CHAP. II. Expense. Election 1 close of the poll.' But this law, though it undoubtedly constituted a great reform, still permitted the most inordinate expenditure. In the great struggle in 1807, when Wilberforce, Lord Milton, and Lascelles were engaged in a triangular contest for the representation of Yorkshire, the poll was kept open for the full legal period of fifteen days, and Lord Milton and Lascelles spent between them 200,000l. The lavish expenditure, inseparable from a contested election in a popular constituency, increased the influence of a few territorial magnates. It was hardly worth any man's while to waste a fortune on a single contest; and the expense of a county election gave, therefore, a monopoly of the representation to a few great families. Bribery was indirectly encouraged by another circumstance. In theory everybody reprobated it; in practice everybody laughed at it. Up to 1770, election petitions were tried in the whole House, and the decision of the House was avowedly pronounced on party grounds, and had no reference to the merits of the case. Sir Robert Walpole was driven from office by an adverse vote on the Chippenham election petition. In 1770, George Grenville persuaded Parliament to adopt a little better system. Under the Grenville Act, a committee was appointed to try the election. Forty-nine members were chosen by ballot; each party to the petition had the right of objecting to eighteen of these names; the remaining thirteen, associated with two others, one of whom was nominated on either side of the House, constituted the tribunal to determine the election. The Grenville committees, as they were commonly called, were far better tribunals than the whole House for determining the legality of an election. But the Grenville committees were as much influenced as the House had been by 1 1 25 Geo. III., c. 84; or, in the case of a general election, six days before the day on which the writ was returnable; May's Const. Hist., vol. i. p. 293. 2 Wilberforce, vol. iii. pp. 330-337. II. party considerations.1 In a committee of fifteen members CHAP. one party or the other was necessarily in the majority, and the members usually voted with their political friends and disregarded their own conclusions. A tribunal of this description was not likely to stamp out bribery; and bribery consequently continued unchecked and unreproved. From the king on his throne to the potwalloper in the rotten borough, there was scarcely a person, who did not either receive or give a bribe. It would have been hardly an exaggeration to have applied to England the words which Isaiah applied to Judah: From the sole of the foot even unto the head, there was no soundness in it.' and sine At the time, then, at which this history commences, Pensions the constituencies were divisible into two classes-some cures. places were notoriously corrupt; others were notoriously in the hands of the landed interest. The class which thus enjoyed a monopoly of political power obtained its full share of the good things of this world. A political career was indeed a lottery, but it was a lottery in which the prizes were very large, and in which even moderate success was rewarded with extravagant liberality. A successful politician could easily ensure his own affluence, and could usually obtain a comfortable provision for his children. Lord Grenville, on retiring in 1801, had the effrontery to demand a pension of 1,500l. a year for Lady Grenville. Yet Lord Grenville was auditor of the exchequer, a sinecure producing 4,000l. a year; and his younger brother, Thomas Grenville, received upwards of 2,000l. a year as one of the chief justices in eyre. The Duke of Portland succeeded Lord Grenville. His relative, Lord William Bentinck, received 1,1317. as clerk of the pipe in the exchequer, and 2,5117. as colonel of the 11th Hussars. The duke's son-in-law, Charles Greville, 1 May's Par. Pract. pp. 600-601. 2 She resigned it in 1820. Hansard, New Series, vol. i. p. CHAP. II. received 600l. a year as controller of the excise; 350l. These are a few of the instances, which might be given, of the extravagant provisions which successful politicians and successful lawyers were allowed to make for their posterity, or for themselves. It would be easy to extend the list to an almost indefinite length. It is difficult to 1 Greville Memoirs. Confer Hansard, 3rd Series, vol. ii. p. 91. II. define the duties of a teller of the exchequer, yet four СНАР. tellers of the exchequer drew no less than 2,600l. a year each. No duties of special importance were attached to the registrarship of the Court of Admiralty; yet Lord Arden, the registrar, drew at least 10,000l. a year. The chief clerkship of the House of Commons would have been adequately paid with 2,000l. a year; and the fees of the office amounted to six times that sum.1 The fees of the clerk of the pleas in Ireland amounted to 10,000l. a year; his deputy received no less than 7,000l., not one shilling of which, according to a high authority, was legal. The Duke of Grafton, in addition to some hereditary pensions, received 2,800l. a year as sealer of the King's Bench and Common Pleas. Lord Melville enjoyed about the same sum, as keeper of the privy seal in Scotland. The Countess of Mansfield,' wrote the editor of the Black Book' in 1830, 'receives 1,000l. a year from the Barbadoes planters, and the Duchess Dowager of Manchester 2,9281. a year as late collector of the customs outwards. Not long since a right honourable lady, a baroness, was sweeper of the Mall in the Park; another lady was chief usher in the Court of Exchequer.'s 'One of the four patentees' of the sinecure situation of 'custos brevium,' wrote Lord Colchester in his diary, 'was a woman, a second a Catholic, the third a lunatic, the fourth an infant.' 4 Lord Seaforth, though he had the misfortune to be deaf and dumb, was made governor of Barbadoes. Lord Rosslyn, a general officer, was made director of chancery in Scotland. Pensions and places, however, were not the only Peerages. rewards at the disposal of successful statesmen and successful lawyers. Peerages were granted with a prodigality which exceeds belief; and pensions were in their 1 Colchester, vol. i. p. 482. 2 Mr. L. Foster. Vide Hansard, vol. xxxiv. p. 8. 3 Black Book, pp. 485 and 488. 4 Colchester, vol. i. p. 143. 5 Smiles' Industrial Biography, p. 302. 6 At a salary of 1,8007. CHAP. The evils of the system. turn bestowed to support the peerages which had thus been created. The far greater part of the peers,' wrote Queen Caroline to George IV. in 1820, 'hold by themselves and their families offices, pensions, and emoluments, solely at the will and pleasure of your majesty. There are more than four fifths of the peers in this situation ! 1 'More than half of the present House of Lords,' said Wilberforce in 1811, has been created or gifted with their titles since I came into Parliament in 1780.'2 No great thinkers, no great writers, no great orators, no great statesmen, none of the true nobility of the land, were to be found among the spurious nobles created by George III' They chiefly consisted of mere lawyers,' and country gentlemen remarkable for nothing but their wealth, and the number of votes their wealth enabled them to control.' 8 6 6 The system was productive of three mischievous consequences. Places, which were nothing but sinecures, were maintained for the purpose of enabling the minister to make a convenient provision for himself, his family, or his adherents. Flaces, which had only nominal duties assigned to them, or which were really necessary, were scandalously overpaid in order that they might prove acceptable to their fortunate recipients; and offices were bestowed, not on the most deserving candidates, but on the friends and partisans of the minister. The whole parliamentary system, moreover, moved on a hinge of corruption; and persons, known to be interested in the expenditure of the State, could not be believed to be the disinterested advocates of economical administration. The poor man, without political influence, had little or no chance of promotion; and honours and rewards were reserved not for the meritorious but the wealthy. The wealthy had the means of securing political influence. 1 Yonge's Liverpool, vol. iii. p. 102. 2 Wilberforce, vol. iii. p. 531. 3 History of Civilisation, vol. i. pp. 453, 454. |