Ir is not a little astonishing to find how small an amount of respect facts have for prophecies. The introduction of machinery was to be the ruin of the working-man, railways were to render horses valueless, and the reform of the igation laws was to bring ruin to ping interests of Great Britain, Yet day by day the working-man is becoming "more powerful, horses are required in nambers never before dreamt of, and year by year the tonnage sailing under the British flag increases, and, as we lately remarked, has now reached the proportion of 58 per cent. of the whole tonnage of the civilised world. But there was one point on which all were agreed, viz., that the introduction of the ballot would greatly reduce if it did not absolutely annihilate bribery. The supporters of the ballot maintained that one strong argument in favour of its adoption was that it would render bribery impossible; most of its opponents admitted that it would render it difficult, and if a few did contend that under it bribery would be as rampant as ever, their statements were founded less on reason than on a hatred of the system, and were little more than the assertions of individuals who refused to seo anything good in" system which they detested. But facts are too strong for arguments, and the state of affairs which the enquiries of the election commissions have Intely revealed to us is most humiliating.
We do not say that the mau who would take a bribe would pick a pocket, and so consequently do not consider it to be auch a sign of moral degradation as making a pun was supposed to be by one of our great authors, but we do think that the standard of morality must be very low when proceedings such as we read of in the Home papers are possible, We find a man standing up unblushingly and saying that he received £8 from one side and £4 from the other, but bad too much beer on the day of election, and could nob vote at all. Another says he received £5 from the Liberals, but voted for the Conservatives to pay out the Liberals for having treated him badly at the last election. Another receives high wages for watching a flag-pole which, us far as appears, he saw when he was leaving his house in the morning and when ho returning at night. Another takes rent for his house from both parties, and seems to think it is all right because it was used by neither, while the innumerable multitude of voters who were not ashamed to be employed, or rather to be paid, as messengers, flag men and canvassers is perfectly appalling. But to our mind the mere fact of the existence of bribery, either in its grossest form of o direct payment for a vote or in its somewhat more refined form of a payment for services which are not rendered, and are never expected to be rendered, is not the worst feature of the case. The way in which the evidence given in Court is received by the public proves that a very large section of the com. munity looks upon bribery with feelings of anything but disgust. It was only the other day that a man was imprisoned simply for saying or rather hinting that he could bribe e member of Parliament, yet we find the acceptance of a bribe by a voter looked upon as legitimate business. We read of a man saying he got a largo sum of money to pay to nine voters, but finding eight had already voted ho kept the bulk to himself. We hear of another who did not know if anything had been paid to his wife for room, excusing himself by saying women are so close, but who afterwards says the sum was £3, One man who bad taken money from both sides was asked if his sons would not be very angry when they found out what he had done, but he suid no they had too much respect for their father. One can understand the Commissioners saying to this man that if he got respect it was more than he deserved, but there are few remarks of this sort.
The one word which appears most regularly in the reports of all the enquires is "laughter." The Court, the witnesses, and the public apparently look upon the whole affair as a good joke. When a man says ho was bribed by one side but voted for the other because he could not change his principles, there is Iaughter. Another witness is asked how many righteous men there were in the borough during the election, and he answers none, and adheres to his answer even when asked if he will not except the six election agents. Jocular questions are put to the witnesses, jocular answers are-returned, and the public laughs. For this there can be no excuse except perhaps that the jokes are very poor and are soon forgotten.
Enquiries are being held which will probably end in the disfranchisement of one or more boroughs, yet the men by whose misdeeds the political extinotion of their native town is brought about are Jooked upon as clever fellows. Until bribery is looked upon as disgracoful on the part of both giver and receiver, there is little hope of improvement, The ballot has rather increased than diminished the evil. While it renders it impossible to make sure of the individual voter, it has opened the door to more general bribery, and both sides know that they must sow money broadcast, and that in many places it may be taken as certain that the side that spends most must win. The idea seems to be gaining ground that the proper method is not to disfranchise the borough, but to imprison those who deal in bribes. There appears to be much to commend this proposal, but there may be a little difficulty in deciding what amount of knowledge of what is going on should be required to make a candidate or his agent or supporters criminally liable. This, however, may well be left to the Inw
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.