAL PRACTICES. 
 
 exhortation to "Vote for - ," and provided with a string for 
 hanging them up, which are scattered abroad at every election? 
 It is the earnest effort of the canvassers to get these things dis- 
 played in windows, so as to indicate, if possible, the predominance 
 of their candidate's supporters, by making their number so obvious 
 that even he who runs may read. Many millions of such cards 
 Have been printed, distributed, and displayed during the last two 
 or three general elections, and at innumerable by-elections, so 
 far without legal challenge. Are these " marks of distinction " ? 
 Clearly, the very object of their distribution is that they shall be 
 made to become so, even if that is not their original character. 
 
 No similar difficulties of interpretation arise in regard to the 
 bands of music, torches, cockades, or ribbons. These are com- 
 monly employed at elections, and as their provision is in itself no 
 offence, it is in election practice only necessary to take care that 
 neither the candidate nor his election agent makes any payment, or 
 any contract for payment, in respect of their supply. This is the 
 flaw in the Act. The candidate or the agent will not pay, or con- 
 tract to pay. Other persons, however, provide the forbidden com- 
 modities out of their own resources, and the result is that the pro- 
 hibition is reduced to a dead letter. At every election the streets 
 are garnished with banners, though the Act forbids payment for 
 them, and processions march in torchlight though the Act pro- 
 hibits payment for torches. The present writer has seen the 
 daughters of a candidate, attired in frocks exhibiting his colours, 
 driving with an equipage which was adorned with at least fifty 
 yards of bi-colour ribbon, also showing the candidate's colours. 
 As it was no person's duty to say anything or do anything in the 
 matter, the episode was merely remarked by experts as a bold 
 defiance of the law, and passed unheeded into oblivion. If the 
 section struck at an imaginary evil, its desuetude might be regarded 
 with equanimity. But inasmuch as it is intended to suppress an 
 abuse of very real menace to electoral quietude and deliberation 
 (such as the Third Canon contemplates), the time has come for 
 this section to 'be made effective. There is already a provision en- 
 abling 2 to be recovered from any person in respect of a breach 
 of the older prohibition, on the same subject (17 and 18 Viet., 
 c. 1 02, s. 7), and this might well be brought up to date and ren- 
 dered effective so as to deter any person from supplying, pro- 
 viding, or using flags, banners, ribbons, cockades, rosettes, 
 or any mark of distinction the wearing of which is de- 
 signed to show that the wearer is the supporter of a certain 
 candidate or party ; but the prohibition ought not to extend so far 
 as to penalise a candidate for the improper use of any part of the 
 election equipment which was originally intended for a legitimate 
 purpose, and was not naturally and obviously capable of abuse. 
 The hat cards which brought disaster at Walsall were " naturally 
 
 217
 
 ILLEGAL PRACTICES. 
 
 capable of abuse," and avoided the election. But the cutting of 
 the candidate's name and portrait from the front page of the elec- 
 tion, address, where they are quite properly displayed, ought not to 
 penalise him, unless he personally suggested and approved it. 
 The distinction here suggested was that actually drawn by the late 
 Mr. Justice Hawkins in Pontefract (4 O'M. and H., 200). The 
 learned judge took the view that the mere use of a card as a 
 " mark of distinction " did not necessarily make the provision of the 
 card an infringement of the Act, unless, as at Walsall (supra) the 
 cards were ordered, used, and paid for with the full knowledge of 
 the electorally improper purpose for which they were designed, or 
 for which, at least, they might be employed. The term " banner " 
 needs careful legislative definition if the Act is to be stringently 
 enforced. 
 
 (9) Bills Without Printer's Name (Illegal Practice).* 
 
 The printing, publishing or posting of any bill having reference 
 to the election, without the name and address of the printer and 
 publisher on the face thereof, is an illegal practice in candidate or 
 agent (46 and 47 Viet., c. 51, s. 18). No election has ever been 
 avoided for non-compliance with these provisions. Doubtless a 
 case of deliberate omission of the printer's and publisher's names 
 from a virulent leaflet issued by a candidate or his election agent 
 will have serious consequences for the offenders when it occurs ; 
 but so far all the cases under -the Act have had their origin in 
 bona-fide inadvertence. Relief, under those circumstances, is 
 granted as a matter of course. A prudent election agent, who is 
 aware that the expression " bill " in the Act is very wide and vague, 
 will have the name of the printer and publisher even on his note- 
 heads. For the rest, an intelligent electorate knows the minus 
 value of the anonymous bill or pamphlet, and its issue is generally 
 time and money wasted. 
 
 The severe but salutary regulation of bill-posting has already 
 been discussed in detail (ante, page 154), and the question need 
 not be further pursued. 
 
 (10) Procuring Withdrawal of Candidate (Illegal Payment), 
 
 The payment, or promise of payment, of money to induce or 
 procure the withdrawal of any person from being a candidate is, 
 if done "corruptly," ani illegal payment (46 and 47 Viet., c. 51, 
 s. 15). No case under these provisions has ever arisen, so that it 
 is impossible to say with any authoritative precision what meaning 
 attaches to the word "corruptly." Instances may be imagined 
 where a breach of the provisions of this section would be so 
 " corrupt " as to transcend in turpitude almost any imaginable 
 
 * In the candidate or election agent (or sub-agent) only. In other per- 
 sons it is an offence with a maximum penalty of ^ico. 
 
 218
 
 ILLEGAL PRACTICES. 
 
 offence among those which are corrupt practices by statute. But 
 for the possibly appalling consequences of these the section pro- 
 vides no antidote. It is, in fact, vitiated by a serious flaw, which 
 should be repaired whenever the law comes up for legislative re- 
 consideration. 
 
 It will be convenient to consider some possible instances of the 
 operation of the section. A and B are candidates, and the con- 
 test is far advanced. Before the nomination, however, A pays 
 B ;i,ooo to withdraw. The result of B's action is to seriously 
 embarrass his party, who are unable, at that stage of the contest, to 
 sustain themselves against the consequences of introducing a new 
 candidate. A therefore wins the election. Was this money 
 " corruptly " paid by A ? Disreputable in the extreme the transac- 
 tion certainly is, but it might be argued that if one candidate can 
 improve his own chances by buying another off he has a right to 
 do so. Anyhow, if the money were paid at a late stage of the 
 contest, as was in this instance suggested, the successful candidate 
 could probably be unseated on petition by the charge that he had 
 omitted the ^1,000 from his return of election expenses. 
 
 There are, however, far worse potentialities than this. Let the 
 contest have proceeded as far as the nomination. Let B then omit 
 to have himself nominated, in consideration of ^1,000 paid by a 
 person who is neither A nor A's election agent. That person 
 will be guilty of illegal payment, and can be fined ;ioo. Mean- 
 while A will have enjoyed the luxury of an unopposed return, and, 
 as he has himself done nothing illegal, his election cannot be 
 assailed by the constituency, which would perhaps have rejected 
 him by an enormous majority at the poll. He is safe, possibly 
 for seven years if the life of Parliament has just commenced. It 
 may be that the House of Commons would, in such a flagrant case, 
 exercise its inherent power and jurisdiction over its own body, and 
 expel a member whose election was the consequence of so odious 
 a fraud upon the electorate. If it did not do so (and always 
 assuming that guilty knowledge could not be brought home to A) 
 the present section, which seems to have been designed to meet 
 some such case as this, utterly fails of its purpose. It needs 
 strengthening by the provision that where the election of a candi- 
 date is shown to have been brought about by the corruptly pro- 
 cured withdrawal of another candidate, the election shall for that 
 reason be avoided, although the candidate who was actually 
 elected was guiltless in the matter; provided that this enactment 
 shall not apply if the alleged corrupt withdrawal took place more 
 than one month before the day fixed for the nomination. 
 
 Doubtless it will be said that no case under the section is ever 
 likely to arise. A very slight reflection upon some of the features 
 of the present political outlook will dissipate the optimism which 
 colours such a forecast. The nation has still to grapple with more 
 
 219
 
 ILLEGAL PRACTICES. 
 
 than one giant interest before it enters upon the full enjoyment of 
 its own. If its will can be thwarted, and its electoral judgment 
 baulked, at the cost of ^100 to the offender, it is a fairly safe 
 assumption that as the fight grows keener the attempt will be made. 
 A seat won or lost in this corrupt fashion might mean the survival, 
 or the defeat, of a Government whose existence, or destruction, 
 was of vital moment to the life of the nation. Is it not worth 
 while, then, to attempt the slight amendment which would go far 
 to remove the risk ? 
 
 (11) Employment in Excess of Permitted Number (Illegal 
 
 Employment). 
 
 The question of paid employment at elections has already en- 
 gaged our attention (supra, page 128) and has there been fully 
 explained and discussed. 
 
 (12) Lending or Employing Carriages or Horses (Illegal 
 
 Hiring;. 
 
 This matter has already been considered at length in the present 
 chapter. The reader is therefore referred to the earlier para- 
 graphs. 
 
 (13) Committee-Rooms on Licensed Premises (Illegal Hiring). 
 
 By Section 20 of 46 and 47 Viet., c. 51, it is forbidden to hire 
 or use, for the purposes of promoting or procuring the election of 
 any candidate, a committee-room on any premises 
 
 (a) Licensed for the sale of intoxicating liquor. 
 
 (b) Ordinarily used for the sale of intoxicating liquor, or where 
 liquor is supplied to members of a club, society, or association, 
 other than a permanent political club. 
 
 (c) Where refreshment of any kind, whether food or drink, is 
 ordinarily sold for consumption on the premises (e.g., a committee- 
 roomi, opening into a baker's or confectioner's shop, where tea and 
 rolls are supplied). 
 
 (d) Which are a public elementary school, in receipt of an 
 annual Parliamentary grant. 
 
 General Considerations. 
 
 At the present stage in our political evolution as a nation none 
 of these provisions can safely be relaxed, and some, as we have 
 seen, require to be made more stringent. They bridge the gap 
 which separates the older age of coarse and shameless corruption 
 from the newer era of a trained electorate, whose well-equipped 
 and 'politically judicial mind will be proof against the arts of the 
 trickster. Seeing that nearly forty years have elapsed since the pas- 
 sage of the Elementary Education Act, we might well suppose that 
 our electorate was beyond the reach of misguidance by means of 
 flags, banners, and torches. And, truth to tell, it battles steadily 
 on towards the elevated uplands of political thought, where these 
 
 220
 
 ILLEGA.Z PRACTICES. 
 
 trumpery absurdities will be out of its sight and ken. But it has not 
 reached them yet ; and while the upward struggle goes on, the 
 illegitimate influences must be ruthlessly excluded. But although, 
 for the present, we seek their jealous exclusion, let us recognise 
 that their potentiality for mischief is only a consequence of a tem- 
 porary, and rapidly disappearing, liability to apathy on the one 
 hand, and to aberration o_n the other, in the electoral mind. In 
 course of time we may contemplate the almost total absence of 
 election expenses, whether public or private ; for the eager political 
 intelligence, brought once more into active touch with the realities 
 of government, and conscious of its power, will crave no such 
 artificial stimulus. In time the false statement will become 
 innocuous, because its falsity will be patent to every electoral eye. 
 Into the same limbo of harmlessness and oblivion will vanish the 
 necessity for committee rooms and the rules which regulate their 
 provision. The whole mass of technicalities does but serve as 
 swaddling clothes, rapidly to be outgrown and thrust aside at one 
 stage protective; at another obsolete and cast away. To the 
 present student of the development of the political organism a 
 knowledge of the nature and the purpose of the various provisions 
 with regard to illegal practices is an absolutely indispensable por- 
 tion of his intellectual munition. To his successor, some genera- 
 tions hence, it will take rank with the doctrines dear to Bracton 
 and to Littleton, as marking a stage in the development of an 
 organism, as destined for many years to influence its course and 
 bent, but as forming no essential and permanent part of its equip- 
 ment for the higher destiny towards which its ceaseless struggles 
 urge it in resistless movement. 
 
 Summary of Suggestions. 
 
 All deliberately false statements, made in the course of and for 
 the purposes of an election campaign, to be punishable, and not 
 only those relating to the personal character and conduct of a 
 candidate (Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Act, 1895). 
 
 Hire of conveyances to take voters to the poll to be made per- 
 missible, within certain defined limits, so as to place rich and poor 
 candidates on a level. 
 
 Payment for conveying lighthouse and lightship men to the poll 
 to be permissible (until the postal vote is established). 
 
 Provisions against the corrupt payment of money for the with- 
 drawal of a candidate to be remedied where they fail in effective- 
 ness (for reasons given where the subject is discussed). 
 
 Other suggestions in these matters have been made at earlier 
 stages of the present essay. 
 
 221
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 The Close of the Contest. 
 
 When the writ has been issued and the nomination takes place 
 the end of the contest will be well within sight. The study of the 
 closing incidents of the electoral warfare may best begin, there- 
 fore, with the writ itself, and with a brief explanation of the pur- 
 pose and statutory regulation of the nomination. 
 
 The "Nomination." 
 
 The official activity of the returning officer begins with the re- 
 ceipt of the writ. The unofficial vehemence of the contending 
 parties will no doubt have manifested itself long before. The 
 writ (which represents the ancient summons to confer with the 
 King on the business of the Realm) instructs the returning officer 
 
 to "cause election to be made according to law of members 
 
 [or a member] to serve in Parliament for the said county [or the 
 
 division of the said county, or the borough, as the 
 
 case may be] of , [here, unless the writ is issued at 
 
 a general election, it states the cause of the vacancy, i.e., ' in the 
 place of A B, deceased,' for example], and that you do cause the 
 names of such members [or member] when so elected, whether they 
 [or he] be present or absent, to be certified to us, in our Chancery, 
 without delay.'' (See the full form in the Second Schedule to 35 and 
 36 Viet., c. 33.) The student may advantageously compare this form 
 with the earlier writs of the late Queen's reign, in order to realise, 
 as Sir William Anson says, how near we still are to the constitu- 
 tional forms of the Middle Ages.* The writ is issued by the Clerk 
 of the Crown in Chancery, on the Speaker's warrant; and the 
 Speaker's warrant is signed in consequence of motion made in the 
 House of Commons for the writ. In the prdinary case of death 
 or resignation while Parliament is sitting, the writ is issued on the 
 motion of the whip of the party to which the late member belonged. 
 As a rule, there is no opposition. At Worcester, however, 
 
 * Below is an example of the earlier and striking form of such a 
 writ, dated as recently as July 17, 1837 (Anson, Vol. i, p. 57) : 
 
 Victoria, by the grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain 
 and Ireland Queen, Defender of the Faith, to the Sheriff of the County 
 of Middlesex, Greeting. Whereas, by the advice and assent of Our 
 Council, for certain arduous and urgent affairs concerning Us, the State 
 and defence of Our said United Kingdom and the Church, We have 
 ordered a certain Parliament to be holden at Our city of Westminster on 
 the 4th Day of September next ensuing. And there to treat and have 
 conference with the Prelates, Great Men, and Peers of our Realm, We 
 command and strictly enjoin you (Proclamation hereof, and of the time 
 and place of election being first duly made) for the said County two 
 Knights of the most fit and discreet, girt with swords, and for the City of 
 Westminster, in the same County, two Citizens, and for each of the 
 Boroughs of the Tower Hamlets, Finsbury, and Marylebone, in the same 
 County, two Burgesses of the most sufficient and discreet, etc., etc. 
 
 222
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE CONTEST. 
 
 after the petition which followed the election of 1906, 
 and resulted in the unseating of the Conservative member, the 
 extreme unpopularity of the petitioning party led the Liberal 
 Government to oppose the issue of the writ, because the result 
 of the election must have been a foregone conclusion. During a 
 Parliamentary recess the circumstances which create a vacancy 
 may be certified to the Speaker under the hand of two members of 
 the House, and the Speaker, six days after the publication of 
 notice to that effect in the London Gazette, issues his warrant 
 for the writ. Except in the cases of writs addressed to the 
 Sheriffs of London and Middlesex, the writs must be delivered by 
 the Messenger of the Great Seal or his deputy at the General Post 
 Office; thence to be despatched, free of charge, by post, to the 
 returning officer. This device, according to Sir William Anson, 
 prevents a returning officer from, sending for the writ in order to 
 accelerate the nomination and the poll. To avoid the reduction 
 of this machinery to a state of impotence, as a result of the death, 
 incapacity, or absence of the Speaker, he is required at the com- 
 mencement of each Parliament to appoint not more than seven nor 
 less than three members to exercise these powers, if one of those 
 contingencies should arise. 
 
 The returning officer is, in counties, divisions of counties, and 
 counties of cities and towns, the sheriff of the county or of the 
 city or town, as the case may be. The sheriff may, in certain 
 circumstances (35 and 36 Viet., c. 33, s. 8), appoint a fit person 
 to be 'his deputy for all or any of the purposes of the election. In 
 boroughs other than cities and towns, being counties of themselves, 
 the mayor is to be the returning officer. At the English universi- 
 ties the vice-chancellor is the returning officer. 
 
 Purpose of the Nomination. 
 
 So far we have used the expressions " election day " or " daj 
 of the election " in their ordinary sense, as signifying the day of 
 the poll. Strictly speaking, however, the function called the 
 " nomination " is the election. If there are no more candidates 
 than vacancies the proceedings are there and then completed, and 
 the member is declared elected. But if, as is usually the case, 
 there are more candidates than vacancies, the election is ad- 
 journed, in order that a poll may be taken ; and it is this latter 
 occasion which we generally mean when we refer to the " election." 
 It will be convenient to retain the ordinary usage here, with this 
 preliminary reminder, that there is a slight technical inaccuracy in 
 doing so. 
 
 The function of the nomination is to clear the ground and define 
 the personal issue. The question whether A or B or C is 
 actually going to the poll is finally set at rest, for even if a candi- 
 date announce, after having been nominated, that he does not 
 desire to be elected, there is no power to remove his name from 
 
 223
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE CONTEST. 
 
 the ballot paper, and, if elected, his only way of escape from the 
 resulting obligation would be by way of an application for the 
 Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds or some other office of profit 
 under the Crown. The date of the nomination must, by statute, 
 fall within a certain period from the issue of the writ. The writ 
 sets the official electoral mechanism in motion, and must produce 
 either an unopposed return, or a poll, within certain statutory 
 limits of time. Within two days of the receipt of the writ in 
 the case of counties, and on the day on which he receives it, or the 
 following day, in the case of boroughs, the returning officer is tc 
 give public notice (formerly called the " Proclamation") of the day 
 and hour on which he will proceed to the election [i.e., in 
 the strict sense of the words, to what we call the 
 nomination], and of the time and place at which forms 
 of nomination papers may be (gratuitously) obtained, as 
 well as of the day on which the poll will be taken 
 if the election is contested. The fixation of the date of the 
 poll is a source of considerable mystification even to people other- 
 wise well informed about the electoral processes. The simplest 
 explanation will be offered by supposing the writ to be received on 
 the first day of a month say March and then setting forth the 
 incidence of the other events, in accordance with the statutory 
 provisions. Sundays, Christmas Day, Good Friday, and public 
 fast and thanksgiving days do not count; and any stage of the 
 process which falls on a Sunday is postponed to the following day, 
 with a corresponding postponement of all the subsequent stages. 
 
 COUNTY ELECTIONS. 
 March i. Receipt of writ. 
 March 2. 
 
 March 3. Last possible day for Public Notice. 
 March 4. 
 
 March 5. First possible day for Nomination. 
 March 6. 
 March 7. 
 
 March 8. First possible day for Poll. 
 March 9. 
 
 March 10. Last possible day for Nomination. 
 March n, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16. 
 March 17. Last possible day for Poll. 
 
 BOROUGH ELECTIONS. 
 March i. Receipt of writ. 
 March 2. Last possible day for Public Notice. 
 March 3. 
 
 March 4. First possible day for Nomination. 
 March 5. Last possible day for Nomination. 
 March 6. First possible day for Poll in ordinary boroughs. 
 March 7. First possible day for Poll in District boroughs 
 March 8. 
 
 March 9. Last possible day for Poll in ordinary boroughs. 
 March 10. 
 March n. 
 
 March 12. Last possible day for Poll in District boroughs. 
 
 224
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE CONTEST. 
 
 Are There Party Influences ? 
 
 The returning officer has the right to determine (of course, 
 within statutory limits) how many days shall elapse between the 
 receipt of the writ and the nomination (which is really the election) 
 and what further period shall elapse between the nomination and 
 poll. This is said to confer upon him a power to select the 
 day for the poll in the manner which is most consistent with the in- 
 terests of his own party, if he is a party man, or accessible by 
 party influences. There is no suggestion that this is done 
 systematically, but one of the most distinguished of recent students 
 of our constitutional system* tells his readers that it is " said to be 
 done ... in particular places." Probably there are isolated 
 instances abuses that even the best of machinery cannot alto- 
 gether suppress. It must not be forgotten, however, that the fixa- 
 tion of the poll on a Saturday will always be said to be a deliberate 
 attempt to favour the Radical or Labour candidate, by increasing 
 the working class polls and disfranchising the small shopkeeper, 
 who usually votes for a Conservative, but will not leave his shop 
 on a busy day to da so. In the same way a Wednesday poll will 
 be branded as an endeavour to stifle the working class vote and to 
 favour the other social elements. 
 
 In modern times the nomination has become a strictly formal, 
 and withal a very dull, function. Only where there is a doubt 
 about the real seriousness of a third candidature, or a. chance of the 
 late and sudden advent of some new aspirant for electoral favour, 
 does the nomination add appreciably, or at all, to the excitement 
 of the contest. It was otherwise in former days, when the ad- 
 journment of the election (i.e., the nomination) in consequence of 
 riot, or its sudden transference to some unexpected place (see an 
 instance on page 172), were not excluded from the possibilities 
 of the occasion. The modern practice is for the candidates to 
 attend and hand their nomination papers to the returning officer. 
 At the same time each candidate pays to the returning officer his 
 share of the official charges in connection with the election, or, if 
 he choses, gives security (to the satisfaction of the returning 
 officer) for their payment. The maxima of the authorised official 
 charges (as we have seen in discussing the election expenses) are 
 the subject of statutory provision, and include the returning officer's 
 own fees, the payments to presiding officers and clerks, the fitting 
 up of the polling booths, and the provision of ballot boxes. Unless 
 a candidate's share of the returning officer's charges is duly paid, 
 or approved security given, he is to be deemed withdrawn; and, 
 on the other hand, the appearance of a third or fourth candidate, 
 able and willing to pay his share of these expenses, will have the 
 effect of materially reducing the quota payable by the others. If, 
 
 * Professor Lowell, " The Government of England," p. 220. 
 Q 225
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE CONTEST. 
 
 for instance, the charges are ^250, the sum of ^125 each, pay- 
 able by two candidates, is reduced to 62 IDS. each if there are 
 four. We have already, in considering the question of the public 
 payment of election expenses, come to the conclusion that the re- 
 turning officer's charges, in the case of all candidates who had a 
 " reasonable chance of success," should be paid out of public 
 funds. 
 
 The Nomination Paper. 
 
 The nomination paper (copies of which are supplied gratuitously 
 to any elector by the returning officer) must be in the form set out 
 in the Second Schedule of 35 and 36 Vic., c. 33 (the Ballot Act), 
 thus : 
 
 We, the undersigned, A B, of , in the of 
 
 , and C D, of , in the of 
 
 , do hereby nominate the following person as a proper 
 
 person to serve as a member for the said in Parliament. 
 
 This must be signed by two registered electors of the county or 
 borough as proposer and seconder, and by eight other registered 
 electors as assenting to the nomination. The names of the signa- 
 tories and assentors, together with their registered numbers, must 
 be set forth with the most scrupulous accuracy. In one case, for 
 instance, the signature of the correct name, " Charles Arthur Bur- 
 man," led to the rejection of the nomination paper, because the 
 burgess appeared on the roll as " Charles Burman " (Moor house v. 
 Linney, 15 Q.B.D., 273). At the present time the election agents 
 frequently agree to take no objection to each other's nomination 
 papers. A single valid paper is, of course, sufficient, but it is 
 generally advisable to have more, in case of the discovery of some 
 unforeseen flaw. Sometimes a great multitude of nomination 
 papers is provided, for the purpose of demonstrating the large 
 extent of the public support accorded to the candidate in whose 
 interest they are signed. Tactical considerations generally lead 
 to the presentation of nomination; papers signed by different elec- 
 toral groups one wholly by trade unionists, another by the clergy, 
 another by railway employees, and a fourth by prominent temper- 
 ance advocates, for instance. These bring into relief the fact that 
 the candidate nominated in them has the support of the various 
 classes who have signed them, but otherwise they have no more 
 legal efficacy than the rest of the papers. If objection is made to 
 the validity of a nomination paper the returning officer's decision, if 
 he disallows the objection, is final. If he sustains it, and rejects 
 the paper, his decision is subject to reversal on petition questioning 
 the election. If, at the expiration of one hour after the time ap- 
 pointed for the election, no more candidates stand nominated than 
 there are vacancies, the returning officer is forthwith to declare the 
 candidates elected and to return their names to the Clerk of the 
 Crown in Chancery. If there are more candidates than vacancies, 
 
 226
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE CONTEST. 
 
 he adjourns the election to the date already fixed, in the " Procla- 
 mation," for the poll. 
 
 The Polling Districts. 
 
 The arrangement of the polling districts is vested in certain local 
 authorities (30 and 31 Vic., c. 102, s. 34; 35 and 36 Vic., c. 33, 
 s. 1 8). In counties the division must be made so that every elector 
 may have his polling place not more than three miles, and in 
 boroughs not more than one mile, from his residence. At every 
 polling place the returning officer must provide a sufficient number 
 of polling stations or booths. Not more than 500 electors can con- 
 veniently poll at one station, so that if the electors voting at that 
 place exceed 500 further accommodation, proportionate to their 
 number, is provided. The poll may not be taken in places of 
 public worship, nor in any inn, hotel, or public-house (unless by 
 consent of all the candidates in writing, for which few returning 
 officers would nowadays venture to ask). The voters are allotted, 
 by number, to their respective polling stations, and no voter may 
 vote at any other than his own, except a police constable who is on 
 duty, at a distance from his proper polling place, and is therefore 
 entitled to vote at any polling station, so that his vote may not 
 be forfeited. As public notice is given of the respective allot- 
 ments, and as every voter receives a " poll card " from the candi- 
 dates, telling him his number and polling station, there is the 
 maximum of guidance and the minimum risk of mistake. 
 
 The Repression of Untimely Excitement. 
 
 The liveliness of the contest will naturally reach its height in, 
 the period between the nomination and the poll, during which the 
 contending parties are drawn up, as it were, in readiness for the 
 imminent onset. There is really no more need for this state of 
 things than there is that a jury should fall into paroxysms of ex- 
 citement as the moment approaches when it is bidden to consider 
 its verdict. Throughout our analysis of the electoral phenomena 
 we have kept in mind the desirability of minimising, as far as is 
 consistent with the freedom of action and discussion, all the acci- 
 dental and unessential forces which influence the working of the 
 electoral mechanism ; and the equal necessity of maximising the 
 realisation of individual responsibility and the cautious delibera- 
 tion of individual judgment, in acordance with the requirements 
 of the Third Canon of self-government. But since electoral excite- 
 ment is a social tradition, regarded by some as almost a social 
 privilege, no attempt at its entire suppression would, at the 
 present stage of our political evolution, have the slightest chance of 
 success. But we need not hesitate to consider whether the external 
 stimuli of election excitement might not be subjected to a statutory 
 sedative, so as to reduce in a marked degree the power of the 
 more or less illicit influences which, in the closing hours of the 
 contest, are brought to bear upon the voters and tell, with fatal
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE CONTEST. 
 
 effect, upon the judgment of the more unstable minds. This 
 might be done by setting back, to the extent of about 
 forty-eight hours, the hour which marks the present limit 
 of the effective issue of election " literature.'' At present the 
 candidate, or any person or organisation which is taking part in 
 the contest, may issue placards and handbills right up to the close 
 of the poll, so that the last man who enters the polling booth may 
 have a misleading appeal thrust into his hand or a dexterously 
 mendacious placard flaunted in his face. There is no real need 
 for this prolonged propagandism. All that it is necessary for the 
 electorate to know can be communicated to it by eight o'clock 
 on 'the evening of the second day before the poll, and after the 
 clock has struck that hour the issue of election literature, or the 
 posting of election bills, should be prohibited as an illegal prac- 
 tice. So far as the powers of the human voice are concerned, each 
 candidate and each party might be at liberty to proceed until the 
 clamour is lost in the clang of the closing doors of the polling 
 booth ; but, as regards the " literature " and the placard, there 
 should break upon the comtendiing elements a period analogous to 
 that " truce of God " which quelled even the military ardour of the 
 turbulent Norman, and might well surround with solemn dignity 
 and leisured deliberation the final hours of the electoral contest. 
 It should be the duty of the election agent, at the aippointed hour, 
 to take charge of all undistributed literature and to see that none 
 of it was circulated in contravention of the law ; and the head 
 postmaster of the district should be required to give not less than 
 three days' notice of the last hour up to which he can receive 
 postal communications so as to deliver them not later than the 
 last deliver}- on the evening of the second day before the poll. 
 
 Political Newspapers. 
 
 The position of political newspapers appears at first sight to pre- 
 sent some slight difficulty with regard to the application of these 
 provisions. On closer inspection, however, we shall see that not only 
 is the difficulty simple of solution, but that, incidentally, it solves 
 an allied problem. Obviously, in a world where events move 
 at a constantly accelerated speed, there might be occurrences of 
 the highest political importance between the compulsory cessation 
 of the distribution of " literature" and the close of the poll. Any 
 idea of keeping the electorate in ignorance of them would be as 
 futile as its principle would be foreign to all sound canons of 
 political activity and enlightenment. And yet. if we allow candi- 
 dates to break in upon the compulsory forty-eight hours absention 
 from " literary " effort by issuing printed matter with reference to 
 any " important " political developments, the faintest zephyr that 
 stirs the political atmosphere will be made the excuse for a 
 deluge. The solution of the apparent difficulty lies in the news- 
 papers. Every party, and indeed every shade of opinion, is now 
 
 228
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE CONTEST. 
 
 represented by organs of publicity which (as we have seen) convey 
 political news and personal pronouncements, with unexampled 
 rapidity and fulness, to the remotest corners of the land. These 
 methods of publicity (added to the right of public speech, which 
 should be unrestricted, save in its access to the near neighbourhood 
 of the polling booth, right up to the close of the poll) afford ample 
 means of the most effective and widespread publicity for any politi- 
 cal development which ought to be brought within' range of elec- 
 toral perception during the forty-eight hours immediately preced- 
 ing the close of the poll. The exercise of unlimited newspaper 
 publicity needs only to be guarded by a slight modification of the 
 existing law of libel, partly on the lines already suggested, and 
 partly designed to meet the special circumstances ; that is to say : 
 
 Any false statement of fact whatsoever made in a newspaper with 
 reference to a candidate during an election campaign (and not only a 
 false statement of fact with regard to the personal character or conduct 
 of the candidate) shall be actionable without proof of special damage by 
 such candidate, provided : 
 
 (a) That he satisfy the court that such statement was intended to 
 apply to him, or to his candidature; but it shall not suffice to show 
 that it only applied generally to the political party to which he belongs ; 
 
 (b) It shall be a competent defence to such action that the defendant 
 newspaper had reasonable ground for believing, and did believe, that 
 the alleged false statement was in fact true ; 
 
 (c) A person shall not be deemed to be a candidate within the mean- 
 ing of these provisions unless he was actually and validly nominated. 
 
 (d) Security for costs shall be ordered, to an amount not exceeding 
 200, on the application of the defendant newspaper. 
 
 The kind of false statement here contemplated, for which the 
 present law affords no remedy, may be briefly illustrated. For 
 instance, these : 
 
 A B (the candidate) voted against the Miners' Eight Hours Bill (the 
 fact being that 'he voted in favour of it). 
 
 A B (Mie candidate) affects to oppose Chinese Labour, but is a share- 
 holder in many mines which employ it* (the fact being that he holds no 
 mining shares at all). 
 
 A B (the candidate) only voted in ten divisions in the House last 
 session (the fact being that he voted in many hundreds). 
 
 The proposed provisions (which are, of course, only in rough 
 draft form) will be said to impose a serious responsibility. They 
 are intended to> do so. A witness who testifies in a. court of 
 justice is subjected to very serious responsibility and to extremely 
 severe punishment if, in contempt of court and conscience, he 
 swears to that which he knows to be false. No less responsibility 
 should weigh upon those who are responsible for an endeavour to 
 mislead, or deceive, the majestic tribunal from which the authority 
 of all the courts is ultimately drawn. If it be punishable to assail 
 the interests of an individual litigant by the public assertion of a 
 known falsity during the trial of his case, why should it not be 
 
 * This statement is possibly actionable in the ordinary way; but as 
 the case would not come on for months after the election, it is true to say 
 that the law affords no electorally effective remedy. 
 
 229
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE CONTEST. 
 
 equally perilous to employ the same weapon against the interests 
 of a vast political organism? The argument is all the more 
 forcible if we bear in mind that the verdict of the court is the sub- 
 ject of appeal and revision, while the verdict of the electorate, 
 although obtained by wilful and deliberate falsity, is (with only 
 slight exception) irrevocable on that ground. 
 
 Close Time for "Outside Organisations." 
 
 For the "outside organisations" the "close time " should com- 
 mence twenty-four hours earlier. These organisations are subject 
 to no such responsibility for their assertions as that which presses 
 continuously upon the candidates. A false statement with respect 
 to the personal character and conduct of his opponent means the 
 loss of the seat in the case of a successful candidate. In the case 
 of an outside organisation it means a fine or, at most, damages 
 for libel or slander; and if, instead of being a personal attack, it 
 is merely a political or statistical falsity, however mischievous and 
 deliberate, there is, as we have seen, no penalty at all. If we 
 are going to fix a time limit for the issue of election literature, 
 there ought surely to be a means of preventing the irresponsible 
 " outside organisation " from issuing, at the last minute, some utterly 
 false postal circular, to which the time limit would preclude a 
 reply by the candidate whose chances it jeopardised. For these 
 reasons the issue of " literature " by any " outside organisation '' 
 should compulsorily cease twenty-four hours before the equivalent 
 cessation of activity is enforced upon the candidates. With 
 this last provision we have completed an edifice of sugges- 
 tion whose erection into concrete legislation would exclude from 
 the electoral arena the pernicious influence of falsehood and wilful 
 misrepresentation and surround the final struggle with some aspect 
 of the cohciliar restraint and quietude amid which public judg- 
 ments should be formed and pronounced. 
 
 Summary of Suggestions.' 
 
 The closing days of the struggle to be approximated, in their 
 temper and aspect, more nearly to a judicial tribunal by : 
 
 (a) The compulsory cessation of the issue of all " literature " 
 and posters by " outside organisations " at eight o'clock on the 
 evening of the third day before the poll. 
 
 (b) The same restriction to come into force, as regards the 
 candidates, at eight o'clock on the evening of the second day before 
 the poll. 
 
 (c) False statements in party or other newspapers to be action- 
 able by candidates attacked in that way, without proof of special 
 damage. At present, unless the false statement refers to the 
 " personal " character or conduct, no immediate (and, in the great 
 majority of cases, no ultimate) remedy is provided for an injured 
 candidate or a deceived electorate. (See also Sec. I. of Chap. IX.) 
 
 230
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 The Poll : The Act and Mode of Voting. 
 
 The " poll " was, of course, originally the counting of " polls " 
 of headj. There was formerly no limit to the duration of the 
 process ; and its condition' the " state of the poll " was an- 
 nounced from time to time, to the encouragement, it may be, of 
 one party and the dismay of the other. The prolongation of the 
 poll at last became an intolerable abuse, and by the Act .25, 
 George III., c. 84, it was ordered that the proceedings should not 
 extend over a greater period than fifteen days. Nowadays the poll 
 occupies exactly twelve hours (8 a.m. to 8 p.m.) ; and, since th 
 counting of the " polls " in the Romford division, for instance 
 would be a physical impossibility within that space of time, it is 
 taken by means of the simple mechanism of the ballot, except at 
 the Universities, where it is done orally, or by proxy. A perusal 
 of Chapter XIII. of the " Pickwick Papefs " will convey to the 
 mind of the reader an excellent, if somewhat humorously em- 
 broidered, idea of the scenes of violence and disorder, by which, 
 almost within living memory, the proceedings at the poll were 
 characterised. 
 
 All Elections on One Day. 
 
 The statutory regulations for the fixation of polling day have 
 already been explained. Their upshot, as far as a general election 
 is concerned, is that the act of national judgment, which ought to 
 be focussed into a united and simultaneous pronouncement, is 
 allowed to straggle over several weeks. Instead of forcing each 
 elector, as far as possible, to rely upon his individual intellect, we 
 allow him to 'be influenced, through the pernicious medium of 
 mass-suggestibility, by the opinions of other people. The earliest 
 elections sometimes do, and sometimes do not, indicate the real 
 opinion of the nation ; but if they happen to coincide with its pre- 
 dominant drift at the moment, they gain a cumulative force by 
 bringing over thousands of electors to what is supposed to be the 
 " winning side." Let us assume, for instance, a general election 
 at which there is no trustworthy indication of the probable nature 
 of the national choice of policy. Let Manchester, Birmingham, 
 Leeds, and Glasgow poll first, and let them decide, with practical 
 unanimity, in favour of a certain party. The odds in favour of 
 that party's success are at once increased to an enormous extent, 
 so that doubtless many scores of constituencies will render that 
 which is not, in fact, their own verdict, but a mere echo 
 from the great centres of population. As it does not always and 
 necessarily follow that the great centres of population pronounce 
 the judgment which is politically sound, the whole electoral process 
 
 231
 
 THE ACT AND MODE OF VOTING. 
 
 is vitiated and thrown out of consonance with the requirements 
 of the Third Canon of self-government by this acceptance of 
 a national verdict rendered by instalments. From this point of 
 view, as well as to secure the minimum of interference with trade, 
 the shortest period of uncertainty, and the ultimate transformation 
 of the polling day into a national holiday, the polls should all be 
 taken on one day. 
 
 It has, indeed, been objected that the holding of all the elections 
 on one day would, by lengthening the electoral period in the 
 boroughs, increase the fatigue and cost to borough candidates, and 
 " in view of the rate at which labour and money are expended on 
 such occasions," says Professor Lowell, " the objection is not alto- 
 gether without foundation." There is, however, no necessity for 
 the postponement of the borough elections so as to adjust them to 
 the later date which is permissible in the case of county elections. 
 The county elections should be accelerated, not the borough 
 elections delayed. Moreover, so far as "labour and money" are 
 concerned, the present essay will have failed of its purpose if the 
 reader has not already come to the conclusion that both are 
 lavished to a superfluous, not to say mischievous, extent, upon an 
 election campaign conducted under the accepted contemporary 
 conditions. The objection which impressed Professor Lowell has, 
 in truth, no force at all. 
 
 Poll Should be Open for a Longer Time. 
 
 The present hours of polling at a Parliamentary election are cer- 
 tainly not long enough. In large towns, especially, the voter fre- 
 quently has to leave his home (in the district where the polling 
 station is situated) at a very early hour in order to proceed to his 
 daily work at a distance. He goes before the poll is open; and 
 when he returns, he may either be so tired as to be disinclined to 
 visit the polling booth, or else he may be delayed, and find that it 
 has closed before he can reach it. Where inability to poll is the 
 result of time, and not of weariness, the arrangements which are 
 responsible for it exhibit their own condemnation. An elector 
 who is busy with his contribution to the social output of labour 
 ought not to be excluded thereby from what are civic duties as 
 between 'himself and the community, and civic privileges with 
 regard to himself. And weariness begets a frame of mind which is 
 not only unfavourable to the exercise of the faculty of judgment, 
 but lays the elector open to those influences of accident, caprice, 
 misrepresentation and (in a mild form) duress, which are contrary 
 to the provisions of the Third Canon, and which it should be 
 th'e aim of every electoral system to exclude from operation alto- 
 gether. The opening of the poll at an earlier hour say, 5 a.m. 
 or 6 a.m. does not altogether remedy this defect (except 
 in so far as it would enable the elector to vote on 
 
 232
 
 THE ACT AND MODE OF VOTING. 
 
 his way to his work), for it only amounts to offering 
 the opportunity of getting up earlier to a man who already 
 rises quite early enough. On the other hand the postponement of 
 the close of the poll to a very late hour is objected to, mainly 
 because it leads to the assemblage around the polling booths of 
 the rowdy element of the community, but also because it prolongs 
 the strain upon the party staff, of workers and incidentally stimu- 
 lates drinking. Still, the fact remains that a function which pur- 
 ports to offer an opportunity for the expression of the corporate 
 judgment of the community is in fact so timed as always to ex- 
 clude an appreciable and very intelligent percentage of the tribunal 
 from exerting their influence upon, the proceedings. The result, 
 of course, is that occasionally the political complexion of a con- 
 stituency is misrepresented, because of the exclusion from' the poll- 
 ing booths, by the ruthless hands of time, of a number of its 
 electorate. What is wanted is a "double shift" of the returning 
 officer's staff, and the opening of the polling booths at 4 a.m., to 
 close at 10 p.m. The earlier hour will permit of the exercise of 
 the electoral trust with the freshness and clearness of a morning 
 mind by all that multitude who, though vitally interested in the 
 process, are at present excluded by their very early hours of labour 
 from taking part in it. To the latter hour two objections may be 
 urged. In the first place it may be said that it will prolong the 
 election excitement, and so encourage drinking. But no serious 
 reformer of our electoral system now doubts that the compulsory 
 closing of all public-houses and the compulsory suspension of all 
 grocers' licenses on election day are essential factors in any well- 
 considered scheme of improvement. In the second place it may 
 be argued that if the poll closed at 10 p.m. the result of the elec- 
 tion could not, in any but the smallest constituencies, be declared 
 that night, or in the early hours of the following morning. This is 
 no great evil. In county elections the final process is almost in- 
 variably postponed till the next day, and, except for a prolongation 
 of the excitement at a time when excitement cannot affect results, 
 the delay has no injurious effects. It is true that the longer poll- 
 ing hours might inflict some hardship upon the official staffs of 
 the contending parties ; but this can be obviated by the employment 
 of "shifts" where the work is really necessary; and, if the truth 
 must be bluntly told, a good deal of the work which is done on 
 election day is decidedly not necessary, so that any factor which 
 tends to discourage its performance may be regarded not only 
 with equanimity, but with warm approval. When we have brought 
 ourselves to see that quietude, and not turmoil, is the best environ- 
 ment of a calm and dispassionate judgment, we shall strive not 
 only to discourage, but to suppress, the agitation and turbulence 
 which, in our present stage of political education, we seem to 
 consider the almost inseparable accessories of an election contest.
 
 THE ACT AND MODE OF VOTING. 
 
 Prohibit the " Besetting " of the Voter. 
 
 That calmness and quietude which are here contemplated are 
 seldom, if ever, realised at a modern election. The truth is that 
 the clamour and disorder which prevail outside a polling booth 
 are no fit environment for the discharge of the electoral duty. 
 The verbal requests for the voter's poll card (in order that canvas- 
 sers may be informed that he has cast his vote and is therefore no 
 fit subject for further persuasive efforts) were, and are, compara- 
 tively innocuous elements of the electoral struggle; but in recent 
 years they have been reinforced by a method which can only be de- 
 scribed as the systematic besetting of the voter up to the very 
 instant when he vanishes in the shades of the /polling booth. No 
 doubt this kind of thing effects an appreciable proportion of the 
 electorate the portion, that is to say, whose judgment is always 
 poised upon the thin razor edge of vacillation, and finally 
 forms what it calls its opinion upon the most recent, and not 
 upon the most weighty, evidence presented to it. Such haphazard 
 judgments, it may be said, are worthless ; but the answer is that, 
 worthless as they are, they frequently determine results, and are 
 trumpeted forth as indicating the trend of public opinion, or the 
 deliberate verdict of the electorate upon some hotly-debated ele- 
 ment of a .party programme. It is impossible to eliminate from 
 the ballot box the votes of persons whose determination of the 
 locus of their " X " was the result of a frantically uttered appeal 
 from a canvasser at the very moment when they entered the poll- 
 ing booth. The next best thing, however, can be achieved, and 
 that is to shut off these extraneous, clamorous, mischievous, 
 capricious, and delusive influences altogether. No persons what- 
 ever Should be allowed to congregate within a certain distance 
 say fifty yards of the entrance to the polling booth, and the dis- 
 tribution of " literature '' to persons about to enter it should be 
 made an illegal practice. Elsewhere a " time limit " for the pub- 
 lication of election literature has been proposed (page 228), which 
 would automatically stop this pernicious mode of operation, and, 
 as the reader will recollect, the limitation of the amount of bill- 
 posting and of the number of carriages, as well as the prohibition 
 of the employment of sandwich-men, have already been suggested 
 as means for the better attainment of judicial quietude for the 
 discharge of a public duty. The fixation of all the polls on one 
 day would, moreover, render the " outside organisations " practi- 
 cally impotent, since no independent machinery of less dimensions 
 than the colossal could distribute its effective activity and inter- 
 ference over the whole electoral area of the nation. 
 
 The systematic besetting of the voter has already formed the 
 subject of legislative attack in Tasmania. The Tasmanian 
 Electoral Act of 1906 prohibits all canvassing and besetting. The 
 provisions with regard to canvassing are too far in advance of 
 
 234
 
 THE ACT AND MODE OF VOTING. 
 
 current public opinion in England to be prudently recommended 
 for adoption in any early legislation. Moreover, canvassing has 
 been dealt with (ante, page 141) in another way, quite adequate for 
 its efficient regulation. But the provisions as to besetting in the 
 Tasmanian Act might well be adopted here. The whole clause 
 (Electoral Act, 1906) stands thus : 
 154. The following Acts, namely : 
 (i.) Canvassing for votes ; or 
 (ii.) Soliciting the vote of any elector; or 
 
 (iii.) Inducing any elector not to vote for any particular candi- 
 date ; or 
 
 (iv.) Inducing any elector not to vote at the election 
 are prohibited : (a) At or about the entrance of or within a polling- 
 booth, on polling-day, or on any day to which the polling is ad- 
 journed, (b) (Except in the case of a candidate himself) at the resi- 
 dence, or place of business or employment of any elector. Penalty, 
 
 *$ 
 
 These are sound and essential expedients for the exclusion of 
 the importunate and otherwise irrepressible activity of politi- 
 cal mendicants. What would be thought of the dignity of a 
 judicial tribunal which permitted its jurymen, as they retired to 
 their solemn duty, to be beset by clamorous and gesticulating de- 
 mands that a verdict be found for the plaintiff, or for the defendant, 
 as the interest or fancy of the interloper might dictate ? What 
 measure of serenity, of placidity, would the jurymen be likely to 
 carry with them out of that disorderly environment into the atmo- 
 sphere of their deliberations ? . Such ideas prove irreconcilable 
 when v,e attempt to associate them with the grave and serious 
 procedure of our law courts, though they are contemplated without 
 amazement, and with hardly the faintest sense of their incon- 
 gruity, as among the accustomed, if not the essential, surroundings 
 of the process from which the authority even of the law courts 
 themselves is ultimately derived. 
 
 All Public-houses Should be Closed. 
 
 It is absolutely essential that all liquor licenses (including 
 grocers' licenses) be suspended during the hours when the poll is 
 open. The supply of liquor in all clubs should also be limited 
 strictly to members, with no right to introduce guests, and with 
 severe penalties for serving non-members with liquor. To com- 
 plete the scope of the enactment the supply of liquor even to 
 guests in hotels on the day of the poll should be carefully safe- 
 guarded. Provisions for the closing of public-houses on election 
 day were, in fact, included in the Licensing Bill of 1908, and a 
 very brief experience of elections without liquor would have so 
 completely convinced the electorate of the entire wisdom of the 
 expedient, as to render it difficult to understand why a regulation 
 so pregnant with good results had not been adopted at an earlier 
 stags of our political history. When we have had experience of 
 
 235
 
 THE ACT AND MODE OF VOTING. 
 
 elections conducted under conditions representing the utmost at- 
 tainable sobriety and quietude, we shall probably be able to go on 
 to make the polling day a national holiday. At present a large 
 section of our electorate is not habituated to the intelligent use of 
 leisure, and would not be likely to spend in serious political dis- 
 cussion, or in enthusiastic political labour, the hours of freedom 
 from the trivial round which came with the declaration of a 
 national holiday. Still less would there be any profitable employ- 
 ment of the time if every public-house displayed its open doors. 
 Charges of treating must, however, become less frequent when all 
 facilities for the commission of the offence are compulsorily and 
 absolutely withdrawn on the day of the poll. There is no desire 
 whatever to speak of the public-house in terms of censure, still 
 less of reproach. All that the writer desires to urge is that the 
 public-house offers that which is, to a large section of the electorate, 
 at its present stage of political evolution and education, a 
 peculiarly fascinating and potent counter-attraction to the 
 serious, deliberate, responsible, thoughtful performance of 
 the electoral duty ; and since there can be no two 
 opinions as to the identity of the predominant interest, the 
 subordinate interest must be reduced to temporary inactivity. 
 The day of the poll is the retirement of the jury as the preliminary 
 to the rendering of the most momentous of verdicts, whose good 
 or evil effects may outlast time itself. It is the period when the 
 giant national organism pauses for a moment to consider where it 
 is, and what it is ; to take stock of the past, to brace itself for the 
 future, and to render what may be an irrevocable present judg- 
 ment. Within the circle of that majestic tribunal, in whose 
 hands are balanced the destinies of the race, it does not consort 
 with the national dignity that any alien influence should come. 
 
 Ennoble the Act of Voting. 
 
 There is in none of these proposals any menace to electoral 
 freedom, or to the fulness of electoral information. The bill-post- 
 ing, the newspapers, the canvassing, the meetings, the public and 
 private discussion of all political topics, will have carried the 
 process of disseminating knowledge and opinion up to the very 
 summit level of completeness, so that the voter is armed with 
 everything that his perceptive faculties can acquire, or the 
 machinery of a far-flung and ceaseless publicity bestow. Least of 
 all could the candidate complain of the restrictions, since upon 
 him there is conferred a position of almost panoramic conspdcu- 
 ousness, by the very fact of his candidature. When every 
 other influence has been removed from the environment 
 of the voter the candidate's name still confronts him, at 
 the moment of final judgment, on the ballot paper. Elsewhere 
 (see page 228) the suggestion has been made that this final period 
 
 236
 
 THE ACT AND MODE OF VOTING. 
 
 of retirement and quietude, during which, so to speak, the elector 
 is alone with his conscience and the candidates, should be pro- 
 longed by the elimination of those elements of passion, caprice, 
 and prejudice which are now allowed to congregate at the door of 
 the polling station and to distract and beset the voter. In truth, 
 any exalted conception of the electoral function as the discharge 
 of a responsible corporate duty must contemplate not only a free- 
 dom from interference and distraction, but the surrounding of the 
 voter with those influences whkh are best calculated to emphasise 
 and enhance the dignity and deliberation of the act. Mr. Cecil 
 Rhodes placed an ancient Phoenician stone eagle in the Council 
 Chamber of the Cape Cabinet in order that, as he expressed it, 
 the emblem of Time might preside over their deliberations. For 
 a similar reason the voter might well be surrounded, in the polling 
 booth, by reproductions of great pictures representing striking 
 national (and, as far as possible, non-military) episodes. The faces 
 of the departed* leaders of all schools of national thought and 
 activity might look down upon him from the walls as he contri- 
 buted his share of gravid discernment to the perpetuation of the 
 noble fabric which age-long struggles have brought to its present 
 stage of pre-eminence and grandeur. In this manner we 
 should not only exclude the distracting and mischievous 
 influences, but we should adduce the most invigorating 
 stimuli of deliberation and responsibility. The polling booth, as 
 we know it, is a singularly uninspiring locus for the record, and 
 sometimes for the belated formation, of electoral judgment. Our 
 public worship, our constitutional functions, and our courts of law 
 are exalted by a touch of pageantry which brings home to the 
 mind of the beholder the fact that behind the phenomena that are 
 palpable to his senses there lives and moves the ageless and sub- 
 lime. There is no valid reason why the interior of the polling- 
 booth should not be distinguished by the same indefinable air of 
 majesty, the same breath of antiquity, generating the same deep 
 self-conscious responsibility. As the popular resources of know- 
 ledge (and especially the power of historic appreciation) are 
 augmented, the profundity of feeling which would be 
 evocable by these simple means would rapidly approach 
 those unfathomable depths of personality whence come all 
 the finest impulses of humanity. Even now there are few 
 voters whose entire mental pose would not be instantly altered 
 for the better in even a momentary glance at that countenance 
 which flamed with passionate indignation as the tremendous 
 eloquence of Chatham reverberated around the commission of a 
 national crime ; or at the physical presentment of Chatham's 
 greater son, whose noble soul passed to the eternal peace amid 
 
 * Living leaders should be excluded, for reasons so obvious that they 
 do not need definition. 
 
 237
 
 THE ACT AND MODE OF VOTING. 
 
 the crash of a collapsing continent ; or with the contemplation of 
 the sculptured thought that speaks from Darwin's face, the 
 etherealised tranquillity that breathed on Avon's bank; of King 
 Alfred and Milton, de Montfort and Peel. Far above and far 
 beyond the petty triumphs of a day are the eternal verities with 
 whose persistence such faces and memories must instantly confront 
 the reflective mind. As if some of these great souls had descended 
 from the unimaginable brightness in response to the splendid 
 apostrophe 
 
 O them, who once didst guide 
 Our Britain's loyal will 
 
 Invisible at her side 
 Aid thou her still ! 
 
 As if, indeed, there fell athwart the ballot paper some 
 gleam of their presence, with its silent admonition that a 
 nation's destiny is in the elector's hands, and that he is answer- 
 able not only to the candidate of the hour, but at the dread tri- 
 bunal of the centuries. 
 
 The Excitements of the Polling Booth. 
 
 The resources of public order are in our day capable of main- 
 taining the public peace in all circumstances, so that the old 
 necessity of postponing the poll, on account of general rioting, no 
 longer delays the electoral decision. The polling booths are opened 
 and closed to the exact time as, indeed, they must be if the 
 validity of the whole proceedings is not to be imperilled. The 
 poll proceeds in regular fashion throughout the day, with a rush, 
 and a consequent rise in the percentage of personations, during 
 the last couple of hours. With personation itself, and the modes 
 of checking it, the reader has been rendered quite familiar. With 
 the exception of an attempted personation the only source of 
 transient excitement inside the polling booth is probably the 
 advent of an illiterate elector, or a Jew (if the election is on a 
 Saturday) or a blind or othenvise physically incapacitated person. 
 In such contingency the presiding officer must, after certain 
 formalities, mark the voter's paper for him, in the presence of the 
 respective personation agents. It used to be alleged that sham 
 illiterates were occasionally sent into a polling station- in the hours 
 of " rush," in order to waste the time of the presiding officer and 
 thereby to obstruct the voting of persons who were polling 
 heavily, at that time, against the candidate in w r hose interest this 
 discreditable device was worked. But this kind of thing is not 
 often attempted nowadays, perhaps because presiding officers are 
 less gullible, and perhaps because partisans are more scrupulous. 
 
 The "Official Mark." 
 
 At the commencement of the poll the presiding officer is required 
 {by Rule 23) in Appendix II. of the Ballot Act to exhibit the 
 empty ballot box to such persons as may be present probably 
 
 238
 
 THE ACT AND MODE OF VOTING. 
 
 only the personation agents and one or two eager voters. This is 
 not a superfluous precaution, for as late as 1880 the forgery of 
 ballot papers was among the gentle arts which still flourished 
 among us. It is in order to provide an antidote to this risk that 
 each ballot paper must bear an official mark, generally impressed 
 by means of a stamping machine, and consisting of some device or 
 arbitrary arrangement of letters, the exact nature of which is kept 
 secret by the returning officer. The same device or mark may not 
 be used more than once in seven years. The absence of the 
 official mark invalidates the ballot paper. 
 
 This fact deserves a little candid comment. It is provided (by 
 Rule 34 in Appendix II. of the Ballot Act) that after the ballot 
 papers out of the respective boxes have been counted and recorded 
 all the ballot papers are to be mixed. This is not altogether de- 
 sirable, though as long as it is the law the rule must of course be 
 obeyed. The only purpose that is served by the mixing of the ballot 
 papers is the concealment of the read political complexion of the 
 various districts of a constituentcy. Even this is not entirely 
 attained, fo<r a watchful agent, working on, no .better basis than 
 the law of average, can often obtain material for the confirmation 
 or revi'sdon of the local estimates by a rapid glance at fihe papers 
 which reveal themselves as they fall out of the box, -or as their 
 numerical aggregate is checked. There is no adequate reason why 
 a candidate and his agent should not be allowed to check their 
 opinion of the locus of the party weakness and strength respec- 
 tively by means of the exact information available from the ballot 
 box. The operation does not imperil the secrecy of a single vote, 
 ra>r is it in any way inconsistent with the principle of the ballot. 
 What is more 'important, too, is this that the process of closely 
 inspecting the ballot papers from a given station is a valuable 
 check mpon any irregularities on the part of the presiding officer. 
 No reflection is made .upon presiding officers as a class. On the 
 contrary, the writer is convinced! that in discretion, patience, good 
 sense, and absolute honesty the average presiding officer is the 
 model of a zealous and competent official. .Here .and there, how- 
 ever, political partisanship (which, if known and palpable, should 
 disqualify him for the position) leads the presiding officer into 
 "timbering" with the votes. The writer was once consulted! with 
 reference to a case where the presiding officer at a station for 
 400 voters was a strong opponent of candidate A. A very close 
 fight was expected. About 330 electors voted, of whom twelve 
 ware found to have wasted their time owing to the absentee of 
 the official mark from! the ballot paper. Such a percentage of 
 spoilt papers was itself a proof of the grossest negligence by the 
 presiding officer; but when it appeared that the whole of the 
 twelve papers were in favour of candidate A, ft became evident 
 that noit negligence, but another influence altogether, had been at 
 work. What had happened was that the presiding officer, employing 
 
 239
 
 THE ACT AND MODE OF VOTING. 
 
 his local knowledge of the persons who were likely to vote for 
 candidate A, had invalidated their votes (a<nd attempted to influ- 
 ence the result of the election) by deliberately omitting the official 
 mark from their ballot papers. On a very "close poll h/is device 
 would have changed the political .complexion of the constituency, 
 and would naturally and inevitably have led to his own prosecu- 
 tion. Only the watchfulness of an agent stimulated by party zeal, 
 ami able to survey the unmdxed ballot papers, can be an effective 
 check on insidious trickery of this kind. 
 
 Shall Voters be Forced to Vote ? 
 
 When the suffrage has been conferred upon the individual, shall 
 he be forced toexerciseit subject always to the existence of such a 
 valid excuse as would be furnished 'by absolute physical or mental 
 incapacity to do so? If the electoral judgment is to be really as 
 well as theoretically an expression of a corporate judgment upon 
 the political and social problems presented to the electorate, shall 
 all fche effective units be compelled to combine in pronouncing it ? 
 Shall the voter be no more excused from his contribution to the 
 aggregate of intelligence that is to guide the policy of the 
 country than from the monetary payment which, in the shape of 
 rates and taxes, he makes towards the necessary funds for translat- 
 ing that policy from the abstract into the concrete? The answer 
 in Belgium is in the affirmative, and the recording of the vote is 
 enforced by means of a penalty. For us the reply to the questions 
 is in the negative. In the stage of development at which our 
 electoral machinery has at present arrived the sentiment which 
 stimulates the electoral function, as well as the surroundings amdd 
 which it is discharged, are neither of them capable of justifying 
 any measure of compulsion, even if it were deemed desirable. 
 That it is not desirable is clear from the consideration that the 
 vote is the expression of a judgment, and while we can. compel a 
 man to mark his ballot paper with tihe " X," we cannot by any 
 conceivable enactment provide that the " X " shall be the outward 
 and visible sign of an inward intellectual verdict. " Those acts 
 only," says T. H. Green (" Principles of Political Obligation," 
 p. 38), " should be matter of legal injunction or prohibition, of which 
 the performance or omission, irrespectively of the motive from 
 which it proceeds, is so necessary to the existence of a society in 
 which the moral end stated can be realised, that it is better for 
 them to be done or omitted from that unworthy motive which 
 consists in fear or hope of legal consequences than not to be done 
 at all. . . . For since the end consists in action," like that 
 of recording a vote, " proceeding from a certain disposition, and 
 since action done from apprehension of legal consequences does 
 not proceed from that disposition," it is useless to compel men 
 to vote, when we cannot also compel in them that state of delibera- 
 tion and civic duty which alone can give any political value to the 
 act. 
 
 240
 
 THE ACT AND MODE OF VOTING. 
 
 Voters are Sometimes Abducted. 
 
 Nevertheless, the result of the present state of affairs is that 
 while occasionally the exceptional interest of a contest causes the 
 percentage of effective electors to rise to a very high figure, the 
 average contest does not place in the ballot anything like the 
 full measure of its potentialities, especially if the contest is fought 
 on a "stale" register. That which purports to be the record of 
 the electorate is, in truth, only the judgment of a greater or less 
 proportion of the aggregate. So low does the standard of elec- 
 toral duty occasionally fall that in certain constituencies it ihas been 
 a common election campaign device to get voters away to the 
 seaside or other distant pleasure resort on the day of the poll. 
 A discreet non-voter is provided with money for the purpose. He 
 lets it be known to the voters whom it is desired to " remove" that 
 he is " flush," and invites their company to the seaside, at his- 
 expense, for a day, which happens to be the day of the poll. A 
 train before the opening of the poll is selected and the return 
 is timed to take place after the poll is closed. Two or three 
 dozen electors, dexterously " removed " in this way, mean a cor- 
 responding loss of votes to the other side, and the device has on 
 more than one occasion changed the political complexion of a 
 constituency, so far as it is indicated by the party allegiance of 
 its representative in the House of Commons. It may be said 
 that no value attaches to the judgment of a citizen who is open 
 to the operation of a device like this. The fact is, however, that 
 if another election takes place in the same constituency on the 
 same register, the vote of the careless absentee at the previous 
 contest is of precisely the same ballot-box value as that of the 
 greatest of scientists or statesmen who happens to be his fellow 
 elector. Under a system of compulsory voting the absentee would 
 be called upon to explain his absence, and as his explanation must 
 reveal his choice of a day at the seaside in preference to the 
 discharge of his electoral duty, his name might be removed from 
 the register. The trouble is one, however, which to a great extent 
 is its own remedy. Worthless voters of this stamp are as a rule 
 too idle, or too drunk, to go to the poll, even if they have not fallen 
 a prey to the political abductor. They disfranchise themselves, 
 without the law being concerned to take any active part in the pro- 
 cess of sterilisation. 
 
 But while it is perfectly true that no legislative coercion can 
 create or induce the judicial and deliberative frame of mind which 
 is requisite for the pronouncing of an individual share of the elec- 
 toral judgment, it is extremely desirable that (except in the case 
 of illness, infirmity, or age) neglect or refusal to discharge the 
 electoral function, in spite of ample opportunity, should be the 
 object of social displeasure. Under existing conditions the 
 " ample opportunity " is not constituted by the doubtful privilege 
 R 241
 
 THE ACT AND MODE OF VOTING. 
 
 of voting for one of two party men, with neither of whom the 
 elector may have the slightest sympathy. But, given a system of 
 larger constituencies and proportional representation, there would 
 no longer be any excuse for apathy. An elector would almost of 
 necessity be in sympathy with one or other of the many aspirants 
 who, in wholesome disregard of party interests and caucus dictates, 
 were willing to serve their fellow citizens. Under such circum- 
 stances there is a New York State statute that might well be 
 brought into application to our own electoral system. This statute 
 provides that the lists from which juries are drawn shall be made 
 up as far as possible of the names of voters who failed to vote at 
 the last preceding election. The theory is that a man who will 
 not discharge his social duty in one way should be compelled to 
 discharge it in another, and it is difficult to imagine how any but 
 beneficial results could follow the adoption of this scheme into our 
 own statutory provisions with regard to elections. 
 
 The Mode of Voting. 
 
 The ballot paper itself scarcely needs description. It contains 
 the names of the candidates in alphabetical order, the surnames in 
 large type, and the other names and descriptions in small charac- 
 ters. In the early days of the ballot, and still to a slight extent 
 among uninstructed electorates, the top position on the paper has 
 a slight advantage. That is to say, as between Adams, Jones, 
 and WiUiams, the candidate Adams will probably gain slightly 
 from voters who mark their cross opposite the first name on the 
 paper. To a less extent, but for a similar reason, the last name 
 has an advantage, scarcely appreciable, but nevertheless quite real. 
 The problems of electoral psychology probably include no more 
 curious phenomenon than this. 
 
 The voter is required to make a X in a space provided for 
 that purpose apposite the name of the candidate or candidates for 
 whom he desires to vote. The X must, technically speaking, be 
 within (or, as some of the colonial statutes have it, " substantially 
 within ") the space. But as a matter of fact the returning officer 
 at a " count," and the judges on a scrutiny, will now allow any 
 vote which clearly exhibits the workings of the elector's mind, and 
 does not (i) want the official mark, (2) exhibit more votes than the 
 voter is entitled to give (e.g., there being three candidates for one 
 seat, the voter votes for two of them), (3) contain any writing or 
 other mark (such as initials, or an address) by which the voter 
 can be identified, or (4) lack any mark at all or contain only 
 unintelligible marks. Where the X extends out of one name space 
 into another the vote will usually be credited to that candidate in 
 whose name space the intersection of the lines of the X has 
 fallen. The reader who desires to see specimens of doubtful papers 
 and to study the decisions upon them will find an assortment 
 
 242
 
 THE ACT AND MODE OF VOTING. 
 
 in Rogers, as well as in Ward by Lushington. The most 
 curious instance in the writer's experience was that of a ballot 
 marked with the X, in lead pencil, on the wrong side of the paper, 
 so that it showed clearly as an embossed (or relief) cross against 
 the name of one of the candidates. The absence of the 
 official mark has already furnished us with the material for 
 some criticism of the procedure at the " count." The other classes 
 of vitiation become smaller every year with the advance of educa- 
 tion, save that in recent polls returning officers are becoming ac- 
 customed to discover numbers of ballot papers upon which the 
 voter has written " Socialism " or " Anarchy," as the indication of 
 opinions which will not permit the exhibition of a definite pre- 
 ference, by means of the X, from among the rivals for his electoral 
 favour. 
 
 Clearly the ballot paper is one of the crudest elements of elec- 
 toral mechanism. It merely enables the voter to indicate his dis- 
 crimination between/ A and B, which is doubtless all that the 
 vast majority of electors could be expected to do when first the 
 ballot system came into force. The advance to political power of 
 a .generation which remembers no other mode of effective political 
 judgment than that which is delivered through the ballot box 
 is calculated to obscure the essentially elementary nature of the 
 process, and to conceal the undoubted possibility that an educated 
 electorate may enable the ballot paper to be elaborated as a means 
 of political expression to at least as great an extent as the modern 
 organ in comparison with the clumsy instruments which are 
 illustrated in early musical MSS. This is a matter which, at a 
 slightly later stage of the discussion, we shall treat in detail and 
 with freedom. 
 
 Is the Ballot Secret? 
 
 There are two slight flaws in the secrecy of the ballot. Neither 
 of them is of very great importance, though the one is capable of 
 fairly safe and easy employment for discovering in what way a 
 certain elector voted, and the other is not infrequently used as 
 an instrument of intimidation. 
 
 (i) it is quite possible for a presiding officer, who makes a 
 mental note of the denominating numbers of the ballot papers 
 given .out to certain individuals '(two, or, a.t the outside, three 
 figures would be all that need be memorised), to ascertain, if 
 he should be engaged at the count, which way those votes were 
 oast. There are odds that the presiding officer might not be em- 
 ployed in checking and counting the votes from his own polling 
 station, and there are also odds that, even if he were so employed, 
 his hands might not pick out the ballot papers in which he is 
 inte rested. But if he has memorised six numbers, and can get to 
 the proper box, he would probably satisfy his craving for illicit 
 
 243
 
 THE ACT AND MODE OF VOTING. 
 
 knowledge in the matter of three papers. The writer, if appointed 
 as presiding officer .at a polling station, and subsequently allowed 
 to attend the count and to check the ballot papers from that 
 station, would undertake (assuming that ihe were relieved of the 
 obligation of his oath of secrecy) to discover how ten electors at 
 least had voted, and would, with good luck, extend the process to 
 twenty. It is not suggested that this state of things is a serious 
 menace to the secrecy of tihe ballot. Jt can only operate where 
 fate throws an unscrupulous mian into a position which, in the 
 great majority of cases, is occupied by an honourable and upright 
 official. But anything like an exhaustive survey of the electoral 
 system requires the indication of this flaw. If it should ever be 
 thought desirable to remedy it, the exclusion, from the counting of 
 the votes, of the whole of the presiding officers and their staffs 
 would >be for all practical purposes effective. Consistently with the 
 requirements of identity, and the provision of a means of such 
 subsequent investigation as is involved an a scrutiny, the 'ballot can- 
 not be rendered absolutely secret ; but this device would bring its 
 secrecy up to the summit level of possibility. 
 
 (2) The other flaw lies in the procedure at a scrutiny. In that 
 case it is sometimes necessary to turn up the voting paper which 
 has been declared void, with the result of disclosing how the vote 
 was cast. The fact that the badness of the vote is determined 
 before it is "turned up " does not in the least minimise the 
 objection to a mode of procedure which may -reveal to an em- 
 ployer how a servant voted, or indicate that a 'tradesman, who 
 was, at the election, driven by the consensus of opinion among 
 his customers into displaying the legend "Vote for ;A," actually 
 cast his own vote for A's opponent. This is 'no imaginary peril. 
 Many a voter could tell how he has been reminded, by those who 
 bad the power of inflicting severe injury, that he had u better be 
 careful. We are going to have a scrutiny, so that we shall find 
 out how you voted." If the alarmed elector applies to some well- 
 informed person in order to ascertain if this violation of the 
 secrecy of the ballot is possible, he will be told that although 
 distant and difficult of attainment, possible it certainly is. What 
 is wanted ds an enactment providing that even on the trial of an 
 election petition the secrecy of the ballot shall not be violated. 
 That object could be attained by directing the judges to keep ;a 
 private account of the political colour of the votes dealt with, and 
 to announce the result only in the aggregate, -at the end of the 
 proceedings. They do not now give their decision on each illegal 
 practice or other alleged offence, but (as a rule) hear the petition 
 out and then deal seriatim with all the charges. They might well do 
 the same on a scrutiny ; and although the giving of their decision, 
 even in this manner, would not be an absolute bar to efforts to- 
 discover the political colour of a certain vote, it would go -far 
 
 244
 
 THE ACT AND MODE OF VOTING. 
 
 enough in that direction to considerably reassure a threatened 
 voter to -whom the process was explained by way of antidote to 
 threats. Entirely absolute secrecy would not be attained, even if 
 the scrutiny were heard in camera. Perhaps it is desirable to add 
 that, to the natural question why, when threatening of electors is 
 reported, there is (and generally can be) no prosecution for in- 
 timidation, the answer will be found in Chapter VIII. 
 
 The Postal Vote. 
 
 In the endeavour to raise the effective proportion of the elec- 
 torate to its highest possible percentage, we saw that it was desir- 
 able to permit the use even of hired conveyances (within a statu- 
 tory limit as to number) in order to enable the invalid, infirm, and 
 aged to record their votes. This concession, however, need not 
 remain after the adoption of the postal vote. At present we have 
 only one statutory exception to the provision that every elector 
 who desires to vote must do so in person at the polling station 
 allotted to him by the returning officer. If the polling station is 
 at Penzance and the voter is in the Orkney Islands, he must, never- 
 theless, journey to Penzance to vote, for he cannot exercise the 
 right by proxy. The one exception is made for the policeman (see 
 the Police Disabilities Removal Act, 50 Vic., c. 9), who, being 
 a voter, and likely to be on duty at a distance from- the polling 
 station to which he is allotted, is permitted to vote at any con- 
 venient polling station within the constituency of which he is an 
 elector. There is no valid reason why an analogous privilege 
 should not be extended to the ordinary voter, provided he can 
 show good reason for his inability to reach the polling-station, and 
 provided also that the postal vote is surrounded with adequate 
 safeguards against abuse and trickery. The subject will be better 
 understood if it is introduced by a specimen of the application for 
 a postal ballot paper, which forms one of the schedules to the 
 Tasmanian Electoral Act of 1906: 
 
 Application for a Postal Vote Certificate. 
 
 To the Returning Officer, electoral district of [here insert name of 
 district]. 
 
 I [here state Christian names, surname, residence, and occupation] 
 hereby apply for a postal vote certificate. 
 
 1. I am an elector on the Electoral Roll for the [here state Council or 
 Assembly, as the case may be] district of [here insert name of dis- 
 tiict] to vote at [here insert name of polling place]. 
 
 2. The ground on which I apply for the certificate is 
 
 (a) That I have reason to believe that I will not, on polling day, be 
 within seven miles of the above polling place. My reasons for this 
 belief are 
 
 (b) That, being a woman, I will, on account of ill-health, be unable, 
 on polling day, to attend the polling place to vote. 
 
 245
 
 THE ACT AND MODE OF VOTING. 
 
 (c) That I will be prevented, by serious illness or infirmity, from 
 attending the polling place on polling day. 
 
 Note. The elector will rule out any two of the above grounds which 
 do not apply to his or her particular case, as only one ground is neces- 
 sary for the application. 
 
 3. I request that a postal vote certificate and a postal ballot paper may 
 be forwarded to me at [here state address to which the papers are to be 
 forwarded]. 
 
 Dated this day of 19 
 
 (Signature.) 
 
 Signed in the presence of 
 
 [Authorised witness to sign here and insert his title.] 
 
 No authorised witness shall 
 
 (a) Witness the signature of any elector to an application for a 
 postal certificate unless the elector is personally known to him ; or 
 
 (b) Witness the signature of any elector to any application or form 
 of application for a postal vote certificate, unless he has seen the elector 
 sign the application or form of application in his own handwriting. 
 
 The person witnessing any application for a postal vote certificate 
 under this Act shall, if he is not personally acquainted with the facts, 
 satisfy himself, by inquiry from the applicant, that the statements 
 contained in the application are true. 
 
 The following persons, not being candidates, are authorised witnesses 
 within the meaning of this Act : 
 
 (i) The Chief Electoral Officer or his Deputy, all Returning Officers, 
 all Electoral Registrars, all Postmasters or Postmistresses or persons 
 in charge of post offices, all Police Magistrates of the State, all Jus- 
 tices of the Peace, all Head Teachers of State Schools, all members 
 of the police force of the State, all legally qualified medical practi- 
 tioners, all officers in charge of quarantine stations ; and 
 
 (ii.) Ail persons or classes of persons, employed in the public service 
 of the State, who are declared by Proclamation to be authorised wit- 
 nesses within the meaning of this Act. 
 
 On receipt of this application, if it appears to be duly signed 
 and witnessed, the returning officer is to satisfy himself that no 
 postal vote for the same election has been already issued to the 
 same elector. He then delivers or posts 'to the applicant a postal 
 ballot paper, with counterfoil, and a return envelope, addressed to 
 himself as returning officer. After the voter has marked the 
 paper, in the presence of the authorised witness (but in such 
 manner that the latter does not see how the paper is marked), and 
 signed the counterfoil with his name, he hands it to the authorised 
 witness for posting. At the count, all the postal votes are pro- 
 duced, unopened, by the returning officer, who, in the presence 
 of the scrutineers, compares the signatures on the counterfoils with 
 those on the applications originally made for postal votes, and, if 
 he and the scrutineers are satisfied, tears off the counterfoil and 
 drops the ballot paper, uninspected, into the ballot box. There 
 are various other regulations, none of them essential to the com- 
 prehension of the nature of the process, which is at least as certain, 
 in the matters of correct identity and regularity, as the ordinary 
 mode of voting at a polling station. The only serious objection 
 offered to the adoption of the scheme in this country is that it would 
 
 246
 
 THE ACT AND MODE OF VOTING. 
 
 facilitate the operations of out-voters. This resolves itself into a 
 suffrage question and therefore falls outside the permissible limits 
 of the present essay. The objection may vanish if the principle of 
 "one man, one vote" should find legislative acceptance with us. 
 On the other hand, it might be surmounted by the provision that 
 the postal vote shall not be available to enable an elector to exer- 
 cise the franchise in any constituency other than that in which he 
 ordinarily resides and in which he has, in fact, resided for not 
 less than three months previous to the election at which he seeks 
 the privilege of a postal vote. 
 
 Abnormalities in Ballot Results. 
 
 Where there is only a single constituency, and the choice of the 
 electors is limited to one of two persons, the present system is, for 
 all practical purposes, infallible. Let the constituency have an 
 electorate of 10,000, and let the candidates be Asquith* and 
 Balfour. The result of the poll, ascertained in the manner to 
 which we .are accustomed in this country, cannot fail (save in the 
 event of a tie, against which the odds are tremendous) to give a 
 result which represents the opinion of the constituency. But as, 
 soon as a third candidate appears obscurity and misrepresenta- 
 tion begin, even in the one single constituency. For let the result 
 of the poll be 
 
 Asquith (Free Trade) 4,000 
 
 Balfour (Tariff Reform) 3>ooo 
 
 Cecil (Unionist Free Trade) 2,200 
 
 in this instance, under our present system, Asquith would be 
 returned. But he would represent in any case a minority of the 
 voters on the poll as it stands, and possibly a minority of the con- 
 stituency in any case. If the lowest candidate were excluded, and 
 another poll taken, the Unionist Free Trade votes already given 
 for Cecil would fall into two sections : 
 
 1. Those electors who put Free Trade first, and consequently prefer 
 Asquith to Balfour. 
 
 2. Those electors who, when their choice is limited to Asquith or 
 Balfour, put Conservatism first, and therefore prefer Balfour to Asquith. 
 
 If Class 2 contains 1,601 persons, or any greater number (and 
 assuming that the same persons will vote on the second occasion 
 as voted on the first), Balfour will be elected on the second 
 ballot: for 
 
 Balfour 3,000 + 1,601 4,601 
 
 Asquith 4,000 + 599 4,599 
 
 Majority for Balfour 2 
 
 * The names of prominent politicians are employed because they 
 are easily recognisable, and because the familiarity of the reader with 
 their political opinions enables him the more readily to follow the 
 argument without looking for the party labels which would have to 
 be put upon A, B, and C, or upon Smith, Brown, and Jones. 
 
 247
 
 THE ACT AND MODE OF VOTING. 
 
 This, under our existing system, would be regarded as a con- 
 clusive, though narrow, result. Yet we may notice in passing 
 that it gives the whole of the representation to 4,601 electors, and 
 deprives 4,599 electors of any representation whatever. In the 
 true sense of the word, therefore, a system which works in this 
 way cannot properly be described as " representation " at all. 
 Still less is it capable of accurate description as self-government, 
 seeing that half the organism (within a minute fraction) objects 
 to the policy which the other half has determined to pursue. 
 Utterly imperfect and inadequate as it is, however, it has been 
 sought to finally cure its deficiencies by the alternative adoption 
 of a system which is, in most of its manifestations, open to equally 
 powerful objections. A more searching examination of the second 
 ballot will indicate its inherent and irremediable weaknesses as a 
 mode by which the political organism may select voice, vision, and 
 vehemence as the means of scientific self-adaptation to its environ- 
 ment. Consider the four following election results : 
 
 A. B. 
 
 Liberal 4,000 Labour 4,000 
 
 Conservative 2.500 Conservative 2,800 
 
 Socialist 1,400 Liberal 2,000 
 
 C. D. 
 
 Labour 4000 Conservative 4,000 
 
 Socialist 2,500 Labour 3,000 
 
 Conservative 2,300 Liberal 2,500 
 
 In case A no demand for a second ballot can properly arise, for 
 the Liberal has an absolute majority. The transfer of the whole 
 Socialist vote to the Conservative, or of the whole Conservative 
 vote to the Socialist, would not affect the result. Case B is that 
 which gives pause to the demand by the Labour Party for the 
 establishment of the second ballot. In this instance, under our 
 present electoral system, the Labour member would be elected; 
 but under a second ballot, the Liberal being excluded, it is fairly 
 obvious that the Conservatives and Liberals might unite against 
 the Labour candidate, with the result that the Conservative would 
 be successful at the second poll. Case C exhibits an instance 
 where the Conservative voter, if he polls on the second ballot, 
 may control the result, but only at the expense of voting for one 
 or other of two candidates with neither of whom he has any sym- 
 pathy. Case D offers a real problem. If, when the Liberal is 
 excluded on the second ballot, 1,000 Liberals vote for the Con- 
 servative and the rest for the Labour candidate, the Conservative 
 will retain his lead; but if 1,751 or any greater number of the 
 Liberals vote for the Labour candidate, the latter will be elected. 
 In this case, again, however, the representative efficacy of the pro- 
 cess is vitiated by the compulsion of the Liberal voter to poll for 
 a candidate with whom, as against his own party, he is not 
 wholly in sympathy. But the second ballot has been practically 
 
 248
 
 THE ACT AND MODE OF VOTING. 
 
 abandoned, even by its own, former supporters. It is a clumsy mode 
 of procedure, entailing the expense of a second poll, the funds for 
 which would have to be provided out of private or public resources. 
 The Labour and Socialist parties have already realised that the 
 second ballot is worthless to them,, since, as is shown above, it 
 would only enable the two historic parties in the State to com- 
 bine at the second ballot, against the Labour or Socialist candi- 
 date. 
 
 So far, our investigation has been limited to the case of a single 
 constituency, for which it is sought to secure a political utterance 
 corresponding to the predominant opinion and aspiration of the 
 constituent electoral units. If we now proceed to scrutinise the 
 working of the present crude mechanism', as applied to the ascer- 
 tainment and expression of the opinions of a number of con- 
 stituencies, we shall find an almost appalling state of affairs. Take, 
 first, four constituencies where the system yields a roughly repre- 
 sentative result: 
 
 A. B. 
 
 Conservative 4,000 Conservative 4,000 
 
 Liberal 3,000 Liberal 2,000 
 
 Majority 1,000 Majority 2,000 
 
 C. D. 
 
 Liberal 4io Conservative 4,000 
 
 Conservative 2,000 Liberal 2,000 
 
 Majority 2,000 Majority 2,000 
 
 In these four constituencies the total vote of the Conservatives 
 is 14,000, and that of the Liberals 11,000. Mathematically 
 accurate division of the four members is therefore a physical im- 
 possibility, and the result three Conservatives and one Liberal 
 is, as we said, roughly representative. But let us poll the four 
 constituencies again, and come into the presence of facts which 
 evolve themselves at every stage of the process which we vainly 
 seek to dignify as " representative government " : 
 A. B. 
 
 Conservative 6,000 Liberal 3,ioo 
 
 Liberal 1,000 Conservative 2,900 
 
 Majority 5,ooo Majority 200 
 
 C. D. 
 
 Liberal 3.050 Liberal 3,oio 
 
 Conservative 2,950 Conservative 2,990 
 
 Majority 100 Majority 20 
 
 The total poll of the Conservatives, in this instance, is 14,840, 
 and that of the Liberals (4,680 less) is 10,160. But the result is 
 to give the Liberals three members (and to place a Liberal Govern- 
 ment in power, if these were all the constituencies concerned), 
 though the Conservatives have a very large majority. Of course, 
 
 249
 
 THE ACT AND MODE OF VOTING. 
 
 the hypothetical returns are slightly exaggerated, in order to im- 
 press their purport more vividly on the reader's mind. But War- 
 wickshire, at the 1906 election, displayed an actual instance of 
 this kind of minority predominance, as may be seen from the 
 figures on page 57. That which is called representative 
 government has in such instances as this evolved itself 
 into minority government, against the wishes of the majority alto- 
 gether. It is in such circumstances as these that the device 
 known as " gerrymandering " finds opportunity. If there were a 
 Conservative agent with a minute knowledge of the locus of the 
 respective party strongholds in these four constituencies (assuming 
 that they are physically contiguous) he could without difficulty re- 
 adjust the electoral boundaries so as to exclude Liberal repre- 
 sentation altogether. At the one extreme, accident confers upon 
 the Liberals a majority of seats for a minority of voters; at the 
 other, a little dexterous manipulation is capable of excluding them 
 altogether from the exercise of any influence upon public affairs. 
 
 The reader may imagine, however, that he is being furnished 
 with carefully-selected instances, which do, indeed, illustrate 
 the argument, but are in practice never realised. That illusion 
 can be easily dispelled by means of the approximate figures (for 
 England and Wales*) of recent general elections: 
 
 Total Liberal and Labour Votes Total Unionist Votes 
 
 and Members. and Members. Majority. 
 
 1892 i,845)93 2 t (225) I,9'5i93i ( 2 7) (Unionist) 69,999 
 
 1895 1,765,064 (138) 2,034,534 (357) (Unionist) 259,470 
 
 190 1,665,702 (152) 2,013,456 (343) (Unionist) 347,754 
 
 1906 3,061,000 (368) 2,365,000 (127) (Liberal) 696,000 
 
 Lack of Sustained Proportion. 
 
 If we now make the comparison in another way, the confusion 
 and misrepresentation will become still more manifest. In the fol- 
 lowing table there is exhibited the majority in votes, the majority 
 in members, and the political complexion of the resulting govern- 
 ment. The reader must bear in mind, however, that he is here 
 presented, in accordance with the plan of the book, with the 
 figures for England and Wales only. The inclusion of Ireland 
 and Scotland explains the apparent anomaly of 1892, where a 
 Unionist majority of votes and members gives rise to a Liberal 
 Governmeat. But although there was a Liberal majority in 
 Scotland, it did not avail to neutralise the Unionist majority in 
 
 * The Unionists, after the 1906 election, held no Welsh seat. The 
 167,000 Liberal and Labour electors of Wales were represented by 
 thirty members, while the 86,000 Unionist voters were, in effect, dis- 
 franchised. 
 
 t This total includes, at each election, the Nationalist vote in the 
 Scotland Division of Liverpool. The Unionist vote in the same consti- 
 tuency is included in the other aggregate. 
 
 250
 
 THE ACT AND MODE OF VOTING. 
 
 England and Wales, speaking of these two as a single political 
 entity. The total Unionist members in Great Britain numbered 292, 
 against 274 Liberals and one Irish Home Ruler (the member for 
 the Scotland Division of Liverpool) : and it was only the introduc- 
 tion of the Irish vote which created the Liberal majority.* 
 
 Majority in In favour Resulting 
 
 Votes and Members. of the Government. 
 
 1892 ... 69,999 ... 45 ... Unionists ... Liberal 
 
 1895 ... 259,470 ... 219 ... Unionists ... Unionist 
 
 1900 ... 347)754 '9' Unionists ... Unionist 
 
 1906 ... 696,000 ... 241 ... Liberals ... Liberal 
 
 So (omitting the abnormality of 1892) a majority in votes of 
 259,470 gives a majority in members of 219. But a greater 
 majority in votes, in 1900, gave a smaller majority in members. 
 Finally, if a majority of 347,754 properly gave a Unionist majority 
 of 191 in 1900, then a Liberal majority of 696,000 (more than 
 double the number) should have given a Liberal majority of nearly 
 400 in 1906. But it only conferred a majority of 241. Clearly, 
 there is no necessary proportion between the preponderance of 
 votes and the magnitude of the majority of members; nor does a 
 preponderance of votes, in fact, guarantee a majority of members 
 at all. Are there, then, any systems of voting, other than our 
 own, which are able to secure a closer correspondence between the 
 actual electoral sentiment of the electorate, and its expression in 
 the central assembly ? We will examine the most familiar systems. 
 
 " Scrutin de Liste " System. 
 
 There is another method known as the Scrutin de Liste. a 
 foreign-looking appellation which in reality signifies nothing more 
 than a rather large-scale reproduction of our own system of voting 
 in constituencies returning more than one member. Thus, at 
 Bath, which is a two-member constituency, a voter has two votes, 
 one for each of any two candidates that he chooses. He cannot 
 "plump," in the old sense of the word, by giving both votes to 
 one candidate. But he may " plump," in the modern sense, by 
 giving a single vote to one candidate, and abstaining altogether 
 from the bestowal of the other vote, so as to give his single 
 favourite the whole and undivided advantage of his support. Ex- 
 tend this principle to large constituencies, of seven or nine or 
 more members, and you have Scrutin de Liste. Each voter may 
 give as many votes as there are vacancies, but may only give a 
 single vote, and no more, to one candidate. Take, for instance, 
 a seven-member constituency, of 30,000 electors, voting on the 
 system known as Scrutin de Liste. Assume that there are seven 
 
 * The reader is asked to bear in mind that these statements are not 
 intended to convey the slightest reproach to either Liberals or Irish 
 members. They are simply rehearsals of fact, necessary to the pro- 
 gress of the argument. 
 
 251
 
 THE ACT AND MODE OF VOTING. 
 
 Liberals and seven Conservative candidates, and that all the elec- 
 tors go to the poll and none spoil their votes. If each man votes 
 " straight " for the party ticket, the following is a possible result : 
 
 Seven Liberal candidates, each 15,001 votes. 
 
 Seven Unionist candidates, each 14,999 votes. 
 
 The result is that 15,001 Liberal electors have seven represen- 
 tatives, while 14,999 Unionist electors are to all intents and pur- 
 poses disfranchised. Viewed in its Parliamentary aspect, from the 
 benches of the House of Commons, the constituency is wholly 
 Liberal. By those who are familiar with the facts it is known to 
 be as nearly as possible half-and-half, and the representation 
 ought, of course, to be divided, in that proportion. In the Bel- 
 gian elections of 1884, conducted on this principle, 27,930 elec- 
 tors secured fifty representatives, leaving 22,117 electors to be 
 as content as they could with the other two. 
 
 And even with the Scrutin de Liste method in operation, as soon 
 as a third party appears on the scene, we shall commence to wit- 
 ness some of the distortion and minority preponderance with which 
 our own. system renders us familiar. This, for instance, will be a 
 possible and probable result : 
 
 Seven Conservative candidates, each 12,000 votes. 
 
 Seven Liberal candidates, each 10,000 votes. 
 
 Seven Labour candidates, each 8,000 votes. 
 where the minority of 12,000 voters secures the whole represen- 
 tation and renders the other 18,000 voters politically voiceless 
 altogether. In practice, of course, these extremely clean-cut re- 
 sults would never be actually reached, on account of the cross- 
 voting that always takes place under such circumstances; but 
 the slight modification of the figures produced in this way would 
 not substantially affect the ultimate outcome of the poll. And 
 even if they would, we should, in looking for their presence and 
 operation, be relying upon chance and personal caprice to remedy 
 imperfections which ought to be dealt with in another way, and 
 should therefore be violating the Tnird Canon. The business of 
 the electoral reformer is not to meet potential abnormality with 
 a reliance upon the chance advent of an antidote, but with a 
 slammed and bolted door. 
 
 The Cumulative Vote. 
 
 Still another method is the cumulative vote, which was in 
 operation until quite recently in the School Board elections. Each 
 elector has as many votes as there are candidates, but may, if he 
 choose, give all the votes to a single candidate. Then, if there 
 are twelve candidates for seven seats, the voter may give all his 
 seven votes to one candidate, or distribute them in 5 and 2, or 4 
 and 3, or 6 and i, if he so choose. This system certainly secures 
 the representation of minorities, since a comparatively small 
 
 252
 
 THE ACT AND MODE OF VOTING. 
 
 number of electors, by " plumping " for one candidate, can 
 almost certainly secure his return. But it leads to enormous waste 
 of power. In the first Marylebone election under the Elementary 
 Education Act, in 1870 (as Lord Avebury has pointed out), Miss 
 Garrett, as a result of wholesale plumping, stood at the head of 
 the poll with 47,858 votes. Since the highest vote recorded for an 
 unsuccessful candidate was 7,927, it is clear that 7,928 votes, 
 instead of 47,858, would have secured the election of Miss Garrett. 
 All the rest were wasted, as far as the interests of their donors 
 were concerned. 
 
 The Limited Vote. 
 
 The limited vote is another device for securing the representa- 
 tion of minorities. In a three-member constituency, for instance 
 (the system is not applicable to smaller electoral units), each 
 elector has two votes, but may not give more than one to a single 
 candidate. This system, if left to itself, works fairly well. It 
 was adopted for thirteen constituencies, returning a total of forty 
 members, by the Reform Bill of 1867. But the malign influence 
 of caucus control soon displayed itself, with the result that, at 
 Birmingham, for example, the strictest party discipline and the 
 most far-reaching organisation'* was able to make arrangements 
 which resulted in the securing of all three seats and the disfran- 
 chisement of the minority. 
 
 The Single Transferable Vote. 
 
 Is there, then, no process which will always yield a result as 
 scientifically accurate as the necessary subordination of some 
 minority, large or small, permits, and which is not subject to such 
 aberrations and abnormalities as may occasionally throw the 
 opinion of the electorate, and that Government which purports to 
 represent it, into glaring contrast ? The answer is that the system 
 of a single transferable vote, operated under the system of Propor- 
 tional Representation,! meets the requirements of the case. It 
 offers, up to the limit of possibility, real and indefeasible represen- 
 tation for all electoral interests which rise up to, or exceed, a cer- 
 tain standard of strength, while it necessarily excludes (and not 
 like the present system, occasionally admits as unwarranted inter- 
 lopers) all those which fall below. That standard is called the 
 quota. The quota is that number of votes which, in an election 
 taking place upon the principles of Proportional Representation, 
 must necessarily ensure the election of the member to whom they 
 are given. It is really nothing more than an extended application 
 of the principle of an absolute majority. Suppose that at the 
 
 * See Ostrogorski's " Democracy and the Organization of Political 
 Parties " (Macmillan). Vol. I. 
 t See first note on page 84. 
 
 253
 
 THE ACT AND MODE OF VOTING. 
 
 counting of the votes at the election in a constituency of 5,000 elec- 
 tors (at which there are numerous candidates for a single seat) the 
 result of the first sorting of the ballots is to show that one of the 
 candidates has 2,501 votes, all of them undoubtedly valid. This 
 candidate may be at once declared elected, for by no conceivable 
 combination of circumstances can his majority be displaced. If 
 it be found that the whole of the remainincr 2,499 electors have 
 polled to a man, and that they have concentrated on one only of 
 the other candidates, to the total exclusion of the rest, this 
 second candidate must nevertheless be defeated by an absolute 
 majority of 2. In this instance, 2,501 valid votes represent an 
 unassailably absolute majority. They also represent the quota, 
 i.e., where there are only two candidates for one seat, the quota 
 and an absolute majority are identical. To* ascertain the quota 
 it is only necessary to divide the total number of valid ballot 
 papers by a number which is made up by adding one to the num- 
 ber of seats which are to be filled, and then (disregarding fractions) 
 adding one to the quotient. Expressed in a simple and compre 
 hensive formula, the rule stands thus : 
 
 (Total number of valid ballot paperA _ ~ 
 
 Number of seats to be filled + i / 
 
 Applying this formula to the case of the constituency of 5,000 
 electors, proceeding to the election of one member (and assuming 
 that the whole of the electorate validly polls) we get : 
 
 Let the constituency consist of 10,000, electing two members, 
 and let the number of valid ballot papers be 9,000. Then : 
 9oo\ + , = 300l(Quota) 
 
 (-2222-1 
 
 \ 2 ~r * / 
 
 Therefore, in this two-member constituency, any candidate who 
 is found, upon the first scrutiny of the votes, to have secured the 
 quota of 3,001, or any greater figure, must be elected. The 
 student of proportional representation who doubts this preliminary 
 fact may resolve his dubiety if he will endeavour, by means of the 
 5,999 votes which remain out of the full poll of 9,000, to place the 
 other two candidates ahead of the holder of the quota. One (i.e. , 
 the other of the two who are to be elected) he may easily exalt 
 to the higher position ; but by no conceivable process can he effect 
 that purpose with both. The attainment of the quota is the in- 
 fallible indication of the electoral choice of the candidate who 
 secures it. 
 
 An Illustrative Instance. 
 
 With this illustration of the real character of the quota fresh 
 in our minds, we may advantageously apply to existing party 
 
 254
 
 THE ACT AND MODE OF VOTING. 
 
 conditions the principles so far deduced. Let the result of the elec- 
 tion, in the two-member constituency just employed as an illus- 
 tration (where each elector has but one vote), be thus : 
 
 Asqtiith (L) SiOOO 
 
 Balfour (C) 8,500 
 
 Churchill (L) i,5^o 
 
 If this election were held in compliance with our existing modes 
 of procedure, Asquith and Balfour would be declared elected to 
 the two seats. The representation of the constituency would 
 therefore be divided equally, though there are 6,500 Liberal 
 voters and only 2,500 Conservative voters. What has happened 
 is that in their anxiety to secure the return of Asquith a very large 
 majority of Liberal electors have ignored the claims of the other 
 Liberal candidate. Had the 6,500 Liberal electors been divided 
 into equal portions and had 3,250 voted for Asquith and 3,250 
 for Churchill, two Liberals would have been returned, and the 
 predominant political opinion of the constituency would have been 
 properly expressed in the House of Commons. But there exists 
 no machinery (short of the absolutism of a caucus) by which voters 
 can be drilled into compliance with the mathematical necessities 
 of the situation, if they are to be prevented from; throwing away 
 their votes. To remedy this anomaly we must proceed to deal 
 with the ballot in another way. Can we, by means of a post- 
 election, as distinguished from a pre-election, device, secure the 
 electoral opinion from misrepresentation, without interfering with 
 its absolute liberty of expression ? This we can effect by Propor- 
 tional Representation in the shape of the single transferable vote 
 so as to secure our precise object. Under that system, at 
 this election, each voter would have been invited to place the 
 figure i against the name of the candidate who was his first 
 choice ; the figure 2 against his second choice ; and the figure 3 
 against his third choice, if he desired to exercise it. Inasmuch as 
 there were 5,000 electors who, though Liberals, voted for Asquith 
 to the exclusion of Churchill, we may assume 5,000 first choices 
 for Asquith. The second-choices will necessarily be divided, as 
 regards these papers, between Balfour and Churchill, thus : 
 
 Asquiih i Asquith i 
 
 Balfour 2 Balfour 3 
 
 Churchil 3 Churchill 2 
 
 What we have to do, therefore, in order to allot the second seat 
 in accordance with the wishes of a real majority of the electorate, 
 is to set aside, out of the 5,000 ballot papers which exhibit first 
 choices for Asquith, the 3,001 papers which form his quota.* 
 
 * The expert reader will notice that the argument is being carried 
 forward without regard to the various adjustments which, in the actual 
 process on true scientific lines, would have to be considered. But this is 
 done advisedly, in order that the inexpert reader may be able to grasp 
 the essentials of the process, before being invited to grapple with the 
 collateral problems. 
 
 2 55
 
 THE ACT AND MODE OF VOTING. 
 
 There will remain 1,999 papers to be inspected for second choices. 
 Let the result be 
 
 Churchill 1,800 
 
 Balfour 199 
 
 Then, proceeding to rectify the original figures in accordance 
 with the results of this further scrutiny, we shall obtain : 
 
 Asquith (first choices ) 3,ooi 
 
 Churchill (1,500 first choices, + i, 800 second choices) 3>3Oo 
 
 Balfour (2,500 first choices, + 199 second choices) 2,699 
 
 Two candidates have now obtained the quota, and therefore it 
 is impossible that the third (Balfour) can have been successful. 
 The election is therefore at an end. The result, as amended and 
 ultimately controlled by means of the transferable vote, has been 
 to bring the representation of this imaginary constituency into 
 accord with its predominant political sentiment. Strict mathe- 
 matical accuracy may perhaps require the rejection, from the cal- 
 culation of exact political strength, of the 199 voters whose first 
 choice was a Liberal (Asquith) and their second a Conservative 
 (Balfour). But as these must be persons whose originally pre- 
 dominant sentiments (as evidenced by their first choice of Asquith) 
 were Liberal, their inclusion as such will not vitiate the soundness 
 of the proposition that in this final result, instead of a great 
 majority, composed of 6,500 Liberals, being represented by one 
 member, and a minority of 2,500 Unionists by the other, we have 
 the two members allotted', as they should be, to the dominant 
 party. That is to say, there is real representation instead of a lay 
 figure painted to look like it. 
 
 A Closer Survey. 
 
 Concurrently with the election which we have just been consider- 
 ing, let us suppose another, of which the preliminary count yields, 
 roughly, the same figures as those of the first, and of which the 
 final result, after the transference of the votes has been com- 
 pleted, appears thus : 
 
 Burns 3,ooi 
 
 Lloyd George 3,200 
 
 Chamberlain 2 ;799 
 
 The effective electorate of these two constituencies will then be 
 composed of 12.701 Liberals and 5,299 Conservatives. Their 
 representatives will consist of four Liberals and no Conservative. 
 That is to say, the aggregate minority of the two constituencies, 
 which consists of over 5,000 voters, is, in effect, disfranchised. Let 
 us therefore adopt the expedient which will adjust the conditions 
 to those which we found prevailing (ante, page 85) in Shropshire, 
 amalgamating the two constituencies, and adding another member 
 so as to bring the total up to five, and let us also increase the 
 number of candidates, so as to examine the scheme on a larger 
 
 256
 
 THE ACT AND MODE OF VOTING. 
 
 scale. Inasmuch as the reader is by this time familiar with the 
 general nature, operation, and significance of the process, we may 
 now subject it to a critical scrutiny at each stage.* The con- 
 stituency, then (which may be a county, or a large town like Bristol 
 or Leeds), has an electorate of 20,000 and elects five members. 
 Every elector has one vote, but may indicate his preferences as 
 far as he pleases that is, he may not only exhibit his second and 
 third preferences, but his fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh, as far 
 as the length of the list of candidates will carry him. The total 
 poll we will assume to have been 18,020, but as there are twenty 
 spoilt papers the valid aggregate is 18,000, and the quota is there- 
 fore 3,001. The first count, for first choices, yields this result : 
 
 Balfour (C.) 3,200 
 
 Asquith (L.) 3,001 
 
 Crooks (Lab.) 2,816 
 
 Churchill (L.) 2700 
 
 Burns (L.; 2,600 
 
 Chamberlain (C.) 2,500 
 
 Whittaker (Prohibition) 1,185 
 
 Total 18,000 
 
 A Suggestive Analysis. 
 
 Consider for a moment how these figures would probably have 
 appeared if the electors had employed the current form of the 
 limited vote. Each elector would have had fives votes; but in- 
 asmuch as he could only give a single vote to a single candidate, 
 he would not, in all cases, have exercised his full power. Many 
 Conservative voters would have restricted their siipport to Balfour 
 and Chamberlain. An equally important section of Liberal 
 opinion would probably have refused assistance to a typical Labour 
 candidate, such as Crooks, and possibly to the Prohibition candi- 
 date as well. To commence with, Balfour's poll would probably 
 have been substantially the same as in our own hypothetical result. 
 The Conservative voters would all have given him one of their 
 votes. All, too, would probably have given one of their remain- 
 ing votes to Chamberlain ; while the 230 voters whose first choice 
 (as we shall see at a slightly later stage of the argument) 
 was Whittaker, and their second Chamberlain, would doubtless, all 
 of them, have given their third vote to Whittaker. Their two re- 
 maining votes would, in the majority of cases, have been useless, 
 since their support of any of the remaining candidates might have 
 neutralised one of the votes already given-. For example, each of 
 the seventy-four Conservative voters who, as we shall see when we 
 examine the second choices, would like to give a vote to Asquith, 
 may reflect that, in a close contest between that candidate and 
 
 * For this reason, in order to keep the analysis within a compact area, 
 only seven candidates are " run." 
 
 s 257
 
 THE ACT AND MODE OF VOTING. 
 
 Balfour or Chamberlain, his vote for Asquith may help to turn the 
 scale against his earlier vote for Balfour or Chamberlain. Under a 
 scheme of Proportional Representation he may secure the premier 
 vote to Balfour or Chamberlain, tin the full assurance that only in 
 the event of his favourite having a superfluity of support, or else 
 no chance at all, would the vote be transferred to his second or 
 third choice Asquith. But under the existing system there is no 
 such transfer; and the Conservative voter, having given two, or 
 at most three votes, will probably refrain from conferring the others 
 at all. The poll at this stage stands thus, therefore : 
 
 Balfour 3, 200 
 
 Chamberlain 3, 200 
 
 In the case of the Liberal voters, the same considerations apply. 
 They will probably vote their full strength for Asquith, Burns, and 
 Churchill, and a section of them may give a fourth vote to Whit- 
 taker. But in this last instance, as well as in deciding whether to 
 give the fifth vote to Crooks (in order to secure his return, if pos- 
 sible, as against Balfour or Chamberlain), the Liberal voter will 
 Be faced with the same problem as his Conservative fellow elector 
 is his vote for a minor favourite, like Whittaker or Crooks, 
 going to turn the scale against one of the major favourites, like 
 Asquith or Burns? He cannot give the vote conditionally upon 
 the safety of his major favourites, as he could under a system of 
 Proportional Representation. Therefore he will probably not give 
 it at all. The poll at this stage, then, will stand something like 
 this: 
 
 SUCCESSFUL. 
 
 Balfour 3,200 
 
 Chamberlain 3 5 2oo 
 
 Asquith 3iQOi 
 
 Burns 3oi 
 
 Churchill 3>ooi 
 
 UNSUCCESSFUL. 
 
 Crooks 2,816 
 
 Whittaker 1,183 (at least) 
 
 Subject to the problem presented by the purely Labour vote, the 
 election is complete. Its result differs from that obtained 
 by the inspection of the " first choices " under Proportional 
 Representation, in the fact that Churchill occupies a posi- 
 tion in advance of Crooks. Yet what is the actual situa- 
 tion of affairs? The Labour party in this constituency 
 has a minimum strength of 2,816, for that number of 
 voters made Crooks their first choice. Had these voters polled 
 under existing electoral conditions they could, indeed, have exer- 
 cised no second choice, because even the gift of the second of their 
 
 258
 
 THE ACT AND MODE OF VOTING. 
 
 five votes to Burns might have imperilled the chances of their 
 majorjavourite, Crooks, as against Bums. A few Labour voters, 
 rather than witness the sterilisation of four out of five votes, may 
 distribute them among the other candidates, thereby assisting to 
 defeat their own primary purpose. By far the greater portion of 
 the Labour electorate, however, is restricted! to the use of a single 
 vote as against two conferred upon the Conservative and three 
 upon the Liberal. It may be argued that the Labour electorate 
 could exercise its powers to the full if it ran five candidates. That 
 is so ; but in the present instance all five would " run " in vain. The 
 full Labour vote of 2,816, given to each of five Labour candidates, 
 must only have placed the whole five in a minority. Besides, the 
 " running " of five candidates would be as expensive as futile. The 
 Labour party, or any party, ought to be able to secure its proper 
 representation without resort to such expedients as that. 
 
 Its " proper " representation was the expression used in the last 
 sentence. But what is its " proper " representation ? Clearly, that 
 to which its numbers entitle it. The real political elements of the 
 constituency before us can be ascertained without difficulty by 
 adding together the first choices of the voters belonging to the 
 three principal parties (i.e., ignoring the Prohibitionist vote) : 
 
 Liberal (Asquith + Burns + Churchill) ... 8,301 
 
 Unionist (Balfour + Chamberlain) 5>7oo 
 
 Labour (Crooks) 2,816 
 
 If we distribute the five seats in strict numerical proportion to the 
 respective divisions of the electorate, we shall at first find our- 
 selves in the presence of a physical impossibility : 
 
 Liberal (8,301 out of 16,817) = 2.468 seats 
 Unionist (5, 700 out of 16,817) = 1.694 seats 
 Labour (2,816 out of 16,817) = .837 seats 
 
 4-999 
 
 As the members cannot be divided into fractions, we must appor- 
 tion as nearly as we can within integral limits. The Liberal pro- 
 portion is nearer to 2 than to 3. The Unionist proportion is 
 nearer to 2 than i. The Labour proportion is far too near i 
 for it to be disregarded. Therefore we may fairly allot the mem- 
 bers in precisely the manner in which the Proportional Representa- 
 tion poll will place them, as we shall ultimately see ; that is to say, 
 two Liberals, two Unionists, and one Labour. If the constituency- 
 had been larger, the allotment of members could have been 
 brought more nearly to the limit of accuracy, so as to eliminate 
 the slight under-representation of the Liberals, and the some- 
 what slighter over-representation of the Unionists, which this 
 apportionment exhibits. If the process were carried out over 100 
 
 2 59
 
 THE ACT AND MODE OF VOTING. 
 
 five-member constituencies the slight discrepancy would no doubt 
 be redressed by the operation of the law of average. 
 
 The Proportional Representation Process. 
 
 With this instructive study in contrasts completed, we proceed 
 with the examination and elucidation of the poll in accordance with 
 the principles of Proportional Representation. Balfour and 
 Asquith, having both secured the quota, are declared elected. 
 In the case of Balfour there are 199 superfluous votes to be in- 
 spected for second choices. If there had been other candidates 
 with a surplus, we should proceed to deal with the largest surplus 
 first. In the case of Asquith, who has polled the exact 
 quota, his ballot papers are put aside as of no further 
 use. The 3,001 electors who polled for him as their first 
 choice have got the man they wanted, and therefore have no right 
 to exercise any further influence upon the election. But this, it 
 will be said, is also the case with Balfour. At all events 3,001 
 of his supporters have got the man they wanted. Only 199 have 
 to be consulted for their second choice; and, except for these 199, 
 the Balfour votes have no title to exert further influence upon the 
 poll. The question is, therefore, which 199 ballot papers we are 
 going to inspect for second choices. For instance, if from the 
 Balfourian aggregate we take four bundles of 199 votes each, they 
 may yield such results as these in the matter of the second choices : 
 
 A. 
 
 Chamberlain. 190 
 Burns 5 
 
 B. 
 Chamberlain 191 
 Asquith 6 
 
 C. 
 
 Chamberlain 190 
 Crooks 2 
 
 D. 
 Chamberlain 189 
 Asquith 5 
 
 Asquith 3 
 
 Burns .... i 
 
 Asquith 2 
 
 Burns 2 
 
 No second 
 
 Churchill . I 
 
 Burns 2 
 
 Churchill ... 2 
 
 choice i 
 
 
 Churchill ... 2 
 Whittaker... I 
 
 Crooks i 
 
 199 
 
 199 
 
 199 
 
 199 
 
 These hypothetical distributions of the respective bundles of 199 
 second choices represent the state of things which we should dis- 
 cover, under similar circumstances, at a real contest. With two, 
 and only two, Conservative candidates, both of acknowledged emi- 
 nence in the party, we may be certain that the vast majority of 
 Conservative electors who' gave their first, and predominant, choice 
 to the one, would give their second choice to the other. In a few 
 cases personal and other considerations would determine the 
 secon3 choice otherwise, as in the examples ; and in very rare in- 
 stances, no second choice may be shown, as in the case with one 
 vote in the " A " bundle. In the present circumstances it is clearly 
 quite immaterial which bundle we select, in order to distribute the 
 second choices among candidates who have not yet obtained the 
 quota. But for the sake of mathematical exactness, let us resume 
 the inspection of the whole of Balfour's papers, in order to 
 
 260
 
 TEE ACT AND MODE OF VOTING. 
 
 ascertain, not what is the second choice in 199 cases, but what 
 is the exact second choice throughout. The result will be some- 
 thing like this. 
 
 SECOND CHOICES WHERE BALFOUR WAS FIRST CHOICE. 
 
 Chamberlain 3,056 
 
 Asquitb 74 
 
 Burns 38 
 
 Churchill 15 
 
 Crooks 15 
 
 Whittaker i 
 
 No second choice i 
 
 3,200 
 
 This exhaustive enumeration has given us the means of an exact 
 calculation of the value of any number of Balfourian second 
 choices. If, out of 3,200 Balfourian ballots, Chamberlain is the 
 second choice in 3,056 instances, then, as we shall discover by 
 means of a simple proportion sum, out of 199 average Balfourian 
 ballots, Chamberlain will be the second choice in 
 
 As 3200 : 3056 : : 199 : 190.45 
 
 This is practically the figure at which we arrived by means of the 
 inspection of the four bundles of 199 Balfour ballots. Advocates 
 of Proportional Representation believe that if the ballot papers are 
 properly mixed in the first instance the necessities of accuracy, as 
 well as of fair play, will be satisfied by taking, as the surplus 
 votes to be counted for second choices, those which were last filed, 
 and therefore lie on the top of the heap of ballot papers showing 
 first choice for the candidate whose aggregate furnishes the surplus. 
 Practical experience and mathematical principles support this 
 view. Those who desire to see the question followed into its 
 minutest ramifications will find in Lord Avebury's little book on 
 "Representation" (Swan Sonnenschein, is.), the correspondence 
 between himself and Professor Stokes with regard to a supposed 
 case where A has 10,000 votes, 6,000 being the quota. Therefore 
 4,000 are to be transferred for second-place votes to the other two 
 candidates, B and C. Assuming a proper shuffling of the ballot 
 papers, the average difference between the distribution of the 
 transferred votes (a) by exhaustive enumeration and (b) by average 
 based on the second places marked on the 6,000 first-place papers, 
 will, in a constituency of 24,000 electors, be about sixteen. The 
 odds against it rising as high as 100 are about 44,000 to one. 
 Lord Avebury calculates, on this basis, that the element of chance 
 which is introduced by the employment of the average, instead of 
 exhaustive enumeration, for ascertaining the distribution of second 
 places, would not affect the actual return more than once in 10,000 
 years, if, during the whole of that period, elections took place 
 about as often as is the rule in our own time. Exact enumeration, 
 however, only necessitates the employment of a larger staff of 
 
 261
 
 THE ACT AND MODE OF VOTING. 
 
 counters, so that there is no valid reason why we should allow 
 absolute accuracy to run even the excessively remote risks con- 
 templated by Lord Avebury. 
 
 The result of the addition of the 199 second choices on the 
 Balfour papers (calculating the distribution, by means of propor- 
 tion, in exact accordance with the average shown by the exhaustive 
 enumeration, but ignoring fractions of votes, as in the case of 
 Crooks)* is to place the candidates thus : 
 
 Balfour (3,200 less surplus of 199) 3>ooi 
 
 Asquith (3,001 + 4-6 second choices)... 3,005 
 
 Crooks (2,816 + 0-9 second choices) ... 2,816 
 
 Churchill (2,700 + 0*9 second choices)... 2,700 
 
 Burns (2,600 + 2'o second choices) ... 2,602 
 
 Chamberlain (2,500 + 190*4 second choices) 2,690 
 
 Whittaker (1,183 + 0*05 second choices) 1,183 
 
 18,000 I 7997 
 
 The result is that we have redistributed, on the basis of the second 
 choices, the 199 votes which formed Balfour's surplus, and we have 
 lost fractions equal to three votes in the operation. If we treat as 
 i vote the .9 in Crooks's and Churchill's totals, we shall only have 
 lost one vote in the whole process. We will assume that the single 
 Balfour paper which has no second choice is included in Mr. 
 Balfour's quota. If this were not so, the available surplus would 
 really be only 198, since there is no second choice on this single 
 paper. But the mode of dealing with this paper, whatever it be, 
 makes no appreciable difference to the calculation. 
 
 So far, only two candidates have obtained the quota. The 
 votes of these candidates have been denuded of their surplusage 
 (i.e., as far as was possible, since Asquith polled the exact quota, 
 and therefore had no surplus) in order to avoid wasting the re- 
 dundant votes given to them. Inasmuch, however, as this opera- 
 tion has not brought about the election of any other candidate, 
 and as, moreover, no more surplus is available, we take the lowest 
 candidate on the poll (Whittaker) and redistribute his votes accord- 
 ing to the second choices, unless the second choice happens to be 
 Balfour or Asquith, neither of whom needs them. In either of those 
 cases we take the third choice. This distribution of Whittaker's 
 votes results (let us say) in this way : 
 
 ORIGINAL SECOND CHOICES SHOWN IN WHITTAKER'S PAPERS. 
 
 100 Churchill 
 200 Crooks 
 100 Burns 
 230 Chamberlain 
 
 1,183 
 
 * Thus, for the Asquith second choices we proceed as in the case 
 of the Chamberlain second choices above: 
 
 As 3200 : 76 : : 199 : 4.6 
 262
 
 THE ACT AND MODE OF VOTING. 
 
 ULTIMATE THIRD CHOICES WHERE WHITTAKER WAS FIRST CHOICE. 
 
 Asquith (second), 500 [third choices 100 Churchill 
 
 200 Burns 
 
 50 Crooks 
 
 30 Balfour 
 
 1 20 Chamberlain] 
 
 Balfour (second), 53 [third choices 50 Chamberlain 
 
 3 Asquith] 
 
 We are now in a position to ascertain if the result of this distribu- 
 tion of Whittaker's votes has brought any other candidate or candi- 
 dates up to the level of the quota. To sum up, then : 
 
 CROOKS, original poll ................................. ...... 2,816 
 
 Second choices from Balfour ............... o 
 
 Second choices from Whittaker ............... 200 
 
 Third choices from Whittaker-Asquith ...... 50 
 
 3,066 
 
 This is more than the quota (3,001), and Crooks is therefore 
 elected. And, again: 
 
 CHURCHILL, original poll .................................. 2,700 
 
 Second choices from Balfour ............... o 
 
 Second choices from Whittaker ......... 100 
 
 Third choices from Whittaker-Asquith ... 100 
 
 2,900 
 
 This falls short of the quota, and we proceed to : 
 
 BURNS, original poll ......................................... 2,600 
 
 Second choices from Balfour .................. 2 
 
 Second choices from Whittaker ............... loo 
 
 Third choices from Whittaker-Asquith ... 200 
 
 2,902 
 
 This, again, is short of the quota, and we therefore go on to : 
 CHAMBERLAIN, original poll .............................. 2,500 
 
 Second choices from Balfour .................. 190 
 
 Second choices from Whittaker ............ 230 
 
 Third choices from Whittaker-Asquith ... 120 
 Third choices from Whittaker-Balfour ... 50 
 
 This is in excess of the quota and Chamberlain is therefore de- 
 clared elected. It follows that, at the point at which we have now 
 arrived, there are four candidates (Asquith, Balfour, Crooks, and 
 Chamberlain) returned, while Whittaker's votes, as those of the can- 
 didate lowest on the poll, have been redistributed in accordance 
 with the second or third choices. There remain only two candidates 
 (Burns and Churchill) for the fifth seat. How are we going to ascer- 
 tain which of them is entitled to it ? Clearly that candidate who 
 is lowest on the poll at this stage must be excluded. Inasmuch, 
 therefore, as Burns has 2,902 votes, against 2,900 obtained by 
 Churchill, Burns is declared elected. As a matter of academic 
 interest we might inspect the second and other preferences on 
 
 263
 
 THE ACT AND MODE OF VOTING. 
 
 Churchill's papers, in order to ascertain if Burns had polled the 
 quota; but whether he has or not, he is, on the exclusion of 
 Churchill, the only candidate left, and therefore must be elected. 
 It may occasionally happen, as in this instance, that the process of 
 redistribution of the lowest aggregates of first choices brings us to 
 the point where there are left no more candidates than seats, though 
 some of the candidates have not polled the quota. In such cir- 
 cumstances these candidates are declared elected. 
 
 The reader will no doubt have noticed the extreme nearness of 
 the figures in the case of Burns and Churchill (2,902 and 2,900 
 respectively), and may desire to know what would have happened 
 if Burns had had one less vote and Churchill one more, so that 
 they were equal with 2,901 votes each. The rule for dealing with 
 this contingency is laid down thus in the Tasmanian Act : 
 
 it. Where at any time it becomes necessary to exclude a candidate, 
 and two or more candidates have the same number of votes and are 
 lowest on the poll, then whichever of such candidates was the lowest 
 on the poll at the last count or transfer at which they had an unequal 
 number of votes shall be first excluded, and if such candidates have had 
 an equal number of votes at all preceding counts or transfers the Return- 
 ing Officer shall decide which candidate shall be first excluded. 
 
 In the case before us the " last count or transfer " was the trans- 
 fer of Balfour's surplus. At that time Churchill was ahead, so that 
 in the event of equality of votes at the later stage, Burns would 
 have been excluded, and not Churchill. And this is perfectly 
 fair and reasonable, since up to that stage the majority of primary, 
 or, as we may call them, senior, choices, would have been in 
 favour of Churchill. But at the later stage, when we have redis- 
 tributed the votes of the candidate who .occupies a lower position 
 than either of these two, the locus of the predominance of senioi 
 choices has changed, and Burns has moved slightly to the front. 
 Therefore, he remains, and Churchill is excluded. 
 
 The Transfer Value. 
 
 It will be remembered that in redistributing Balfour's surplus of 
 199 votes we ascertained, by exhaustive enumeration, what was the 
 exact average of second preferences over the whole original poll, 
 and then applied it, by calculation, to the apportionment of the 
 surplus only. The Victorian Electoral Act contemplates another 
 mode of procedure, according to which, Balfour being elected, the 
 whole of his votes (and not only the surplus) would have been re- 
 distributed according to the second choices. But this, as the 
 reader sees at once, would give the Balfburian electors a second 
 vote. They have already elected Balfour, and now they are all 
 going to employ their second choices in the election of another 
 member. This, however, does not turn out to be the case. When 
 the transfer is made the subject of the second choice does not get 
 the whole of the votes thus given to him, but only his personal 
 share of their value, calculated on the basis of the proportion 
 
 264
 
 THE ACT AND MODE OF VOTING. 
 
 which the surplus bears to the whole. Thus, in redistributing the 
 whole of the Balfour votes, we should have found (see the table 
 of " Second Choices,'" where Balfour was first choice) that Cham- 
 berlain was second choice in 3,056 cases. But Chamberlain is not 
 therefore credited with 3,056 votes. He gets such proportion of 
 them as Balfour's surplus bears to the whole of Balfour's votes. 
 That is to say : 
 
 As 3200 (Balfour's total) : 199 (his surplus) :: 3056 : 190.04 
 which is, within a minute fraction, exactly the same figure at 
 which we arrived when we proceeded according to the other 
 method. Where this latter mode is adopted the value of the vote 
 thus transferred is called its " transfer value." In the case of 
 Chamberlain above, the transfer value of each of the Balfour 
 
 votes is ^?L, which, multiplied by 3056, will be found to give 
 3200 
 
 190.04, the resulting figure obtained by the other process. 
 
 As the aggregate of too five-member constituencies, such as we 
 have been considering, would) return' 500 members, and would 
 therefore, give us nearly the same number (495) as actually repre- 
 sent England and Wales in the House of Commons, we may ad- 
 vantageously contrast the results according (i) to the system which 
 we at present employ, and (2) to Proportional Representation, as 
 shown in the examples worked out above : 
 
 The Present System. Proportional Representation. 
 
 Liberals 300 Liberals 246 
 
 Unionists 200 Unionists 169 
 
 Labour nil Labour 83 
 
 SCO 498* 
 
 These are, approximately, the results which would be obtained 
 in actual practice. In the one case the Labour vote is entirely 
 excluded from representation'. In the other it receives what is its 
 fair proportion of the membership of the National Assembly. 
 
 The Minimum Waste of Votes. 
 
 These facts and figures may show how large a proportion of the 
 total electoral strength will, under a system of Proportional Repre- 
 sentation), make itself felt in the ballot boxes. By means of Pro- 
 portional Representation, as it was worked out above, we may say 
 that if we except the votes of the inevitable unrepresented minority 
 that must exist in every elective system, not a vote has been wasted. 
 The 199 electors who formed Balf cur's excess over the quota 
 would, indeed, in his election, have secured what they desired ; 
 but had they known that he was safe, they would not have thrown 
 away their votes upon him, but would have used their strength to 
 fonvard the interests of another candidate. There exists, and can 
 
 " The odd fractions, of course, account for the loss of two in the total. 
 
 265
 
 THE ACT AND MODE OF VOTING. 
 
 exist, no means of conveying a hint to superfluous voters at the 
 moment when their favourite candidate is safe ; but in this scheme 
 we have a sound and feasible expedient which serves the same 
 purpose. So it is that the 1,183 votes recorded for Whittaker, 
 which would, under our present system, have been utterly thrown 
 away, and their possessors rendered voiceless and impotent, are 
 made effective, and every one of these voters wields his share of 
 the electoral influence, and see the man of his choice (though not, 
 in this case, his first choice) returned to Parliament. Tentative 
 support of what may prove a iweak cause does not mean the irre- 
 trievable loss of the vote df the cause is really found to lack 
 electorally effective support; and, if the cause be really stronger 
 than was imagined, it may triumph. At any rate, it may be aided 
 without imperilling the vote altogether, which is impossible under 
 the existing familiar conditions. 
 
 In this way, too, we have complied, up to the extreme limits 
 attainable under any elective system, with the requirements 
 of the Third Canon. We have secured articulate voice for more 
 than five out of every six electors. Only three-twentieths of the 
 electors have ultimately been disappointed. That is to say, the 
 proportion of the total electorate which may (and must, if it vote) 
 secure its chosen representative in the House of Commons has 
 risen in this instance to 85 per cent, of the electorate, as against 
 the 50, 40, or even 30 per cent, which is capable, under our pre- 
 sent system, of monopolising all the means of civic utterance in 
 the National Assembly. The existing method may, if there is a 
 huge preponderance of one type of opinion in a given constituency, 
 exhibit it in true proportion and perspective. In the absence of 
 that condition, the factors that make for distortion and suppres- 
 sion commence to exercise their mischievous energy. But with 
 Proportional Representation, whether there is a huge preponderance 
 of adherence to the tenets of one school of political thought, 
 or a variable distribution of civic opinion, it will find real repre- 
 sentation, actual elective voice and vision, on the council of the 
 nation. At the present stage of political evolution, therefore, Pro- 
 portional Representation,* as the best contemporaneously available 
 means to an end, is one of the Essentials of Self Government. 
 
 It may be well, perhaps, to anticipate criticism by the admission 
 tfhat the illustrative figures have been here and there manipulated 
 to suit their explanatory purpose. The giving of a surplus to Bal- 
 four, and the exact " quota " to Asquith, as well as the bringing of 
 Burns and Churchill within two of each other at the end, were 
 among deliberate adjustments designed to raise questions which 
 
 * The reader will bear in mind that the present essay is an " Introduc- 
 tion " to the study of electoral mechanism. If he desires to pursue the 
 subject of the Act and Mode of Voting in its remotest and most intricate 
 ramifications, he should obtain the Blue-Book on Proportional Repre- 
 sentation (Wyman and Sons, or Eyre and Spottiswoode. is. 3d.). 
 
 266
 
 THE ACT AND MODE OF VOTING. 
 
 must otherwise have been arbitrarily intromitted. The reader, 
 after the study of the system of the single transferable vote, cannot 
 do better than apply it, hypothetically, to actual electoral instances. 
 At the moment, too, he will watch the proceedings of the Royal 
 Commission. 
 
 Summary of Suggestions. 
 
 All elections on one day (at a general election). 
 
 The poll to be open for a longer time. 
 
 " Besetting " of the voter to be prohibited. 
 
 All public-houses to be. closed on election day and all grocers' 
 licenses suspended. 
 
 The aspect of the polling booth to be rendered more inspiring by 
 portraits of the great leaders of the race and by pictures of the 
 great constitutional episodes. 
 
 Some penalty, perhaps, to be imposed on electors who will not 
 take the trouble to vote. 
 
 The secrecy of the ballot to be brought as near to perfection 
 as possible. 
 
 Voting to be by the single transferable vote, so as to comply 
 with the requirements of the Third Canon up to the utmost verge 
 of possibility. 
 
 267
 
 CHAPTER XII, 
 
 Election Petitions. 
 
 As long as our present electoral mechanism, or anything re- 
 sembling it, remains the instrument for the expression of the 
 national will, there must be kept in reserve some such appeal as 
 is now represented by an election petition. It is possible to 
 imagine an election where all expenditure was paid, at the request 
 of the candidates, by Government officials, empowered to prevent 
 the issue of a libellous handbill, and to refuse countenance and 
 sanction to an act which, in their opinion, amounted to an illegal 
 practice. If to this effective censorship we add the prohibition of 
 canvassing, and the suppression of all " last minute " trickery, 
 many of the avenues which lead' towards an election petition 
 would be closed. There is, however, not the least present pro- 
 spect of the adoption of a contemporaneous and continuous 
 Government censorship of election expenses and election tactics. 
 It would lead to such gigantic official abuses, and its effect upon 
 the free and fresh formation and utterance of political opinion 
 would be so stifling, and, indeed!, so fatal, that no serious poli- 
 tician would put forward the proposal, and no sane voter listen to 
 him if he ventured upon such a propaganda. 
 
 The History of Election Petitions. 
 
 When the votes have been counted, and the return has been duly 
 made, there still remains one power, and only one, which can 
 review the result, and if necessary set the election aside. That 
 power is possessed by Parliament itself. But iwe have done away 
 with the ancient system under which Parliament actually sat in 
 judgment on the delicate questions of law and fact that arise on 
 an election petition. The Objections to this course of procedure, 
 and the abuses arising under it, are familiar to the constitutional 
 historian. In the earliest days the member of Parliament was 
 merely an agent empowered to consent to the taxation of his prin- 
 cipals for the benefit of the King's revenue. As the learned 
 Douglas has it, " there 'were seldom competitors for an office which 
 was rather a burthen imposed than a distinction conferred." Such 
 disputes as there were, with regard to elections, found settlement 
 either in Westminster Hall at the hands of the judges, or by the 
 Lords in Parliament. But the Commons ultimately grew intolerant 
 alike of Lords and of judges, in spite of the Chancellor's fiction 
 that the Parliamentary writ issued out of Chancery, and was return- 
 able thither: so that at the beginning of the reign of James L, 
 although efforts were made to confer upon Chancery an authority 
 in the matter of controverted elections, the Commons were able to 
 
 268
 
 ELECTION PETITIONS. 
 
 establish and maintain their exclusive jurisdiction. It was soon 
 after this at all events, by the reign of Charles II., as we saw 
 when we discussed the early attempt to suppress bribery that 
 the Commons began to strike at the abuses which had grown up 
 around the process of Parliamentary elections. But the trial of 
 election petitions at the bar of the House soon led to the establish- 
 ment of what was practically a rule, that the decision should be 
 in favour of the voters who had returned the Ministerial candidate. 
 The Act 10 Geo. III., c. 16, therefore, transferred the trial to the 
 hands of committees, chosen under that statute; and Douglas 
 (who is one of the earliest of our election case reporters) tells us 
 that he " resolved to attend those committees very regularly." He 
 and others of equal assiduity have left us records of the decisions 
 of these committees which, where the modern statutes have not 
 denned the law afresh or otherwise, or created new requirements, 
 still remain authoritative. This mode of trial, again, was ultimately 
 found unsatisfactory. Since 1868 the duty of trying election peti- 
 tions has devolved upon one, and since 1879 upon two, judges, 
 chosen from a rota selected annually by the other judges. The 
 judges report their findings to the House of Commons, which 
 in that way preserves and makes manifest its own jurisdiction in 
 the mattter of its own membership. As, however, the reports of 
 the judges are never challenged (the nearest approach to a chal- 
 lenge was the brief debate on one of the 1906 petitions), their de- 
 terminations are, in effect, as final and as authoritative as if they 
 were rendered in pursuance of their own proper and ordinary 
 judicial functions in fact, they have a greater degree of finality 
 than an ordinary judgment, since there is no appeal from the de- 
 cision on the petition (on a question of fact, though there is on a 
 question of law) to any superior court, other than Parliament 
 itself, and an appeal thither is unprecedented. 
 
 The Election Petition Court. 
 
 The fact that the judges sit as delegates of the House of Com- 
 mons furnishes the reason why legal etiquette does not permit a 
 member of the Bar who is also a member of the House to appear 
 as an advocate on the trial of an election petition. Were he to 
 do so he must be acting in a professional capacity before a court 
 whose powers are derived from a body of which he is himself 
 a member. He would be advocate before delegates technically 
 appointed by, and acting on behalf of, himself. 
 
 The existing rule at present, therefore, is that if the judges agree 
 in finding the respondent guilty of any charge of a corrupt or 
 illegal practice, or if, in certain cases they find his election agent, 
 or, in certain other cases, any agent, guilty, the election is upset. 
 If no charge is sustained, or the judges differ, the election stands. 
 
 269
 
 ELECTION PETITIONS. 
 
 The tribunal is probably the best that could be found for the 
 purpose. A jury is out of the question. It would reveal its 
 political complexion at a very early stage, and unanimity would 
 be unattainable. Three judges or four would' not strengthen the 
 court, while the possible illness of one, the adjustment of their 
 engagements so as to permit of the joint sitting of so many, and 
 the anxiety of each to impress himself upon the history of the 
 case, would add to the complications of the proceedings. 
 
 At the same time it would be idle, in a survey which is intended 
 to be at once detailed and frank, to ignore the palpable fact that 
 even if the .tribunal is the best that can be found, it is very far 
 from being ideal. As long as the Bench is recruited largely as a 
 reward for political services it will be impossible to exclude the 
 political sympathies of its occupants from having an influence 
 upon their consideration of the facts of an election petition. The 
 influence is very subtle, and those who are moved by it are not 
 only unconscious of their bias, but would be very much disturbed 
 if they thought they were biassed' at all. A judge who has once 
 been an ardent and active politician is asked to irnjpute corrupt 
 motives to a candidate who did that Which, on the face of it, may 
 possibly bear a perfectly innocent construction. To his mind the 
 suggestion of corruption appears preposterous. He cannot 
 imagine that any sane man would take it seriously. To his learned 
 brother, who has seen this stratagem employed against himself not 
 once nor twice, the charge seems well founded, and the attempted 
 answer to it thin and flimsy in the extreme. It is impossible, he 
 thinks, that any properly trained and constituted mind can fail 
 to penetrate the real significance of such a transparent artifice as 
 has been here adopted to facilitate the evasion of the statute. In 
 both cases there is the absolute honesty which is an ineradicable 
 and inseparable tradition of the English Bench. Yet in both cases 
 there is unconscious political bias. If one judge is strong and the 
 other pliable, the latter may give way. If not, they will differ 
 and the election will stand. 
 
 The courts quite understand their own fallibility and their own 
 limitations. In the case of an injunction under the " False State- 
 ments Act " (see page 203) they might, for instance, interfere to pre- 
 vent the doing of some prime-fade illegal act only to realise, on 
 reconsideration, that the act was not illegal, and that its perform- 
 ance was essential to the proper comprehension, by the electorate, 
 of the questions which it was asked to answer through the 
 medium of the ballot box. But in the meantime, before the 
 opportunity of reconsideration has come, the electorate has pro- 
 nounced its judgment has given a verdict, let us say, which it 
 would not have given had not the courts, by their mistaken 
 action, prevented the complete display of all the factors of the 
 
 270
 
 ELECTION PETITIONS. 
 
 problem to the electoral mind. The mere fact, however, that 
 obedience to the mistaken orders of the courts had vitiated the 
 verdict would afford no ground for setting the election aside. 
 The courts would have no power to order a new election. The 
 mischief would have been done. From such considerations as 
 these arises the reluctance of the courts to interfere, on behalf 
 of either party, while the election is in actual progress. Nothing 
 but the very clearest and most unmistakable evidence will set the 
 machinery in motion. 
 
 Should Petitions be Facilitated ? 
 
 Nearly all recent criticism of the election petition, however, 
 takes the shape of an argument that there ought to be greater 
 facilities for lodging it. The evidence of many distinguished wit- 
 nesses in 1897 and 1898, before the Royal Commission on 
 Election Petitions, by laying stress upon the enormous expense 
 and the tiresome delays which are the chief characteristics of 
 election petitions, has helped to foster this entirely mistaken view. 
 If the primary and sovereign tribunal is apt to return mistaken 
 or distorted verdicts, true reform is surely not to be sought so 
 much in a greater frequency of appeal to another judgment-seat 
 as in the increase of the analytical and judicial skill, and the 
 reform of the procedure, in the original court, so as to purge 
 its pronouncements of the error and misguidance which are their 
 bane. Not one of our legal tribunals, for instance, would con- 
 tinue to command the respect of the nation for a single week 
 after it had come to tolerate the presence in the witness box of 
 persons who were there for the express purpose of misleading 
 the court, and who had again and again been shown to have 
 uttered what they knew to be false. Yet this impotence in the 
 presence of carefully-elaborated falsehood is only one of the many 
 weaknesses of our electoral judgment-seat, as the reader is by 
 this time fully aware. .When these imperfections have been 
 remedied, and rwhen the requirements of the Third Canon have 
 been fulfilled up to the utmost verge of human foresight and 
 capacity, then, indeed, an appeal from the electoral judgment may 
 well 'be rendered difficult in the extreme, for it will be an appeal 
 from the higher to the lower tribunal. Till that time comes, the 
 existing facilities for the lodgment of election petitions might well 
 be rendered more adequate to their work, and protected from 
 the abuses which are at the moment only too conspicuous. The 
 only change required as regards the preliminary deposit of ^1,000 
 is (a) that the petition shall not be filed without its actual payment 
 in cash (at present a petitioner has three days in which to find 
 money or recognisances) ; and (b) that where only a re-count is 
 asked for, the deposit shall be reduced to a maximum of ^100. 
 
 The demand for facility and irresponsibility in the filing of 
 election petitions is of course only one of the natural utterances 
 
 271
 
 ELECTION PETITIONS. 
 
 of defeated candidates and partisans, who may, and do in many 
 cases, believe in the truth of the charges of bribery, treating, and 
 wholesale violation of the law, which they fling about in wild pro- 
 fusion. But the critical auditor of these passionate denunciations 
 is apt to ask himself why, if the constituency be hopelessly cor- 
 rupt, he who denounces its corruption should ever have sought 
 that which he called the honour of representing it; and why, if a 
 petition be actually lodged, those who are responsible for it will, in 
 nine cases out of ten, seek to evade inquiry into their own pro- 
 cedure by a careful abstention from claiming the seat. The plain 
 truth is that an election petition is occasionally utilised, with 
 absolute impunity, as a cloke of maliciousness. The employment 
 of an election petition as .a necessary and honest remedy for 
 the constituency or for the defeated candidate is the legi- 
 timate limit of its availability. That it should be used, 
 as it now occasionally is, merely as a means of annoying 
 the successful candidate, is a state of things which no highly de- 
 veloped political community ought to tolerate for a moment. 
 There is, however (as students of the inside history of the election 
 petitions of the last twenty years know perfectly well), nothing in the 
 present state of the law to prevent a single enemy, or a syndicate 
 of enemies, of a successful candidate from presenting an election 
 petition against his return. " Many petitions, to my knowledge," 
 said Mr. E. C. Cooke (then the " prescribed officer " for election 
 petitions), "have been presented, to use as mild an expression as 
 I can, causa ulciscendi." (Minutes of Evidence before the Royal 
 Commission, 1897. Q. 264.) In accordance with practice, the 
 petition itself (with which, in the first instance, no security for 
 costs need be lodged) will allege every election offence known to the 
 law. The newspapers, in announcing the presentation, will mention 
 that the successful candidate is charged with bribery, treating, 
 personation, undue influence, illegal payments, and illegal hiring; 
 and the public, which is not yet learned in the technique of elec- 
 tion law, rapidly arrives at the conclusion that as the presence 
 of smoke is prima-facie evidence of the activity of fire, so those 
 charges would not have been made if tnere were no basis for them. 
 In some cases, as no security will ever be provided, the petition 
 will fall to the ground, leaving the candidate as the impotent and 
 remediless sufferer from the libels thus freely circulated in the 
 shape of charges framed in falsity and embroidered with spite. 
 If the security is provided, and the petition proceeds, a 
 great proportion of the allegations, it is true, will vanish as the 
 result of an order for " particulars," but of this the public, to 
 whom the original charges were announced as with the blare of 
 trumpets, never knows. The petition may or may not go to 
 trial ; but if the end of it is failure, the ultimate safety of his 
 seat is small consolation to the* respondent when he discovers that 
 
 272
 
 ELECTION PETITIONS. 
 
 the proceedings from first to last have been financed by personal 
 enemies, simply for the purpose of annoying him. There is no 
 other case in English law in which criminal charges may, with 
 absolute impunity, be wilfully made for the gratification of per- 
 sonal or party malice, without any inquiry as to their truth, and 
 in. absolute carelessness and recklessness whether they are true 
 or not. 
 
 Check the Malicious Petitioner. 
 
 What is necessary, then, is to impose some check on the 
 malicious petitioner, and for that purpose we might fall back on 
 the simple method of the disclosure of identities. The person, or 
 persons, who presents the petition should be required to file an 
 affidavit, not later than the morning upon which the trial of the 
 petition begins (and, if it is not proceeded with, the filing of the 
 affidavit should be a condition of permission to withdraw), setting 
 forth either (i) that the petitioner or petitioners is or are from 
 his or their own resources prosecuting the petition and paying all 
 the costs thereof; or (2) giving the name and address of every 
 person, and every club, society, or association who or which has 
 contributed any funds to the cost of initiating or conducting the 
 petition, and stating the amount of such contribution. Such 
 affidavit should be read in court, so as to afford publicity to its 
 contents. The petitioner or petitioners should be made, by 
 statute, the first witness (or witnesses) in support of the petition; 
 not because it is certain that they will have any evidence to give, 
 but in order that counsel for the respondent may cross-examine 
 them upon the affidavit, if he think it desirable. Falsity 
 in the affidavit should be severely punished ; and, on the 
 other hand, so as to keep the information complete, 
 there should be an obligation to file a supplementary affidavit, 
 containing, mutatis mutandis, similar particulars, not less than 
 twenty-one, nor more than twenty-eight days after the delivery of 
 judgment. Finally, all persons, clubs, societies, and associations 
 providing funds should be deemed co-petitioners, and be made 
 subject to every liability arising from that fact. There is surely 
 nothing very unreasonable in requiring the disclosure of identity, 
 and the assumption of responsibility, by persons who put forward 
 criminal charges against a man who is, prima facie, the choice of 
 his fellow-citizens as their representative in Parliament. Even 
 these suggested provisions, drastic as they are, do not, in the 
 penal sense, seriously affect the petition financed by a rich man 
 indulging himself from a safe position in the background, for the 
 obligation to pay costs would of itself be no check upon him ; but 
 the compulsory disclosure of his identity would probably offer a 
 very serious obstacle to misplaced ambition of this kind, and 
 bring the "malicious petition" system to an end. Whether or not 
 T 273
 
 ELECTION PETITIONS. 
 
 the financing of election petitions, by persons who have no bona- 
 fide interest in the affairs of the affected constituency, is main- 
 tenance (and therefore a criminal offence), the dread of a wide 
 publicity, with the resulting exposure of motives, would be an all- 
 sufficient deterrent to an illegitimate and merely malicious move- 
 ment, while it would offer no obstacle to the honest and bona-fide 
 employment of the election petition courts. Those who have been 
 behind the scenes of election petitions (on both sides) of the last 
 twenty years will have no difficulty in understanding the import- 
 ance of these suggestions and the necessity of the adoption of 
 some such measures as have been briefly outlined. 
 
 Claim of the Seat Should be Implied. 
 
 Another very obvious (and to the present writer's mind, very 
 mischievous) flaw in the law relating to election petitions is the 
 power conferred upon a defeated candidate who presents a 
 petition, or upon the persons who petition in his interest, to evade 
 the submission of his own electoral methods to the scrutiny of the 
 election petition court. A B, a defeated candidate, petitions 
 against the return of C D, and sets forth the usual array of 
 charges of corrupt and illegal practices. If A B also claims the 
 seat C D may retaliate with a cross-petition, or as it is techni- 
 cally called, a recriminatory petition. He will in this way allege 
 in effect that even if he, C D, has been guilty of such offences as 
 to forfeit the seat, A B cannot take it, for he, too, has been 
 guilty of offences which C D proceeds to specify by means of 
 particulars. These charges A B will have to 1 answer, as if he 
 were the successful candidate, and C D the petitioner. More pro 
 bably, however, A B will refrain from claiming the seat, in order 
 to evade meeting the recriminatory charges. Then, if C D is 
 unseated, A B may stand as candidate. His return, in view of 
 the invariable unpopularity of the petitioning party, is extremely 
 improbable; but, till he is returned, C D is practically impotent 
 to strike. If, however, A B is successful, C D may then 
 petition in turn, basing his action, if he chooses, on alleged illegal 
 and corrupt practices committed at the original election, as well as 
 at the more recent. Clearly, we require a provision that the elec- 
 tion shall not be challenged by, on or behalf of, a man who is un- 
 tvilling toi subject his methods and procedure to the same critical 
 judicial scrutiny that he invokes against his opponent. What is 
 wanted is the right for every respondent to challenge the election 
 tactics of a petitioner (if he was a candidate), or of the ex-candi- 
 date in whose behalf the petitioners are acting (if the ex-candidate 
 himself does not petition), whether the seat is claimed or not. In 
 a peculiarly hard case, where the seat was not claimed because 
 the recriminatory case must have been instantly fatal to the 
 petitioner, the writer once suggested that a collusive petition, 
 
 274
 
 ELECTION PETITIONS. 
 
 together with a claim' to the seat for the petitioner, be presented by 
 friends of the respondent. This would have entitled the re- 
 spondent to make recriminatory charges, but the real nature and 
 purpose of the second petition would have had to be explained 
 to the judges at the very outset of the proceedings, and it was open 
 to grave doubt if the court would have permitted it to go on. The 
 proper remedy is the enactment which has been suggested, that a 
 petition shall, ipso facto, confer the right to present a recrimina- 
 tory case, whether the seat is claimed or not ; or, that a petitioner 
 shall be deemed to claim the seat either for himself (if he was a 
 candidate) or for the candidate (if the candidate himself does not 
 petition). Of course, there are many cases where a respondent 
 would not desire to make recriminatory charges. But where he 
 does not he should have the opportunity secured to him. It -is 
 as much in the public interest that the petitioner's conduct should 
 be scrutinised as it is that the respondent should answer the 
 charges against him or his agents. Incidentally, this provision 
 would check the sinister activity of the malicious petitioner, who 
 would think twice before he did that which must expose his own 
 protege to attack. 
 
 Petitions "Financed" by Peers. 
 
 The financing of election petitions by Peers is perhaps not a 
 common occurrence, but there have been one or two rather 
 flagrant instances. Inasmuch as the pre-election interference of 
 Peers in a Parliamentary contest is resented by the House of 
 Commons as a breach of privilege, their post-election endeavour 
 to set aside the verdict of the electorate by the interposition of 
 another tribunal appears to be open to grave objection. The in- 
 trusion of the influence of Peers, in an attempt to upset an election 
 after the poll has been declared, may be just as potent for mis- 
 chief as their interference with the freedom of the electorate 
 before the poll is taken. It might, perhaps, be conceded that 
 where a Peer has large and real interests in the welfare of a given 
 constituency, and it appears to him that its electoral judgment 
 has been obtained or vitiated by corrupt or illegal practices, he 
 has some semblance of a right to finance an election petition. But 
 it must not be forgotten that even in a case of this kind the 
 interposition of a Peer is not wholly free from: menace to the 
 unrestrained constitutional expression of the popular will, for who, 
 except the Peer himself, is to judge whether the circumstances are 
 such as to justify him ? Strictly speaking, the fact that he is him- 
 self (not being an elector) incapable of presenting a petition, 
 ought to debar him from entering the arena at all, in an effort to 
 set aside that which is prima -facie the verdict of a class whose 
 deliberations he is, or should be, precluded from sharing or in- 
 fluencing. And where the interference has its origin in personal 
 
 2 75
 
 ELECTION PETITIONS. 
 
 motives it amounts to a grave constitutional danger, which might 
 easily grow into a great abuse. Seldom as it occurs, an indication 
 of its potentialities could not be omitted from a study which is 
 intended to be, within its limits, exhaustive. 
 
 Election Commissioners. 
 
 Where the election judges on the trial of an election petition re- 
 port that corrupt practices have extensively prevailed at the elec- 
 tion to which the petition related, or that there is reason to be- 
 lieve in their extensive prevalence at such election; or where two 
 or more electors make allegations of general corrupt practices, in 
 a petition to the House of Commons, presented within twenty-one 
 days of the return of a member, Election Commissioners will be 
 appointed by the Crown, on a joint address from both Houses of 
 Parliament. The Commissioners must be barristers of not less than 
 seven years standing, not members of Parliament, and not (except 
 as recorders of any city or borough) in the employment of the 
 Crown. After their appointment they hold an inquiry in the con- 
 stituency to which their appointment relates, for the purposes of 
 which they have extensive powers of summoning witnesses and 
 granting indemnities, which protect a truthful witness from punish- 
 ment for offences which, in giving evidence, he has been compelled 
 to admit ; and they subsequently report the result of their inquiries. 
 The reader will note that they have not the same power as an elec- 
 tion court composed of two judges, in that they cannot unseat the 
 member. Their efforts are directed to an inspection of the acts 
 and exploits of the minor actors in the campaign. 
 
 Summary of Suggestions. 
 
 The malicious, or syndicate, petition to be suppressed by the 
 compulsory disclosure of the real identity of the petitioner, or 
 petitioners, and of those who are " financing " him or them. 
 
 Petitioner or petitioners to be deemed to claim the seat, so that 
 respondent may always subject his opponent's electoral conduct 
 to judicial scrutiny. 
 
 " Financing " of petitions by Peers to be especially discouraged 
 where it occurs. 
 
 Security for costs (^1,000) to be paid in cash when petition is 
 lodged, and not subsequently. 
 
 In the case where only a re-count is sought, the security for cost& 
 to be jioo only. 
 
 276
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 The Dismissal of Members. 
 
 Up to the point which we have now attained the writer has not 
 hesitated to put his opinions in the categorical form, with a pre- 
 liminary reminder that none is so conscious as himself of the diffi- 
 culties which embarrass, and the imperfections which must conse- 
 quently characterise, a primary treatise. But in proceeding to 
 consider the desirability of establishing a department of the con- 
 stitutional mechanism which shall enable a constituency to dismiss 
 its member at any time, the mental attitude of the categorical must 
 be abandoned, though the mode of expression be unchanged. The 
 question is one of the profoundest gravity, only to be approached 
 with such an intellectual environment as constitutes an appropriate 
 blend of the circumspection that is not reckless of peril with the 
 firmness that is not daunted by novelty, even in its application to 
 one of the oldest and noblest of our national institutions. What 
 follows, therefore, is offered for consideration and criticism, not 
 laid down in absolute confidence of its soundness, as political prin- 
 ciple ripe for immediate acceptance. 
 
 The perusal of the Introduction will have shown the reader 
 that it is very difficult, while at the same time very essential, to 
 provide that there should be a more effective and continuous 
 check upon Parliament and upon the Ministry (especially the 
 " Inner Cabinet '') than is at present available in the shape of 
 by-elections and in such more or less spontaneous manifesta- 
 tions of electoral displeasure as meeting's and demonstrations. 
 The best of authorities, wielding a power which is almost abso* 
 lute, for periods which may extend to seven years at a time (and 
 which are capable, according to the precedent of the Septennial 
 Act, of expansion without the consent of the constituencies), might 
 become irresponsible, if not dangerous. Such an authority con- 
 trols the impulses of the constitutional mechanism, and can bring 
 into action all the instruments of coercion by which its will is 
 capable of enforcement upon the citizens. Advanced as we 
 are on the path of political progress, and secure as our ancient 
 and majestic heritage appears to be, it .would be within the power 
 of a single Parliament, with the assistance of a compliant House of 
 Lords, and on the inspiration of an ambitious sovereign, or with 
 the connivance of a weak one, to put back the clock of progress 
 for a hundred years, while the nation looked on 1-n impotent dismay. 
 Eternal vigilance is the price that must be paid for liberty; but 
 vigilance is able to act but ineffectively upon a system under which 
 the furthest outposts of civic liberty are abandoned, f^r seven years 
 at a time, to guardians whose fidelity can be subjected to no con- 
 tinuous, inexorable, and irresistible check. 
 
 277
 
 DISMISSAL OF MEMBERS. 
 
 Relation Between Member and Constituency. 
 
 The truth is that the modern member of Parliament is com- 
 pelled to yield a divided allegiance. The result is that he is 
 tempted to render the more obsequious service to the power 
 which has an instant capacity to reward complaisance and to 
 punish insubordination, rather than to the superior authority (whose 
 punitive capacities are for the time compulsorily suspended. The 
 party whip is near, and powerful ; the constituency far away, and, 
 for the present, impotent. In that way there occasionally arises 
 a disregard of the opinion of the constituency which, in other 
 spheres than the political, would be stamped as mutiny, or some- 
 thing very like it. The illustrations cited in the Introduction will 
 doubtless be fresh in the reader's mind; and he may easily rein- 
 force them by a brief consideration of modern instances of the pur- 
 suance (by both of the older political parties) of a legislative 
 policy which was not ini consonance with the immediate needs of 
 the country, to! the neglect of weightier matters that were of urgent 
 import and paramount interest. 
 
 At the basis of the whole problem, however, lies the question 
 of the exact nature of the relationship subsisting between the 
 member and his constituents. As Professor Lowell says, " The 
 question whether a member of Parliament is the agent of his 
 constituents, morally bound to carry out their wishes, or whether 
 he is to act solely according to his own opinion of the interest of the 
 Kingdom, is as old as Burke's famous discussion with the 
 electors of Bristol. The latter view always has been, and still 
 is, the prevailing one in theory; but the charge that representa- 
 tives have become mere delegates has been constantly cropping 
 up." Burke's opinion has been very recently quoted, and supported, 
 by the Court of Appeal* (Cozens Hardy, M.R., Farwell and 
 Fletcher Moulton, LJJ.), so that we are fortunately furnished 
 with a distinguished and quite contemporaneous statement of his 
 views, illustrated from other authoritative sources, which we may 
 well examine in some detail. 
 
 It will be necessary to bear in mind, however, that the question 
 which was before the Court of Appeal is not the same as that 
 with which (we are here concerned. The Court of Appeal was 
 considering the constitutional aspect of the action of a trade union 
 which supports Parliamentary representation by means of its 
 funds, and requires its members, irrespective of their political 
 opinions, to contribute thereto. We are concerned with the right 
 (if it exist and if it ought to be in terms declared) of a con- 
 stituency to insist that its member shall act according to the 
 pledges which secured its confidence, and without regard to the 
 merely party interests of the Government that happens to be in 
 
 * Osborne v. The Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants of Eng- 
 land, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. The Times, November 30. 1908. 
 
 278
 
 DISMISSAL OF MEMBERS. 
 
 power; and with the further question whether, if he neglect or 
 refuse, the constituency ought to have the right, possessed by all 
 other authorities in similar circumstances, of dismissing an un- 
 profitable and mutinous servant ; and, finally, with the still further 
 question whether, by means of this or some similar method, the 
 constituencies as a whole should have the instant and irresistible 
 power of stimulating, controlling, and checking the Government 
 which exists by their will and acts by their authority. 
 
 The Opinions of Burke Examined. 
 
 The famous views of Burke on the subject of the nature of 
 the relationship between the member and his constituents were 
 quoted in the Court of Appeal from one of his Bristol speeches, in 
 Volume III. of his collected works, at page 19. He says: 
 
 To deliver an opinion is the right of all men. That of constituents is 
 a weighty and respectable opinion which a representative ought always 
 to rejoice to hear and which he ought always most seriously to consider. 
 But authoritative instructions, mandates issued which the member is 
 bound blindly and implicitly to obey, to vote, and to argue for, although, 
 contrary to the clearest conviction of his judgment and conscience, these 
 are things utterly unknown to the laws of this land, and which arise 
 from a fundamental mistake of the whole order and tenor of pur Consti- 
 tution. Parliament is not a congress of Ambassadors from different and 
 hostile interests, which interests each must maintain as an agent and 
 advocate against other agents and advocates, but Parliament is a de- 
 liberative Assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole, 
 where not local purposes, not local prejudices, ought to guide, but the 
 general good resulting from the general reason of the whole. You choose 
 a member, indeed, but when you have chosen him he is not member for 
 Bristol, but he is a member of Parliament. If the local constituent 
 should have an interest or should form a hasty opinion evidently opposite 
 to the real good of the rest of the community, the member for that place 
 ought to be as far as any other from any endeavour to give it effect. 
 
 Let us for a moment consider an analogous case. A large body 
 of private citizens determines to send a medical man to take part 
 in a congress for the advancement of medical science to be held 
 in a foreign land. As none of the citizens possesses expert know- 
 ledge, the instructions given to their representative are simply 
 general. He is to consider the various schemes and suggestions, 
 and to give support where he thinks it is deserved. That is the 
 extent of his instructions, and constitutes the utmost feasible con- 
 trol exercisable over him by the non-technical body for whose 
 interests and ideals he stands. For therm to give him definite 
 instructions to support this theory or that, without any knowledge 
 of its nature and scope or of the other proposals that are to be put 
 forward, were simply to stultify him. He takes the expert equip- 
 ment with him, and adds to it from the information submitted to 
 the congress; and, using his best judgment, he acts in a certain 
 way, subsequently reporting what he has done to those who sent 
 him. That is the position of the representative in Burke's day. 
 
 279
 
 DISMISSAL OF MEMBERS. 
 
 He stood for the single proprietor of a pocket borough, or else 
 for a small, non-representative body of citizens; certainly not for 
 the whole, or any considerable proportion of it. He went to a 
 distant city, (with which communication was slow and difficult. 
 He took with him, doubtless, some experience of the working of 
 such local administrative machinery as we then possessed ; some 
 traditional opinions, heirlooms, it may be, of a long family de- 
 votion to the service of the State; and possibly, though by no 
 means probably, some tincture of the ancient philosophies of 
 government, ' slightly infused, perhaps, with the more advanced 
 dogmas of Hobbes, or the soaring ideals of Milton. By means of 
 his attendance at the National Assembly, reinforced by his conse- 
 quent introduction to the social life and gossip of the capital, he 
 was brought into contact with a world of which the majority of his 
 constituents knew little or nothing. He became more or less ade- 
 quately acquainted with the drift of the latest political intrigue; 
 with the story of the last development of our compulsory 
 eighteenth-century study of the contents of the Continental melting- 
 pot. On the information so obtained, and occasionally on the 
 prompting of other and more insidious influences, he formed his 
 judgment formed it, that is to say, on material to which his com- 
 paratively few constituents had no access, and which, if it had 
 been presented to their intellectual vision, they were incapable of 
 effectively scrutinising. They, like the non-technical citizens who 
 sent their representative to a distant congress, had, indeed, no 
 valid title to interfere in a technical discussion. They must be 
 satisfied, as Burke declared, to give that which the representative 
 might choose to accept as a " weighty and respectable opinion," 
 but not as a mandate. As the enunciation of a political principle 
 of contemporary application, Burke's utterance is unassailable. 
 
 The Member as the Delegate of Experts. 
 
 But now let us suppose our body of citizens to be themselves 
 experts, selecting one of their number to sit in the distant congress. 
 Let us imagine that day by day, and hour by hour, there reach 
 them the reports of its deliberations. These reveal that their 
 representative is pursuing an erratic course, which does not, and 
 cannot, commend itself to their keenly discriminating criticism. 
 He purports to offer their delegated assent to propositions which 
 their judgment utterly repudiates, to schemes that are impracticable 
 and wild ; or else is content to acquiesce in the abasement of the 
 proceedings to the level of mere trifling, unworthy of the strenuous 
 men for whom he stands. Must they be silent at the advent of this 
 unduteous policy ? Nay, must their power be limited to the 
 issue of unavailing protest ? Is it not self-evident that they must 
 either withdraw the authority of the unfaithful servant, or else 
 confess themselves the paralysed beholders of his misconduct ? 
 
 280
 
 DISMISSAL OF MEMBERS. 
 
 Burke spoke of the inexpert minority which must perforce com- 
 mit its destiny to expert hands. Our concern is with the expert 
 majority which, simply for convenience, entrusts the corporate 
 voice and vision to an individual agent; though its judgment is 
 equal to his, and its means of information (as being less coloured 
 by passage through an ever-existent partisan medium, such as 
 that created by subordination to the whips) is generally 
 better. The constituents of a modern member of Parliament fre- 
 quently nay, generally include men of political and intellectual 
 calibre at least equal, if not superior, to his own. They are kept, 
 day by day, and hour by hour, in touch with the problems whose 
 solution he must in their political name attempt. If he is apathetic 
 or acquiescent, are they to have no means of stimulus ? If he is 
 mutinous, is there to be with them no prerogative of effective ad- 
 monition ? It is difficult to' imagine that weighty questions such 
 as these can be answered in the affirmative by a nation which has 
 achieved high distinction in, the political history of the world, and 
 has before it prouder conquests still. The truth is that the 
 principle which Burke was attempting to enunciate cannot main- 
 tain its applicability to a totally different state of political affairs. 
 Burke had no experience of representative government in England 
 and Wales. The great mass of people who might have been 
 represented had, in the first place, no representation ; and, in the 
 second, no capacity to understand its nature, or employ it with in- 
 telligence, if they had possessed it. And if Burke had no ex- 
 perience of representative government in the exact sense of the 
 expression, still less had he either experience or even conception 
 of self-government, properly so called. How could he have it, in 
 days when the free expression of opinion was difficult and danger- 
 ous, when education was rare, and the means of communication 
 limited and slow, and when nearly all that vast realm of scientific 
 daring and discovery, whose frontiers are in our time hourly 
 pushed further into the vast unknown, lay all but still and silent 
 in the darkness ? The science of politics advances like the other 
 great departments of human intellectual achievement ; and Burke's 
 opinion counts for no more, as against a principle of which he did 
 not dream, than would that of Galileo in opposition to spectrum 
 analysis, or that of Columbus in condemnation of the twin-screws 
 of a great ocean liner. Where a political principle depends for its 
 soundness upon some essential and unchangeable truth as, for 
 instance, that the free State must be superior to the slave State 
 in vigour, insight, and civic ideal even such ancient authorities 
 as Aristotle and Cicero may, if the opportunity offers, be cited in 
 its support, and their utterances may ring clear and unchallenge- 
 able across the gulf of centuries. But none, even of these giant 
 minds, is a safe guide in the study of great ideals which were not 
 only outside their experience, but utterly foreign to their 
 
 281
 
 DISMISSAL OF MEMBERS. 
 
 conceptions. When the onward march of political discovery takes us 
 into the presence of the questions which these newer principles 
 are alone competent to solve, we are thrown back upon the solemn 
 responsibility of our own judgment. The contemporary mind 
 must grapple 'with its own peculiar problem, and it is a beggarly 
 citizenship that is not eager for the onset. 
 
 A Passing Glance at Blackstone. 
 
 There is a quoted dictum of Blackstone which exhibits the utter 
 want of application, to twentieth-century needs, of eighteenth -cen- 
 tury principles. Blackstone says that " Every member, though 
 chosen by one particular district, when elected and returned, serves 
 for the whole realm. For the end of his coming thither is not 
 particular but general, not barely to advantage his constituents, 
 but the commonwealth. Therefore, he is not bound like a deputy 
 in the United Provinces to consult with or take the advice of his 
 constituents upon any particular point unless he himself thinks it 
 proper or prudent so to do." But, seeing that his constituents are, 
 at least once in every seven years, the sole judges of his behaviour, 
 whether as regards themselves or the realm, their competence to 
 form a verdict is admitted. Is their, competence, then, a variable 
 and periodical function, or is it continuous ? And if continuous, 
 why restrict its exercise at any time, if, in the opinion of those 
 who possess it, the occasion demands its use ? 
 
 The Scheme Outlined. 
 
 Without further preface than these brief considerations, there- 
 fore, we proceed to the enunciation of the tentative scheme which 
 is offered for consideration and criticism. The detail has only 
 been inserted so far as it is necessary to the argument. The 
 minute regulation of the process, by legal safeguards controlling it 
 at every point, presents no difficulty if the general principles com- 
 mend themselves. 
 
 Process of Dismissal First Stage. 
 
 (i) Not less than 10 per cent, of the registered electors in any consti- 
 tuency may by signed requisition (which shall be called the Primary 
 Requisition), addressed to the returning officer, and lodged with him, 
 not earlier than one month from the declaration of the poll at any 
 election in such constituency, accompanied by the deposit equal to half 
 of the maximum statutory election expenditure of a single candidate 
 (or of joint candidates in a two-member constituency, if it is intended to 
 seek the resignations of both members), require the returning officer to 
 permit a test of the opinion of the electorate on the question whether 
 the member (or members) for such constituency be required to resign. 
 
 Such Primary Requisition might be in the form following, which 
 should be printed, in full, at the head of every sheet : 
 
 To THE RETURNING OFFICER FOR THE BOROUGH (OR OTHERWISE), ETC. 
 
 We, the undersigned, all being registered electors of the Borough (or 
 otherwise) of Durberville, to the .number of 1,510 (being more than 10 
 
 282
 
 DISMISSAL OF MEMBERS. 
 
 per cent, of the registered electors of the said Borough) do hereby 
 requite you to take such steps as the law directs for ascertaining 
 whether Mr. John Smith, member of Parliament; for the said Borough, 
 shall be required to resign his seat, and we appoint (or assent to the 
 appointment of) Henry Williams, of 114, High Street, in the said 
 Borough, chartered accountant (an elector of the said Borough, his 
 number on the Parliamentary Register being 14,289), as agent to us, 
 the Requisitioners : and we appoint (or assent to the appointment of) 
 the following ten persons, all being electors of the said Borough, as 
 the Supervisory Committee of the said Requisitioners that is to say : 
 
 Number on Register. 
 
 Peter Johnson, 120, South Street, Durfoerville 7216 
 
 William Bell, 15, West Street, Durberville 722 
 
 Henry Abbot, 22. East Street, iDurberville 442 
 
 .Etc., Etc. 
 
 The returning officer shall forthwith give public notice of the re- 
 ceipt of the Primary Requisition, which may be inspected (at a place 
 within the constituency to be fixed by the returning officer) by the 
 sitting member and by any registered elector free of charge, and by 
 any other person on payment of a shilling. Copies shall be supplied 
 at 6d. per 100 words transcribed. 
 
 (2) Within seven days of the publication of the said public notice 
 of the receipt of the Primary Requisition the sitting member or any 
 elector may, in writing, give notice to the returning officer that he alleges, 
 and undertakes to prove, that 
 
 (a) the purported signatures to the Primary .Requisition, or some of 
 them, are forgeries, or 
 
 (b) That the persons signing the Primary Requisition, or some of 
 them, are, in fact, not registered electors, or 
 
 (c) That the persons signing the Primary Requisition, or some of 
 them, are under the disqualification contemplated in 3 (e) below. 
 
 But no individual elector shall object to more than five signatures. 
 
 (3) If such allegations are duly made, the returning officer shall forth- 
 with hold a public inquiry into their truth, and 
 
 (a) if he finds that some or any of the signatures are in fact forged, 
 shall exclude the forged names from the total aggregate of signatures 
 to the Primary Requisition, and report the circumstances to the Public 
 Prosecutor, who shall take such action as he deems advisable ; 
 
 (b) shall expunge from the Primary Requisition the names of any 
 persons who are not in fact registered electors ; 
 
 (c) if the result of (a) and (6) is to reduce the total valid signatures 
 by 5 per cent., or any greater proportion of their aggregate, he shall 
 forthwith declare the Primary Requisition null and void ; and 
 
 (d) the deposit paid (as above provided) shall be forfeited to the 
 local authority (or the Crown) ; and 
 
 (e) all electors who signed the said Primary Requisition shall be 
 incapable, for two years, of signing any further Primary Requisition, 
 or any Final Declaration (see below). The same disqualification shall 
 attach to any elector who shall, without reasonable and probable cause, 
 have lodged an objection to the validity of any signature in the 
 Primary Requisition. What is a " reasonable and probable cause " is a 
 question of fact for the determination of the returning officer, but any 
 elector may in this matter appeal from the decision of the returning 
 officer to one of the judges on the election petition rota for the time 
 being. 
 
 283
 
 DISMISSAL OF MEMBERS. 
 
 (4) If no signatures are objected to within the specified period, 
 or if the inquiry shows that the sustained abjections do not invali- 
 date 5 per cent, of the signatures, or bring their aggregate below 10 
 per cent, of the registered electors, the returning officer shall forth- 
 with report to the Speaker of the House of Commons, and to the mem- 
 ber for the constituency, that the provisions of the Primary Requisition 
 have been -complied with, and he shall then after an interval cf seven 
 days proceed to the arrangements for the Final Declaration. 
 
 (5) In the inquiry held under the provisions of (3) the register of 
 electors shall be conclusive evidence of its own accuracy, and no ques- 
 tion as to the absence of a qualification or the existence of a disqualifica- 
 tion, in the case of a registered elector (other than that contemplated in 
 3 (e) ) shall be entertained by the returning officer. 
 
 Objections and Explanations. 
 
 The suggestion that a Primary Requisition should be deliverable 
 at any time after the expiration, of a month from the declaration 
 of the poll may seem almost revolutionary. As the electorate 
 has just pronounced its verdict, the objector may argue that it is 
 futile and superfluous, and possibly mischievous, to offer such an 
 immediate opportunity of reconsideration as almost places a pre- 
 mium upon fickleness and upon an absence of finality and responsi- 
 bility. But the responsibility of the member is quite as im- 
 portant as the- (responsibility of his constituents. The principle 
 upon which these provisions are based is that of a continuously 
 enforceable control of the representative by those who selected 
 him. An interval of six months or more after the election, during 
 which no Primary Requisition could be made, would defeat the 
 operation of this principle. There may, for instance, be amend- 
 ments to the address at a very early stage in the history of a new 
 Parliament, and a member's constituents may desire to make it 
 quite clear to him that electoral opinions and interests, and not 
 the preservation of the Government from peril or defeat, must be 
 his first consideration. But this can only be brought home to him 
 by the knowledge of their power of immediate action if he betrays 
 his trust. If the power were suspended for six months the mem- 
 ber might well count upon some softening, by time, of the resent- 
 ment naturally aroused by his faithlessness, so< as to relieve him of 
 its consequences. And, if we extend the survey from the single 
 member to the whole body of the House of Commons, we shall see 
 that a suspension for six months or more of the power of lodging a 
 Primary Requisition will involve the non-responsibility of the 
 House to the electorate for that period. That is a contingency 
 which is quite inconsistent with such a continuously effective con- 
 trol, and such an instantly applicable restraint or stimulus, as the 
 Fourth Canon postulates. 
 
 But clearly the power to lodge the Primary Requisition must be 
 guarded by such restraints as shall compel full realisation of its 
 seriousness, and enforce upon the persons who lodge it, or who 
 are consenting parties to its lodgment, a consideration of the 
 
 284
 
 DISMISSAL OF MEMBERS. 
 
 consequences to themselves which may result from its being prema- 
 ture or irregular. For this reason provision is made for the deposit 
 of a substantial sum of money, which would, in some of the more 
 extensive constituencies, be very large indeed, though it will be 
 reduced to easily manageable magnitude by a scheme of Propor- 
 tional Representation ; for the public inspection of the sig- 
 natures, so that there shall be no fighting in the dark; 
 for the receipt of objections to the validity of the sig- 
 natures; and for the punishment of wilful forgery by 
 means of the criminal law, and of carelessness in the preparation 
 of the Primary Requisitkxi by means of the deprivation of power 
 to join in any further movement of the same kind for two years. 
 At first sight the two years suspension for all the signatories may 
 strike the observer as unduly drastic. But it is intended to en- 
 force seriousness and deliberation on all who join in the Primary 
 Requisition to ensure that no elector shall sign it without inquiry 
 as to the political accountability of the persons who> are promoting 
 it, nor yet without a full realisation of the fact that his own heed- 
 lessness or rashness in the matter may involve him in the loss of a 
 valuable political privilege. It might well be provided that within 
 twenty-four hours of the public notice given by the returning 
 officer of the receipt of the Primary Requisition, any signatory 
 may, by written notice to the returning officer, withdraw his sig- 
 nature; and that if the result of such withdrawals is to reduce 
 the number of signatures below the effective limit, the Primary Re- 
 quisition shall 'become null and void, and (so far as they are appli- 
 cable) the provisions of (3) (above) shall come into effect. This 
 would ensure that the promoters of a Primary Requisition would 
 only select for its signatories such electors as knew their own mind : 
 and also that they would add to its own minimum content of signa/- 
 tories a sufficient number to counteract the operation of any illicit 
 influences which might be successfully brought to bear, in isolated 
 cases, for the purpose of securing withdrawals and so of rendering 
 abortive the whole movement. 
 
 The Meaning of the Proposals. 
 
 These provisions mean that in a borough constituency of 12,500 
 electors, with a maximum election expenditure of ^680, the 
 Primary Requisition could be delivered by 1,250 electors, who 
 were prepared to deposit ^340 with it. In view of the checks, 
 safeguards, and penalties with which, a,s will be seen, the pro- 
 posed process is surrounded, the 10 per cent, proportion is pro- 
 bably sufficient. In great constituencies like Romford, New- 
 castle, Walthamstow, Oldham, Wandsworth, the City of London, 
 and Portsmouth, the Primary Requisition would require more than 
 3,000 signatures, every one of which must be undeniably valid. 
 
 285
 
 DISMISSAL OF MEMBERS. 
 
 The deposit might be a larger proportion of the maximum were it 
 not that in huge constituencies of 30,000 to 50,000 electors its 
 magnitude would in that case be a serious handicap (if, indeed, 
 it is not so under existing circumstances) to what might be a 
 perfectly bona-fide movement. To require a deposit equiva- 
 lent to the maximum itself would involve, in the Romford divi- 
 sion, the payment of more than ,3,000, and the requirement 
 might well stifle the movement at its birth. On the other hand, 
 the deposit must be kept at a substantial figure, partly because 
 the need for the money would act as a check upon restless and 
 turbulent irresponsibles, and partly because, if the Primary Re- 
 quisition is filed, the returning officer will be compelled to incur 
 expenses which, at this stage of the proceedings in any case, ought 
 not to fall upon the public. The adoption of a system of Propor- 
 tional Representation and a more reasonable scale of election ex- 
 penses, will modify, in the proper direction, the conditions under 
 which a Primary Requisition can be lodged. The purpose of the 
 appointment of an Agent to the Requisitioned and of the Super- 
 visory Committee, is, in the first place, to provide a responsible 
 official of the movement with whom the returning officer and other 
 persons can communicate in the same manner as is nowi done with 
 an election agent : and, in the second, to secure an equally re- 
 sponsible official for the exercise, in company with the Super- 
 visory Committee, of a power whose nature will appear when we 
 ccxme to the question of the Final Declaration. The further pro- 
 visions for the working of the scheme may now be proceeded with : 
 
 (6) Not less than seven nor more than ten days after the date of the 
 report of the valid completion of the Primary Requisition made to the 
 Speaker, the Agent of the Requisitioners and the Supervisory Committee 
 shall, by notice under their own hands (such notice being prima facie 
 invalid unless signed by all of them ; but the returning officer, upon 
 proof of the death or physical or mental incapacity of not more than 
 two, shall accept a notice signed by. a number which may in no case be 
 less than nine) give notice either 
 
 (a) that they do not desire to proceed to the Final Declaration, or 
 
 (b) that they do desire to proceed to the Final Declaration. 
 
 If at the end of the ten days no notice has been received, the notice 
 contemplated in (a) shall be deemed to have been given and the pro- 
 ceedings shall be at an end. 
 
 If notice (a) is given, or deemed to be given, the whole of the persons 
 signing the Primary Requisition shall be incapable, for a period of one 
 year, of signing any further Primary Requisition, or any Final Declara- 
 tion ; and the deposit, less the expenses incurred by the returning officer, 
 shall be forfeited to the local authority (or the Crown). 
 
 The penalty of one year's loss of the right of joining in a Primary 
 Requisition or a Final Declaration is an indispensable means of en- 
 forcing due seriousness in the initiation of such movements as are 
 here contemplated. A two years' deprivation has been suggested 
 above, in the case where the Primary Requisition collapses on ac- 
 count of forged or otherwise invalid signatures. Without such 
 
 286
 
 DISMISSAL OF MEMBERS. 
 
 provisions the same persons might be encouraged, possibly by 
 sinister influences, to present a series of Primary Requisitions^ 
 dropping one and starting another, so as to keep a member in a 
 state of continual uneasiness and uncertainty. The controlling 
 power of the constituency over the member is not imperilled by 
 the imposition of this discouragement upon irresponsibility, for 
 there still remain 90 per cent, of the electorate who are capable of 
 initiating a movement for the dismissal of their representative. 
 
 (7) Where a member resigns, or dies, or is expelled the House, at any 
 time after the lodging of the Primary Requisition and before the report of 
 the returning officer to the Speaker that the Final Declaration has been 
 validly emitted, all proceedings initiated under a Primary Requisition, 
 at whatever stage they may have arrived, shall be ipso -facto determined 
 and the unexpended balance of the deposit made with the Primary Re- 
 quisition shall be returned to the Agent to the Requisitioners, on their 
 behalf, and his receipt shall be a good discharge to the returning officer. 
 
 A Period of Serious Deliberation. 
 
 Aftei the provisions of the Primary Requisition! have been, com- 
 plied with, and the report to that effect has been made by the 
 returning officer to the Speaker, it will be noticed that there is 
 provided an interval of seven days. For many reasons it seems 
 desirable at this point of the proceedings that there should be a 
 compulsory pause, in order that all parties may be forced to take a 
 sober and deliberate view of the position of affairs. The member, 
 for instance, may be able, even at this stage of the procedure, to 
 convince the promoters of the Primary Requisition that they are 
 mistaken; or he may be willing to give, and they to accept, such 
 pledges as shall render any further action unnecessary. The 
 member has an undoubted strategic advantage over his critics. 
 They possess, as will be seen, only a qualified, while he has an ab- 
 solute, power of precipitating a final appeal to the electors.. He 
 may force their hand by resigning, at any moment, and fighting the 
 seat again: while they, on their side, can only compel him 
 to do so if they can obtain the very extensive electoral support 
 (detailed below) which is necessary for the valid emission of the 
 Final Declaration. There are considerations which would, indeed, 
 give preliminary pause even to the organisers of a Primary 
 Requisition, since a popular member, assured of the confidence of 
 a majority of his constituents, might expose the movement to ridi- 
 cule by at once precipitating the actual conflict at the polls ; or 
 he might, if he had the same assurance of continued popularity, 
 leave the promoters to complete the Primary Requisition and to 
 make what would, under the circumstances, be a futile attempt at 
 the emission of the Final Declaration. We proceed to the means 
 of emitting the Final Declaration : 
 
 (8) Upon receipt of the notice (6) (b) the returning officer shall 
 forthwith issue to the Agent to the Requisitioners, and the Supervisory 
 
 287
 
 DISMISSAL OF MEMBERS. 
 
 Committee (no fewer than five of such persons being present to give a 
 written receipt) such a number of official Final Declaration forms as 
 equals the number of signatories to the Primary Requisition. 
 
 [Thus, in a constituency of 15,500, there will have been 1,550 Pri- 
 mary Requisitioned at least. The returning officer will therefore issue 
 1,550 Final Declaration forms, at least.] 
 
 Such Final Declaration forms shall each contain space for ten signa- 
 tures and no more, and shall be in the following form : 
 
 WE, THE UNDERSIGNED, being electors of the Borough [or otherwise] of 
 
 , do hereby solemnly and sincerely declare that we 
 
 require , Member of Parliament for the 
 
 said constituency, to resign his seat as such member. 
 
 Signature.* j Address. No. on Register. I Witness's Initials 
 
 ........... 
 
 i 
 
 i "" 
 
 ... ... 
 
 And I , being one of the signatories 
 
 to the Primary Requisition delivered on the day of 
 
 in the year do hereby also solemnly 
 
 and sincerely declare that (a) the first signature in the above Final De- 
 claration List is my own : (b) that each of the other signatures to the said 
 list has been affixed in my presence ; (c) that the person affixing such 
 signature is in each case personally known to me as the registered elector 
 of that name, residence, and number on the register. 
 
 Signed 
 
 No elector may sign more than one List. 
 
 * The signature must be in ink. Pencil, or copying ink pencil, signa- 
 tures, or signatures affixed with a rubber stamp, are invalid. A voter who 
 is unable to write may sign with a "X," but in that case his signature 
 must be specially attested by an additional witness, who must be an 
 elector. 
 
 An Elector's Battle. 
 
 It will be noticed that each of these units of the Final 
 Declaration has to be filled up by ten electors, of whom one wit- 
 nesses the signatures of all the rest. They must, therefore, be per- 
 sons known to him, and upon whom he can exercise his powers of 
 persuasion ; and he, on his part, must have such a genuine interest 
 in the endeavour to remove the obnoxious member as will sustain 
 him in the canvassing of ten electors for that purpose. Inasmuch 
 as no single elector can witness the signatures of more than one 
 unit of the Final Declaration, a peremptory stay is imposed upon 
 the activity of a small body of persistently canvassing enthusiasts. 
 All, or nearly all, of those electors who were responsible for the 
 Primary Requisition are required to carry on the movement, by 
 means of their own energy, up to the Final Declaration. And, 
 
 288
 
 DISMISSAL OF MEMBERS. 
 
 inasmuch as the power to witness signatures is limited to electors 
 (and payment would be forbidden) the misplaced activity of the 
 " outside organisations " or of .any maliciously inspired group of 
 wire-pullers is excluded from the arena. This is an elector's battle. 
 If the elector does not want to fight, the conflict dies, and political 
 peace resumes her interrupted sway. With this explanatory in- 
 terlude, we resume the description of the procedure : 
 
 (9) At any time within seven days from the issue of the official forms 
 for the Final Declaration the Committee of the Requisitioners, or not 
 less than eight of their number, may 
 
 (a) give written notice to the returning officer that they do not intend 
 to proceed further in the matter ; or 
 
 (b) give written notice, not being less than 24 hours, that they intend 
 to hand to the returning officer the completed forms, making up the statu- 
 tory minimum of signatures for the Final Declaration. Such notice shall 
 not be given to expire at a later hour than 8 o'clock on the evening of the 
 seventh day, at which hour, if the said forms have not been presented, 
 the proceedings for the Final Declaration shall be deemed abandoned. 
 
 The forms signed for the purposes of any Final Declaration, whether 
 ultimately presented or not, shall not be available for use in support of 
 any other Final Declaration. 
 
 (10) At 9 o'clock in the morning on the day after the receipt of the 
 forms purporting to constitute the statutory minimum of signatures 
 (55 P^ cent - of the total electorate) for a Final Declaration, the returning 
 officer shall proceed to check and count the signatures in the presence 
 of 
 
 (a) the member, if ihe choose to be present, and ten other persons, 
 nominated in writing to him, and sworn to secrecy as in the case of a 
 count of votes [In a constituency of over 20,000 electors a larger number 
 of scrutineers might be permissible] ; 
 
 (b) the Secretary to the Requisitioners, and the Committee to the 
 Requisitioners, sworn to secrecy as in (a) [see (a) as to large constitu- 
 encies]. 
 
 The signatures shall be checked in the same manner as is the case with 
 the nomination papers at an election [i.e., a nomination], and the re- 
 turning officer shall provide a sufficient staff (based upon the number of 
 forms actually lodged) to ensure the performance of the work by six 
 o'clock p.m. 
 
 This, if we exclude two hours for meals, gives seven hours for 
 the work. Allowing thirty names per hour per checker, this 
 means five checkers for every 1,000 electors of the number re- 
 quired to make up the statutory minimum for the valid Final 
 Declaration. Thus, in a constituency of 20,000 electors, a minimum 
 of 11,000 will be required for a valid Final Declaration. There- 
 fore, the returning oifficer will require at least fifty-five checkers 
 familiar with the register, and would be wise to provide more, in 
 case of the number of signatures rising far above the statutory 
 minimum. 
 
 (n) The member, or any scrutineer on his behalf, may object that any 
 signature, purporting to be that of an elector, is not in fact that of such 
 elector, and the returning officer shall thereupon set aside the unit list 
 in which such signature appears, but shall include in the total of signa- 
 tures to the Final Declaration the other signatures, to which objection is 
 U 289
 
 DISMISSAL OF MEMBERS. 
 
 not taken, in such unit list : unless the signature objected to shall be 
 that of the elector-witness, in which case none of the signatures in such 
 form shall be counted in arriving at the total. 
 
 Any objection must be in writing, signed by the person making it. 
 
 If the number of signatures shall be reduced, by means of objections, 
 below the statutory minimum of 55 per cent., the returning officer shall 
 forthwith hold an inquiry into the validity of the objections. 
 
 If, in the opinion of the returning officer, any objection shall, upon 
 inquiry, be found to have been made without reasonable and probable 
 cause, the person making it shall be fined a sum not exceeding ^5 and 
 shall be incapable, for two years, of voting at a Parliamentary election. 
 
 If any signatures shall be found to be forged, or to be those of persons 
 who are not electors, or who, being electors, are under the disqualifica- 
 tion arising from their taking part in previous Primary Requisitions, the 
 returning officer shall report the facts to the Public Prosecutor. 
 
 If, at the conclusion of the counting, the signatures to which objection 
 has not been taken shall amount to not less than 55 per cent, of the total 
 number of electors on the register, the returning officer shall report such 
 result to the speaker of the House of Commons. 
 
 The provisions as to the finality of the Register of Electors (5, supra) 
 shall apply at the counting of votes for the Final Declaration. 
 
 Is 55 per Cent Too Low? 
 
 To the objection that 55 per cent, is too low a percentage of the 
 electorate to be entrusted with the tremendous power of dismissal 
 the answer is that as the right of election is wielded by 
 50.002 per cent, of the registered voters, a sensibly larger propor- 
 tion may reasonably exercise the converse authority. In an elec- 
 torate of 10,000, 55 per cent, of the electorate consists of 5,500 
 voters, or a clear majority of 1,000 on a poll of the total register. 
 If at an actual contest a majority of 1,000 were recorded, it would 
 be generally accepted as a definite electoral pronouncement upon 
 the question at issue. But, in fact, as all campaigners know, 
 55 per cent, of the total electorate would represent between 60 and 
 70 per cent, of the effective voting strength of the constituency, 
 which varies with the current " pitch " of political feeling. The 
 whole electorate would never poll at a contest which took place 
 on the new register, even if it were arranged for the day after 
 the revising barrister concluded his revision. As a matter of fact 
 the register has actually undergone considerable deterioration as 
 an effective record of the electorate before it goes into force at the 
 commencement of the year which follows its last autumnal re- 
 vision, and throughout its year of validity the process of degenera- 
 tion goes on, until by the end of December in that year it is utterly 
 out of date. The result of the operation of the influences which 
 vitiate it, combined with the apathy of a variable, but always 
 existent, proportion of the electorate, is as a rule to keep down 
 the effective voting strength, even on a new register and in a time 
 of excited political feeling, to a total far below its nominal aggregate. 
 The problem is one which admits of facile test. The general 
 election of 1906 was fought, at a period marked by a great deal 
 
 290
 
 DISMISSAL OF MEMBERS. 
 
 of political excitement, on the new register for that year. The 
 following are the effective percentages of the electorate as ex- 
 hibited in the first five single-member contests in the boroughs, 
 and the same number in the counties : 
 
 Votes Total Per- 
 
 recorded, electorate, centage. 
 
 Newington (Wahvorth) 5,6$ 8,995 62 
 
 Newington (West) 6,871 7,147 96 
 
 Ashton-under-Lyne 7.652 8,248 92 
 
 Boston 3,495 3,896 89 
 
 Bradford (Central) 8,568 9,978 85 
 
 Middlesex (Baling) 5243 20.436 74 
 
 Yorkshire (Elland) "i57i 13,828 86 
 
 Lancashire (Middleton) 12,503 14,314 87 
 
 Hunts. (South) 4,383 5,272 85 
 
 Leicestershire (East) "3,833 15,815 87 
 
 Average percentage 84.3. 
 
 If, therefore, the effective electorate be 84.3 per cent, of the total 
 electorate, then 55 per cent, of the total electorate is equal to no 
 less than 65.2 per cent, of the effective electorate a fact which 
 may compel us to .ask ourselves if the fixation of the minimum at 
 55 per cent, is not a step in advance of prudence and necessity. 
 
 Completion of the Process. 
 
 By the seventh day the process will be either practically com- 
 plete or manifestly abortive. The details of a failure need not 
 be dwelt upon ; unless, indeed, we pause to consider that the fact 
 of frustration, on the part of the Requisitioners, must immensely 
 strengthen the position of the member whom they assailed. In 
 the event of the success of the Requisition, however, the member 
 would probably not wait for the completion of the technical details. 
 His precise mode of action, or inaction, would be immaterial. The 
 central fact would be this that out of a constituency of, say, 
 10,000 electors, 5,500 were willing to come out into the open and 
 say that they did not desire a continuance of his services. So un- 
 mistakable an intimation, involving the existence of an adverse 
 majority of at least 1,000 votes, ought to leave a self-respecting man 
 no recourse but immediate voluntary application for the Chiltern 
 Hundreds, as his instant acquiescence in the results of the tech- 
 nical completion of the process. Or, to put it in another way, will 
 it be seriously maintained that if a majority of 1,000, in a consti- 
 tuency of 10,000, declares its desire to be rid of a member, he 
 should still be permitted to force his personality upon them, and to 
 bear their political name in the National Assembly ? At present 
 he may do so if the whole 10,000 express their intolerance of his 
 membership. That, however, is not representative government, 
 much less self-government. 
 
 If the result of the proceedings is the emission of a valid Final 
 
 291
 
 DISMISSAL OF MEMBERS. 
 
 Declaration, and a report to the Speaker to that effect, the Com- 
 mittee of the Requisitioners ought (if the public payment of the 
 election expenses of candidates with a reasonable chance of suc- 
 cess should be adopted as a system) to be entitled to receive an 
 amount equal to their duly incurred and certified expenses from 
 the authority which would, in the case of a candidate, pay such 
 expenses. This is only reasonable, seeing that the Requisitioners 
 have correctly interpreted public sentiment with regard to the 
 ex-member, and have enabled it to find expression in his dismissal. 
 It would be necessary to provide that the time for receiving claims, 
 paying them, and lodging the return of expenses, should be the 
 same as in the case of a candidate : that the return shall be in the 
 same form, as far as the circumstances admit : that no payment 
 shall have been made to .any signatory of the Primary Requisition, 
 or the Final Declaration, for any services or otherwise : that the 
 return shall be verified by the Secretary to the Requisitioners, on 
 his oath (or, what is better, on his honour) : and that, after the 
 lapse of fourteen days from its receipt by the returning officer, its 
 amount shall be paid to the Secretary to the Requisitioners. 
 
 (12 Within three days of the receipt of the report by the Speaker the 
 member may give notice in writing to the Speaker that he disputes the 
 validity of the proceedings : or that he alleges the commission of corrupt 
 or illegal, or corrupt and illegal, practices, in connection with such 
 proceedings. If at the time of such notice, or within three days of the 
 delivery thereof, the member deposit 1,000 with the prescribed officer 
 fo election petitions, the operation of Final Declaration shall be sus- 
 pended, and the case shall be tried as if it were an election petition. 
 [As nearly as possible, that is to say ; of course, certain special provi- 
 sions and rules would be necessary to meet the somewhat different 
 circumstances.] If such notice be not given within three days, or if, when 
 tihe notice has been given, the security be not deposited within the 
 period specified, the member shall be deemed to have applied for the 
 Chiltern Hundreds. 
 
 May the Old Member Try Again? 
 
 Is the old member to be a competent candidate at the election 
 which results from his dismissal by means of a Final Declaration ? 
 There is no sound reason to the contrary. It would be foreign to 
 our national traditions of fair play and free discussion to refuse the 
 ex-member, even at that late stage of the episode, the opportunity 
 of rehabilitating himself, if he can. His chances, under all ordi- 
 nary circumstances, would be remote, if, within a few weeks before 
 this new election, 65 per cent, of the effective electorate had 
 deliberately expressed a desire to get rid of him. But there can be 
 little doubt that, if the power of dismissal should come to be exer- 
 cised by the electorate, our future political history will provide us 
 with instances of a commanding personality rising superior to all 
 the handicaps and disadvantages originating in its subjection to 
 the consequences of a Final Declaration, and securing a vote of 
 confidence, in the shape of a triumphant return, from constituents 
 
 222
 
 DISMISSAL OF MEMBERS. 
 
 who have only just exhibited their grave displeasure. Clearly, 
 however, a member who is dismissed by means of a Final Declara- 
 tion, and then re-elected by the constituency, should have the 
 right to require the payment of his election expenses, and 1 of a 
 reasonable sum (not exceeding ^50, the items to be vouched for) 
 to meet his necessary personal expenses. If 65 per cent, of an 
 effective electorate chooses to approbate and reprobate almost in 
 the same breath, it ought to pay the expenses which, as a con- 
 sequence of its vacillation, its member has been compelled to 
 incur. The claim of the other candidates upon the pecuniary 
 consideration of the constituency does not rank quite so high. 
 The one serious objection- to allowing the old member to stand 
 again' is to be found in his consequent power, under our existing 
 system, of throwing the representation into the hands of a minority 
 by causing a three-cornered fight. That power would not avail 
 him under a system of Proportional Representation. 
 
 Some Minor Adjustments. 
 
 Among the subordinate questions which must arise in the work- 
 ing of this or any analogous scheme are these : 
 
 (1) As to a maximum of expenses. This might probably be settled by 
 allowing to the Committee of the Requisitioners, and to the member, a 
 maximum expenditure of ^5 per 1,000 electors (i.e., one penny postage, 
 or two halfpenny postages, together with the cost of printing and 
 despatching the communication). 
 
 (2) When the Primary Requisition is lodged, it seems frima facie desir- 
 able that the source of the deposit money should be disclosed on oath. 
 On the one hand, the disclosure might tend to hamper and discourage a 
 perfectly legitimate movement : but on the other it would check the mali- 
 cious financing of Primary Requisitions, just as the correspondng pro- 
 vision in the case of Election Petitions would put an end to petitions that 
 have their origin in personal spite rather than in an enthusiasm for elec- 
 toral purity. 
 
 (3) At first sight it seems desirable that, after a Primary Requisition has 
 proved abortive (at any stage), there should be no further movement of 
 the same kind for a given period say, twelve months. If this were 
 feasible, it might be desira.ble. But one consequence of the provision 
 might be that in some cases the member would put up " dummy " Re- 
 quisitioners, designed and constructed to collapse at his orders, so as to 
 block the path of legitimate protest for the next twelve months. 
 
 The Requirement of Re-election. 
 
 Incidentally, it may be pointed out that this scheme solves the 
 problem presented by our present system of requiring a member of 
 Parliament, who is promoted to certain offices of profit under the 
 Crown, to present himself to his constituents for re-election. In 
 many ways the requirement is an anachronism, and it has been 
 frequently suggested that it should be abolished. But as it is, there 
 are sufficiently few opportunities for the expression of national dis- 
 agreement with a policy carried on in the nation's name, and this 
 
 2 93
 
 DISMISSAL OF MEMBERS. 
 
 abolition of the requirement of re-election would remove one of 
 the scanty sources from which such opportunities arise. Under 
 the scheme here proposed, however, a Minister, like all other mem- 
 bers, would be liable to be called upon, by a voice whose behests 
 could not be gainsaid, to resign ; and if his appointment to minis- 
 terial office did not meet with the approval of his constituents, 
 they could at once give him notice of it. On the other hand, if it 
 did, money and time would not be wasted on what would, under 
 such circumstances, be a superfluous by-election. 
 
 The Objection of " Instability." 
 
 The most obvious prima-facie objection to the scheme here pro- 
 posed is that it might make for instability in the Government. But 
 that objection may be met by pointing out that what is here 
 sought to be created is a system of conscious self-government, not 
 the perpetuation of an external rule. And if the external rule, as 
 we know it, be fairly stable, though based upon compulsory and 
 irrevocable selections of the ruler by the subjects, made at con- 
 siderable intervals of time, may we not look for a higher degree of 
 stability when the Government is itself the continuous corporate 
 expression of the will of the governed? The most dangerous of 
 anti-social tendencies is that which is produced by a lack of fellow 
 feeling between Government and subjects ; when the subjection is 
 the result of a realisation of the presence of an irresistible com- 
 pelling force, and not the willing acquiescence and co-operation of 
 common assent, common conviction, and common purpose. Dis- 
 content and even disgust may subsist where the subject is helpless 
 to alter the political conditions under which he suffers : but if the 
 means of change lie ready to his hand, his is the blame if he 
 refuse to avail himself of them. Under such circumstances there 
 is a real and conscious acquiescence, not the irremediable impo- 
 tence which is created and maintained by our present system. 
 As things are with us, it is in the power of no class 
 of the community to offer effective resistance to the 
 incompetence or even the oppression of a Government. That 
 is one reason, why, for instance, Chancellors of the Exchequer are 
 so prone to turn their unwelcome attention to the income-tax payer. 
 But given the power, in the hands of every class of the community, 
 of offering immediate resistance to hostile legislation, and the art 
 of government must perforce rise at once to a higher level. It will 
 no longer consist in the cheap device of uniting five of the citizens 
 against the sixth, but in welding the whole six together in common 
 predetermined purpose. 
 
 A Constitutional Guarantee Fund, 
 
 In course of time (and perhaps earlier than we suppose) the 
 question may arise whether any legislative provisions for the 
 
 294
 
 DISMISSAL OF MEMBERS. 
 
 definition and protection of the processes of self-government can be 
 considered complete unless there is joined to them some- 
 thing which goes farther than a mere convention of the 
 constitution, with regard to their non-repeal. The enact- 
 ments of the Legislature are only accepted as final in 
 our own day, when they relate to nonHContentious subjects, or 
 are confined, in their practical operation, to the interests of a. 
 small and politically impotent class. If they touch a Large section 
 of the nation, and especially if they are of such unmistakable 
 character as to be obnoxious to the ehaige of assailing one body 
 of the electorate, at the behest of another, there comes the almost 
 inevitable hint of their non-finality, the reminder that they are 
 susceptible of repeal, and that if the Opposition be placed in 
 power they shall be repealed. It would be easy to demonstrate that 
 if this kind of thing becomes a recognised political device our 
 experiences of the see-saw are not likely to cease with our 
 childhood. Nay, the same facility of repeal might be used by a 
 reckless or ambitious Ministry as the pretext for destroying, at a 
 blow, some of the most valuable elements, if not the entire labori- 
 ously-erected structure, of self-government itself. What we shall 
 ultimately have to consider, as a nation, is whether, above and 
 beyond all the protection that is afforded by the ballot box, 
 and can be strengthened by dignified expedients, there shall 
 be created (so far as it is politically possible) an unassailable 
 reserve fund of constitutional guarantees placed where the sacri- 
 legious ambitions of no single Parliament can reach them, and 
 where, indeed, they cannot be touched at all, save by the assent of 
 the nation, deliberately sought and obtained on that, and on no 
 other, pretext. 
 
 More Elevated Ideals of Statesmanship. 
 
 With regard, however, to the more immediate outlook, and 
 especially to the current modes of maintaining a majority, no close 
 observer of our system of government will be likely to deny that it is 
 largely carried on by means of the union of temporarily ascendant 
 political factors which have nothing whatever in common except 
 their momentary designs on what is, thanks to an adventitiously 
 created combination, a helpless minority. If the minority be per- 
 manent, indeed, no contrivance of " checks and balances " can 
 protect it : but if, as is far more often the case with us, the 
 minority which failed to impress its views at a general election has 
 been rapidly reinforced by auxiliaries whom reflection has brought 
 to a better mind, its arm would, by means of the " dismissal " 
 machinery, instantly be raised to strike, and the menace of the 
 cabal would shrink away. A minority reinforced by reflection 
 argues at least a mind that is turned to scan the national problems, 
 and to form some judgment, be it sound, distorted, or erroneous, 
 
 2 95
 
 DISMISSAL OF MEMBERS. 
 
 upon them. The act of judgment marks its members out from 
 other and probably diminishing minorities, which, in heedlessness 
 or else in ignorance of the gathering anger of serious men and 
 women at frivolity and waste in the presence of social problems 
 that are at once critical in aspect and lustrous with the promise of 
 better things, go reckless on their way. 
 
 They see, they hear, with soul unstirred, 
 And lift no hand, and speak no word, 
 But vaunt a brow like theirs who deem 
 Men's wrongs a phrase, men's rights a dream. 
 
 But with the active, reflective, and productive social elements there 
 may be mistake, but there is not callousness : and it is upon these, 
 aroused to keener and deeper civic interest, in conjunction with 
 those who have already borne the burden and heat of the political 
 day, that the most excellent arts of government must be 
 employed. In this way the application of the principles 
 of the Fourth Canon is believed to offer a means by 
 which a, Government shall be compelled to attain its 
 purpose by convincing, and maintaining in conviction, a majority 
 of the entire electorate, rather than; by the dexterous jugglery which 
 we vainly strive to dignify by calling it " party tactics." The differ- 
 ence corresponds to that which exists between an appeal to the 
 prejudices of a jury, and a soundly and soberly reasoned evocation 
 of their best powers of unbiassed judgment. The one is exercis- 
 able by any tongue that can lash itself into vituperation. The 
 other requires the firm intellectual grasp, the judicial temper, the 
 elevation and placidity that come with breadth of view and lofty 
 purpose, the absolute self-control that scorns to make sport with 
 prejudice and passion, even if they seem at first sight to offer the 
 means of victory. These are the ideals of statesmanship, these the 
 instruments of sound and permanent social amelioration and 
 advance; and if, by the possession of a constant power over the 
 machinery of Government, or by any other method which has been 
 dimly outlined in the present essay, we can secure the exercise of 
 the arts of administration in permanent consistency with these super- 
 eminent standards, the Essentials of Self-Government will be firmly 
 established in our midst, and this strong British* people shall 
 march to its magnificent destiny proudly, steadfastly, and 
 unmolestedly. 
 
 * The term " British " is employed here with the mental inclusion of 
 Ireland. With a similar freedom of expression the writer has (where 
 convenience required, as on page 95) used the word "Teutonic" in a 
 sense which is, strictly speaking, too wide for the present essay, since 
 the Welsh are not Teutons. So also, in the closing paragraphs of the 
 essay, the expression " England " is used with the tacit inclusion of 
 Wales in its significance, though the writer is perfectly well aware that 
 this is not ethnologically precise. 
 
 296
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 Conclusion. 
 
 In that last pregnant word " unmolestedly " (the word with which 
 one of the first of the historians of one of the most patent of the 
 world-forces lays down his pen and quits his task*) there is en- 
 shrined the central and predominant ideal of the conditions under 
 which the machinery of self-government should work. It must 
 go forward unmolestedly, no man forbidding or obstructing its 
 eager and enthusiastic units as they move in their individual orbits 
 around the corporate centre of political activity and progress. To 
 this final pronouncement on the immediate subject of the essay 
 that has now reached its close the author desires to add a few 
 words of more general import. 
 
 The inexorable judgment of time must soon decide how far the 
 principles dimly outlined in the " Essentials of Self-Government " 
 are really capable of adaptation to the needs of the great political 
 organism whose electoral machinery we have attempted to describe 
 and analyse. Each reader will, in truth, have formed his own 
 judgment long before his eyes fall upon these lines. And if that 
 judgment be personal, independent, unconstrained ; if it represent 
 the real wrestling of the individual brain with these great problems 
 of our race and hour ; if the reader has been content to fling away 
 the fetters of tradition from his intellect, especially that last in- 
 firmity of our national mind, the persuasion that contemporary 
 political phenomena are essential, ultimate, and changeless 
 then, even if he yield no assent to the theories offered in the 
 " Essentials of Self-Government/' he -will have exercised his virile 
 discernment upon them, and may be the more invigorate for his few 
 hours in the palaestra of civic ideality. More than all, he may 
 have been prompted to turn his own consideration in the direction 
 of the potent mechanism that we have analysed, and to realise 
 how magnificent an instrument of national advancement it is, how 
 strong for the consolidation of this ancient nation into one giant 
 political personality, streaming the banner of progress across the 
 political sky. The image of Rome at her proudest is expressed in 
 the person of Augustus; of England, at her noblest, in her own 
 self-governing Self. 
 
 One pregnant and incontrovertible fact is this that whatever 
 form may be ultimately assumed by our own nation, or by all the 
 nations collectively, as corporate political entities, and however 
 
 * It is, in the original, the last word of the Acts of the Apostles : 
 rendered by our translators by means of the paraphrase " no man forbid- 
 ding [him]." 
 
 297
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 largely the doctrines of modern social altruism may be adopted, 
 progress must in the last resort rely upon the individual mind, act- 
 ing upon other minds, and impinging, in company with them, upon 
 the common voice, vision, and vehemence at the centre. The centre, 
 the government, may occasionally seem to lead, when the scaling 
 of the heights of progress is essayed. But the facts are not really 
 so it only follows. For that reason human advance depends upon 
 the vigorous, fearless, untrammelled working of the individual 
 intellect, under the conditions which, so far as the intellectual 
 conclusions are to find expression in the ballot box (or in some 
 other more advanced mode of delivering the corporate verdict), 
 the Third Canon defines. And if we ask ourselves if we are sure 
 of the possession of those qualities which are to make us, as a 
 people, the fit and capable arbiters of a vast destiny, the com- 
 petent pioneers into the great unknown that fronts the race, we may 
 find the answer in the burning words of one of the greatest of all 
 Englishmen, whose heroic spirit dared to launch itself into the 
 abyss where float the universes, and to tell, in the glorious tongue 
 that Shakespeare spake, the matchless story of a fearless quest : 
 
 " Lords and Commons of England, consider what Nation it is 
 whereof ye are and whereof ye are the governors : a Nation not 
 slow and dull, but of a quick, ingenious, and piercing spirit, acute 
 to invent, subtle and sinewy to discourse, not beneath the reach of 
 any point the highest that human capacity can soar to. ... 
 Behold now this vast City : a city of refuge, the mansion-house of 
 liberty, encompassed and surrounded with his protection; the 
 shop of war hath not there more anvils and hammers working, to 
 fashion out the plates and instruments of armed justice in defence 
 of beleaguered truth, than there be pens and heads there, sitting 
 by their studious lamps, musing, searching, revolving new notions 
 and ideas wherewith to present as with their homage and their 
 fealty the approaching Reformation, others as fast reading, trying 
 all things, assenting to the force of reason and convincement. 
 What could a man require more from a Nation so pliant and so 
 prone to seek after knowledge ? . . . And when every stone 
 is laid artfully together it cannot be united into a continuity, it 
 can but be contiguous in this world ; neither can every piece of the 
 building be of one form; nay, rather the perfection consists in 
 this, that out of many moderate varieties and brotherly dissimili- 
 tudes that are not vastly disproportional, arises the goodly and 
 graceful symmetry that commends the whole pile and structure. 
 . . . It betokens us not degenerated, not drooping to a fatal 
 decay, but casting off the old and wrinkled skin of corruption, to 
 outlive these pangs and wax young again, entering the glorious 
 ways of truth and prosperous virtue, destined to become great and 
 honourable in these latter ages. Methinks I see in my mind a 
 noble and puissant Nation rousing herself like a strong man after 
 
 298
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 sleep and shaking her invincible locks. Methinks I see her as an 
 Eagle mewing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes 
 at the full midday beam, purging and unsealing her long-abused 
 sight at the fountain itself of heavenly radiance, while the whole 
 noise of timorous and flocking birds, with those also that love the 
 twilight, flutter about, amazed at what she means.'' 
 
 [THE END.] 
 
 Where lies the land to which the ship would go r 
 Far, far, ahead, is all her seamen know. 
 And where the land she travels from F Away, 
 Far, far, behind, is all that they can say. 
 
 A. H. Cloogh 
 
 299
 
 INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Abduction of voters 241 
 
 Acquiescence, apathetic f, 
 
 Advertising, expenditure on, see Bill-posting ; of " Summary," by 
 
 returning officer rf* 
 
 Agency, in the election sense, its meaning discussed, 130 et seq. ; 
 Channell, J., on, 132; menace of the present state of things, 
 133; remedy for, 134 
 
 Armed rebellion, increased improbability of 6 
 
 Associations, political (local), 134, 145 ; do. (Central), see Central 
 Office. 
 
 Ballot, is not quite secret, 243 ; reasons why, and proposals, 243 
 Ballot box, the final test of political fitness, 23 ; but should not be 
 studied alone, 27 
 
 Ballot paper, form of, 242; how invalidated (?ee Official Mark)... 242 
 Bands (see Music) 
 
 Banners, payments for , 216 
 
 Bernard, Mr. ("Scientific Basis of Socialism"), quoted 60 
 
 "Besetting" the voter, should be prohibited 234 
 
 Bill-posting, wasteful, and the necessity for restriction, 154 et seq. ; 
 payments to an elector for exhibiting bills, 214; time limit for 
 (see Printing, Posters), 228 
 
 Blackstone, quoted and considered 282 
 
 Bribery, definition of, 169; asking for a bribe, 128, etc.; history 
 of, 170 et seq. ; legislation against, 171 ; the " bribery oath," 
 173; touchstone of the offence, 175; Professor Lowell on, 176; 
 a dying force, 176; danger of allegations of, to honest candi- 
 date, 177; the problem of motive illustrated, 177, 178; typical 
 instances (real and hypothetical), 179; judges on the psycho- 
 logical element in, 180; general, 181 ; "time to vote" for 
 workmen, is not bribery, 182 
 
 By-elections, under Proportional Representation, S8 ; Continental 
 and Colonial methods with regard to, 89 ; Mr. Joseph King's 
 scheme, 90 
 
 Cabinet, what it is, 13 ; delegates its powers to Inner Cabinet, 14 
 
 "Campaigns," not always undertaken for the public welfare 17 
 
 Candidate and Candidature, the whole subject, Chapter IV. 
 
 Candidate, what is a.1 98; statutory definition, 99; how selected 
 as a rule, 96 ; not chosen by the electorate, 97 ; joint candi- 
 dates, 149 (see Candidature) ; statutory period essential, 101
 
 INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Candidature, length of, judicial decisions as to, 99, 100; uncer- 
 tainty of, and penalties fee error in determining, 100 ; expenses 
 of, as distinct from election expenses, a suggestion of 
 Kennedy, J., 99, 100; joint, 149 
 
 Canons of self-government, see Four Canons. 
 
 Canvassing, history and nature of, 139 et seq. See " Besetting." 
 
 Carriages, see Conveyances. 
 
 Caucus control, as applied to the limited vote, 253. See Central 
 Funds, Central Office 
 
 Central funds, candidates' expenses paid for, 97 ; effect of payment, 
 upon candidates, 97 
 
 " Central Office," of great political parties, how it assists candi- 
 dates, 135, 164 ; origin and expenditure of its funds should be 
 disclosed, 145 
 Certificate of Indemnity, what it is, 200 
 
 Clough, A. H., lines of 299 
 
 Clubs, on poll day, 235 ; as financiers of election petitions, 273 
 Cockades, payment for, at elections 216 
 
 Committee-rooms, present provisions adequate, 130 ; see 214 ; on 
 licensed premises, or in refreshment rooms or schools, 220 
 
 Commons, House of, see House of Commons. 
 " Compound Householder " vote, 49 et seq. 
 
 Conservatism (our national and ineradicable persuasion that what 
 
 we see around us is essential and necessary), its prevalence 21, 297 
 
 " Constitutional Guarantee Fund," suggested and briefly considered 294 
 
 Contemporary Review 89 
 
 "Conventions of the Constitution" 21 
 
 Conveyances, providing and paying for, 209 ; criticisms and 
 suggestions, 210 et seq. ; 220 
 
 Corruption, general 181 
 
 Corrupt practices, the whole subject in detail, Chapter VIII. ; differ- 
 ence between " corrupt " and " illegal " practices, 167 ; no 
 " relief" for, 168 ; though there should be, in certain cases, 
 169; general considerations, 196 et seq.; penalties for, as 
 crimes, 200 
 
 Courtney, Lord, on Proportional Representation 84 
 
 Cumulative vote 252 
 
 Degrees, in Economic and Political Science, the electoral 
 
 mechanism as a subject for 27 
 
 Demand notes for rates and taxes, to contain recipient's number on 
 Parliamentary register, or a reason for its absence, 40 tt seq. 
 
 Devolution, no remedy for present needs 22 
 
 Dismissal of members, scheme for, and some considerations with 
 regard to it, Chapter XIII. : opinions of Burke stated and ex- 
 amined, 279 ; member, as delegate of experts, must be subject 
 to expect control, 280 ; the Primary Requisition, 282 ; the Final 
 Declaration, 286; may the dismissed member "stand" again? 
 292 
 
 302
 
 INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Distribution of seats, the subject generally, Chapter III. 
 
 Donations, as part of a scheme of " nursing," prohibited in Tas- 
 manian Act, 105; the absolute prohibition not feasible here, 
 105 ; should be included in election expenses, 106 ; a practical 
 scheme of inclusion, 106 et seq. 
 
 Economics, their illustration from the ebb and flow of electoral 
 strength, 72 et seq. ; the electorate as a new economic standard, 
 73. 74 
 
 Election (i.e., flhe Nomination, see Nomination) ; the Foil, see Poll. 
 
 Election address 153 
 
 Election agent and his staff, the whole subject, Chapter V. : 
 functions of the election agent, 121 et seq. ; should not be a 
 minor, 121; his relations with the other side, 123; should not 
 be allowed (with some exceptions) to employ electors, 124; 
 " treating " the staff, 182 
 
 Election Commissioners, what are? 276 
 
 Election court, see Election Petition. 
 
 Election expenses, see " Expenses, Election," and " Personal Ex- 
 penses." 
 
 Election law, a necessary element of the study of self-government... 25 
 Election petitions, a general survey of the subject, Chapter XII. : 
 history of, 268 et seq. ; the court for trial and its constitution, 
 269 ; neform of legislation with regard to, 271 ; sometimes pre- 
 sented for purposes of spite or revenge, 272 ; malice in the peti- 
 tioners should be checked, 273 ; claim to the seat, should be 
 implied in, or through, petitioner, 274 ; peers and, 275 
 
 " Electoral Reform " (by Joseph King) 90 
 
 Electors should not be employed at elections, 124. See also Voter. 
 Employment, of electors, should (with some exceptions) be prohi- 
 bited, 124; necessity for prohibition, 127; proposed provi- 
 sions, 128; of sandwichmen, should be prohibited, 129; 'see 
 " Prohibited Persons " ; in excess of statutory permission, 220 
 
 Equal electoral districts, impossible 57 
 
 Expenses, election, the whole subject, Chapter VII. ; before the Act 
 of 1883, 148 ; should be paid out of public funds where the can- 
 didate had a reasonable chance of success, no et seq.; present 
 maxima, 148, 150; time limit for payment of, 163; necessity 
 for written orders, 163 ; Tasmanian provisions as to, 164. See 
 also section 2 of Chapter IX. (page 208). 
 
 False statements, in posters, 155 ; under the Corrupt and Illegal 
 Practices Prevention Act of 1895, the whole subject, 203 
 et seq. ; proposals, 207 et seq. ; of withdrawal of candidate, 215 ; 
 in newspapers, 228 
 
 " Final Declaration," what it is, and proposals with regard thereto, 
 286 et seq. 
 
 Flags, see Banners. 
 
 Four Canons of self-government, text of, vii. ; framed on model of 
 Adam Smitih, 23 
 
 Franchise, see Suffrage. 
 
 33
 
 INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Freeman, "English Constitution," quoted 55 
 
 Frivolity in modern national life, possible source of 20 
 
 Froude, on armed rebellion 6 
 
 Gierke, quoted 59 
 
 Gifts, see Donations. 
 
 Gladstone, Mr., and Home Rule, as illustrating waste of national 
 
 time 10 
 
 Grocers' licenses, on poll day 235 
 
 " Ground-baiting " a constituency, 102 et seq. 
 
 "Guarantee Fund," a constitutional, is there a necessity for? 294 
 
 Hat-cards, payment for 216 
 
 Hiring, Illegal, 209, note. 
 
 Home Rule Bill 10 
 
 Hopeless candidatures, discouragement of 112 
 
 Horses, see Conveyances. 
 
 House of Commons, how disciplined by Inner Cabinet 14, 15 
 
 House of Lords, one of the obs'tacles to extension of Septennial 
 
 Act, 6 ; also to the schemes of an adventitious majority, 18 ; 
 
 might be supported, or warned, by dismissal of members of 
 
 House of Commons, 19 
 
 Huntingdon, how dealt with under Proportional Representation ... 94 
 
 Illegal practices (including illegal payments and illegal hiring), the 
 whole subject in detail, Chapter IX. : difference between 
 "illegal" and "corrupt" practices, 167; origin of, 201; two 
 groups of, 202 ; general considerations, 220 
 
 Impotence of the electorate, under existing system, 19 ; illustrated 
 by Railway Servants' Hours of Labour Bill, 8, 9, 10 ; leads to 
 reproach by critics of Trade Union Congress, n, 12; impotence 
 of the individual elector, its evils, 88. See Dismissal of 
 Members. 
 
 Inner Cabinet, a constitutional menace 14 
 
 Intimidation of agent, by voter, 163 j on the general subject, see 
 Undue Influence. 
 
 Ireland, why not included in present study 28 
 
 Joint candidates, 149 ; allied candidates, of opposite parties, 149 ; 
 
 where one pays the expenses of both, 183 
 Jury, analogies between civic organism and a 4, 235 
 
 King, Mr. Joseph, by-election scheme 90 
 
 Large constituencies, objection to, 84 ; three, five, and seven- 
 member constituencies, 92 et seq. 
 
 Law reform, an essential oreliminary of registration reform 51 
 
 Licenses (dog, gun, game, e^c.), applicants for, should be required 
 
 to state their number on Parliamentary Register 44 
 
 34
 
 INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Licensing Bill, and Referendum 18, 19 
 
 Lightship and lighthouse men, provision for conveying to the poll, 
 
 and a suggestion 209 
 
 " Literature," see Printing, Bill-posting, and False Statements. 
 
 Lodgers, must make annual claim, 30 ; their position under a re- 
 formed registration system, 45 ; proposals, 46 
 
 Lollards, the 95 
 
 Lords, House of, see House of Lords. 
 
 Lowell, Professor, quoted, 34, note. 
 
 Macaulay, on population 73 
 
 Maine, Sir Henry, on popular government 17 
 
 Maitland, Professor 60 
 
 Marked register, how obtainable 126 
 
 "Marks of distinction," payment fox, 216; suggestions, 217 et seq. 
 
 Masterman, Professor 27 
 
 Meetings, disturbing, at elections, an illegal practice, 215 ; paid 
 reports of, must bear the word " advertisement " under Tas- 
 manian Act, 162 
 Member, see Representative. 
 
 Mill, J. S., on Representative Government: his view examined, i 
 et seq. 
 
 Milton (" Areopagitica "), quoted 298 
 
 Minority predominance, dangers of, 16, 18; illustrations of, 57, 82, 
 87. See Single Transferable Vote and Proportional Representa- 
 tion. 
 
 Money, as a political influence 97 
 
 Monmouth's rebellion, why a failure 7,95 
 
 Music, bands of, payment for 216 
 
 National Telephone Co., amendment with reference to 10 
 
 Newspapers, give gratuitous publicity, 152 ; owned or controlled by 
 
 candidates, 162; as regards false statements with reference to 
 
 candidates, 228 
 Nomination, 222 ; purpose of, 223 ; course of procedure before and 
 
 after, 224; is it subject to party influence? 225; the technical 
 
 function, 225 
 
 Nomination-paper, form of, and customs relating thereto 226 
 
 " Nursing " a constituency, 102 et seg. 
 
 Oath, against bribery, 173; against personation, 191 
 
 " Objector," the paid, in Registration 39 
 
 Official mark, meaning and use of, 238; trickery in connection 
 
 with 238 
 
 Official Secrets BUI 7 
 
 w 305
 
 INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Opposition, leaders of, in agreement with Government occasionally 
 
 involves the ignoring of public opinion 15, 16 
 
 Organism, the electorate as, 59 ; Gierke's suggestion, 59 ; possible 
 bearing of modern psychic research upon the question, 60 ; 
 detailed statistical survey illustrating, 62-72 
 
 " Outside Organisations," the Whole subject, Chapter VI. : irre- 
 sponsibility of, 136 ; close time for, 230 ; expenditure un- 
 limited, 137 ; origin often mysterious, 138 ; suggested mode of 
 controlling, 139, 141 et seq. ; probably illegal under existing 
 law, 147. J5ee also the chapter on Election Expenses. 
 
 Overseers, their work in registration 30 
 
 Pairing, fraudulent 188 
 
 " Pairs," what are (among the electoral units), and their signifi- 
 cance, 76 et seq. 
 
 Partisanship, in registration 33> 34 
 
 Party organisation (central), see " Central Office." 
 
 Payment of election expenses by public, no et seq.; of members, 116 
 
 Personal expenses, what are? 150 
 
 Personation, the general subject, section 3 of Chapter VIII. (page 
 190) ; prevention of, the machinery, 190 et seq. ; the oath, 191 ; 
 the " tendered paper," 191 ; machinery criticised, 191 ; how per- 
 sonation arises, a classification of origins, 192 et seq. ; popular 
 views of, 194 ; a felony, 195 
 
 Petitions, election, see Election Petitions. 
 
 Physician, and government, analogy between 7 
 
 Pictures, famous, reproductions of, as election posters, 161 ; as em- 
 bellishments of polling booth, 236 
 
 Pilgrimage of Grace 95 
 
 Play, the electorate as spectators at the, analogy 13 
 
 Plumping 84, 253 
 
 Pocket Boroughs 172, 174 
 
 Poll, the subject generally, Chapter XI. ; close time for " litera- 
 ture " before the, 228 (see Nomination) ; original duration of, 
 231 ; all polls, at a general election, should be on one day, 231 ; 
 should be open for a longer time, 232 ; all public-houses 
 should be closed, 235 ; abnormalities in results, 247 ; single 
 transferable vote, explained and discussed in detail, 253 
 et seq. See Postal Vote, Polling Booth, Ballot, Second Ballot, 
 Official Mark, Proportional Representation, Cumulative Vote, 
 Scrutin de Liste, and Limited Vote. 
 
 Poll cards, fraudulent 187 
 
 Polling booth, should be embellished with ennobling pictures, 236 ; 
 disorder and excitement in, rare, 238 
 
 Polling districts, tow formed 227 
 
 Population, importance of, in economic investigation, 73 ; percent- 
 age of electorate to, 34, 35 
 
 Portraits, of distinguished persons, as election posters, 161 ; as 
 embellishments of polling booth, 237 
 
 Post office, uses of, in registration 39 
 
 306
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Postal vote, what it is and how operated 24 e 
 
 Posters, " Giant," not desirable, 160 ; save in the case of portraits 
 
 of distinguished persons or reproductions of famous pictures, 
 
 i6i. See Printing. 
 
 Practice, election, a necessary element of the study of self-govern- 
 ment " a (j 
 
 Presiding -officer, what he is, 191, note; instance of trickery by, 238 
 
 "Primary Requisition," what it is, and proposals with regard 
 
 thereto ....;. * 2 g 2 
 
 Printing, expenditure on, see Bill-posting; cost of double crown 
 bills, 160; printer's name must be on bills and posters, 218. 
 See Posters. 
 
 " Proclamation " for the poll 224 
 
 Prohibited persons, voting by 214 
 
 Proportional representation, 83 et seq. ; Lord Courtney on, 84 ; 
 illustrated in detail (as regards the distribution of seats) from 
 the case of Shropshire, 86 et seq. ; by-elections under, 88 ; size 
 of constituencies, 91. See Voting, and references thereunder. 
 
 Psychology, offers a limit to the field and mode of survey 28 
 
 Public-houses, should be closed on poll day 235 
 
 Qualification, three months 35, 39, ej 
 
 "Question," putting the, to suspected personator 191 
 
 Railway Servants' Hours of Labour Bill 9 
 
 " Reasonable chance of success," what is a in 
 
 Redistribution Bill, 1884, 80; its principles discussed, 81, 82; 
 continuous redistribution, 92 
 
 Referendum, discussed and explained, 55 et seq. 
 
 Register, Parliamentary, ' its shortcomings, 33 (see Chapter II. 
 generally) ; should be indexed, 52 ; how far conclusive as 
 regards the right to vote, 53 
 
 Registration, the general subject, Chapter II. See Revenue, Regis- 
 tration Agent, Registration Official, Removal, and the chapter 
 generally. 
 
 Registration agent, chief, necessity of employing at election 129 
 
 Registration of Electors Bill, 1893 35 
 
 Registration official, public duties of, 37 et seq. ; neglect to be the 
 subject of personal, not official, penalty, 52 
 
 "Relief," explained 168 
 
 " Removal " question, in registration, 32 ; as regards lodgers, 45 ; 
 proposals, 48 
 
 Representative, may in grave cases act in opposition to election 
 pledges, 9 et seq. ; relations between, and his constituents, 
 279. See, generally, Dismissal of Members. 
 
 " Representative Government," Mill on, i et seq. ; our existing 
 
 system is not, 2 et seq. 
 Returning officer's charges 165, 225
 
 INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Revenue system, contrasted with registration, and a scheme for 
 their co-operation suggested, 36 el seq. 
 
 Revising barristers, work of 31 
 
 Ribbons, payment for 216 
 
 Rogers on Elections, publishers of, 99, note. 
 
 Ross, Professor (University of Wisconsin) 29 
 
 Rutland, how dealt with under Proportional Representation 94 
 
 Sandwidhmen, employment of, should be prohibited 129 
 
 Scotland, why not included in present study 28 
 
 Scrutin de Liste 251 
 
 Scrutiny, procedure at, a menace to the secrecy of the ballot 244 
 
 Second ballot 248 
 
 Self-personation 190 
 
 Septennial Act, possible extension of 6 
 
 Service franchise and its improvement 47 
 
 Shropshire, Proportional Representation (as regards the distribu- 
 tion of seats), illustrated from, 86 et seq. ; see also 91 
 
 Sidgwick, his position on representative government scrutinised, 
 7 et seq. 
 
 "Small" expenses, the law as to 147 
 
 Sovereignty, periodical delegation of, by people, 5 et seq. ; how 
 removed from public control by the Inner Cabinet, 14. See 
 Dismissal of Members. 
 
 Standard, the electorate as an economic 73, 74 
 
 State, owes duties to citizen, as well as citizen to State (see text 
 
 of First Canon) 31 
 
 Stowe v. Joliffe, 53, note. 
 
 Sub-agent, what he is, 202, note; most dangerous member of elec- 
 tion staff, 124 
 
 Suffrage, forms no part of present study, 30 (save where it neces- 
 sarily enters in the enunciation of the First Canon, p. vii.) ; 
 but see Service Franchise. 
 
 Supplements to register 39 
 
 Swiss constitution, the referendum in 55 
 
 'Tendered paper," what it is 191 
 
 Teutonic ideals, the reversion to, 95 ; the word " Teutonic " used 
 in a wider sense than the ethnological, 296, note. 
 
 Time-limit for election expenses 101 
 
 Torches, payment for 216 
 
 Trade unions, their political vigilance and judgment 115 
 
 Trade Union Congress, criticism of and answer n, 12 
 
 Transfer of voter from one constituency to another 48 
 
 Transfer value, meaning of 264 
 
 Transferable vote, single, 253 et seq. 
 
 308
 
 INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Treating, considered as bribery, 169 et seq. ; the " Treating Resolu- 
 tion," 170 
 
 Trickery, as a form of undue influence 187 
 
 Undue influence, the general subject, section 2 of Ohapter VIII. 
 (page 183); brief historical sketch, 183; definition, 184; 
 illustrations, 185; spiritual, 186; by means of trickery, 187; 
 general, 188 ; legitimate anger is not, 188, 189 
 
 Voter, "besetting" of, 234; shall they be forced to vote? 240; 
 abduction of, 241 ; intimidation by, 163 
 
 Voting, see Poll. 
 
 Vote value abnormalities 78 
 
 Wagers, as means of Corruption 179 
 
 Watson, William, lines of '+< 
 
 Wharton, a "treating" exploit of 171 
 
 Whitelocke, as an authority on bribery and treating 171 
 
 Withdrawal of candidate, corruptly procuring, 196, 218; false 
 statement of withdrawal, 215 
 
 Workmen, "time to vote," for 182 
 
 Writ, what it is, and how and when issued 222 
 
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