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 Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow 126.: Election Petitions and Corrupt Practices at Elections [12] 24 JULY, 1868 - The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXVIII The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXVIII - Public and Parliamentary Speeches Part I November 1850 - November 1868

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Subject Area: Political Theory
Collection: The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill

126.: Election Petitions and Corrupt Practices at Elections [12] 24 JULY, 1868 - John Stuart Mill, The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXVIII The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXVIII - Public and Parliamentary Speeches Part I November 1850 - November 1868 [1850]

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The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXVIII - Public and Parliamentary Speeches Part I November 1850 - November 1868, ed. John M. Robson and Bruce L. Kinzer (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1988).

Part of: Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, in 33 vols.

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126.

Election Petitions and Corrupt Practices at Elections [12]

24 JULY, 1868

PD, 3rd ser., Vol. 193, cols. 1729–30. Reported in The Times, 25 July, p. 7, from which the response is taken. For the Bill, see No. 89. As the third reading began, Fawcett moved an amendment to recommit the Bill to consider the question of providing for election officers’ expenses out of the rates (col. 1716). Mill spoke after Clare Sewell Read (1826–1905), then M.P. for Norfolk East (col. 1729). Writing to W.D. Christie on 27 July, 1868, Mill says: “You will have seen that after many days and nights of hard fighting, all our efforts to improve the Bribery Bill have been defeated, even Fawcett’s clause being at last negatived. Good however has been done by the discussion, and a foundation laid for future success, as even the Saturday Review acknowledges. The Bill has, as you see, been extended to Scotland and Ireland. But its good effects, as it stands at present, will not be very great.” (CW, Vol. XVI, p. 1425.) For a later reference to the matter, see his letter to C.W. Dilke on 14 February, 1872

(CW, Vol. XVII, pp. 1871–2).

the honourable gentleman who has just sat down seems to think that unexpensiveness and purity of election is a matter which affects the electors only, and that the non-electors have no interest in the matter—a view in which I confess I do not share. I do not propose to revive the question of how far the Government has treated us fairly in regard to this matter. We must accept the statement of the First Minister of the Crown that at the time when he replied to the question of the honourable Member for Bradford (Mr. W.E. Forster) the Government had no intention of opposing this clause.1 But when the right honourable Gentleman proceeds to give a history—the correctness of which is countersigned by the right honourable Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley)2 —of what has passed, and says that the House have rejected as ineffectual all propositions to reconcile the scheme of the honourable Member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett)3 with the desirableness of giving security against vexatious contests, I cannot assent to the correctness of his statement. There was not one of the proposals made which would not, in the opinion of the supporters of the clause, have proved perfectly effectual. The objections did not turn on the efficacy of the proposals, but on which of them was most likely to pass the House. They were overthrown by the action of the Government, but the right honourable Gentleman has not shown that there would be any difficulty in working them. The course pursued fully illustrates the old proverb “None so deaf as those who won’t hear.” Does anyone think that if the right honourable Gentleman applied his mind to the subject every difficulty would not quickly vanish? We have an apt illustration of the mountain-like magnitude that molehill objections may assume, in the argument of one honourable Gentleman—that if a little more money than enough is taken from the county rate for the purpose of paying election expenses it will be impossible to know what to do with the balance.4 We have heard of lions in the path,5 but difficulties such as these are snails or earwigs in the path, and not lions. Were the Government aware of the feeling of satisfaction that went through the country along with the news that the clause of the honourable Member for Brighton was carried, they would, I think, instead of throwing technical difficulties in the way of its adoption, rather bring it in in the form of a separate Bill than lose the chance of its passing. I hope, therefore, that the Motion to re-commit the Bill will be carried. (Divide, divide!)

[Fawcett’s amendment was lost, and the Bill received its third reading (col. 1732).]

[1 ]For Forster’s question and Disraeli’s response on 20 July, 1868, see The Times, 21 July, p. 7.

[2 ]Cols. 1727–8.

[3 ]Fawcett, motion of 18 July, cols. 1443–4.

[4 ]John Floyer (1811–87), M.P. for Dorset, col. 1723.

[5 ]Proverbs, 26:13.