ENGLISH ELECTION PRACTICES.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 221, 4 December 1875, Page 9

ENGLISH ELECTION PRACTICES.

(From the Sheffield Daily Telegraph, Sept, 4.) Judging from the evidence taken before the Election Commissioners at Boston, that borough would be all the better for a lengthened suspension of its Parliamentary rights if not for total disfranchisement. The House of Commons is not half stem enough with delinquent boroughs, and it is also far too lenient with delinquent candidates and agents. In many respects the agents are worse than candidates or electors. Here in Boston, money was spent, and improperly spent, without the knowledge of candidates, in the belief that the latter would pay the money, regarding the debt as a debt of honor. Of course, a candidate does not like, after the election is either won or lost, to say to his agent, “You told me nothing about this expenditure, and I shall leave you to defray it.” To take this course would not only require great moral courage, but would often be tantamount to political suicide. At all events, few candidates could face their parties again in the particular borough if they thus shirked what would generally be regarded as a moral obligation to pay debts incurred in their interest. The system, however, is altogether vicious, and the House of Commons, in their own interest, as well as for the purity of elections, should put down such practices with a high hand, wherever they can be distinctly proved. Passing from candidates and agents to voters, we must say that Boston cuts a pitiful figure. It is not a small borough, as boroughs go—at least, not a very small borough. Mr. Disraeli’s Reform Act increased the number of electors from a little over a thousand to more than two thousand five hundred. Yet it seems that before the last general election one of the Liberal candidates spent £l5O in distributing coals broadcast for the sake of increasing his popularity, thereby creating mox-tal jealousy on the part of another Liberal candidate—Mr. Ingram—who had given no coal. There was little or ixo idea of charity in this wholesale distribution. The coal was received by 2500 persons, of whom no fewer than 877 were voters. There has seldom beeix a stronger, and at the same time a moi’e paltry instance of intended corruption. What can be the character or claims of a constituency one-third of whom are willing to accept doles of fuel from one of the candidates in view of an impending election ? We do not hear that blankets were distributed by Mr. Ingram or the Conservatives, though such gifts would be quite in keeping with the coals. Jt does appear, however, from the evidence, that the “ charities ” of all men who aspire to represent Boston must be very considerable, and that only rich men have any chance of succeeding here. A regular system exists for dispensing these electoral “charities” in the borough by means of a standing committee of prominent local politicians who, of course, exercise this patronage in the interests of their pai’ty. “ Politics never die out in Boston,” said one of the witnesses, “we are politicians born.” It would be quite as correct to say that a large proportion of Boston voters are men born to be bribed, directly or indirectly ; and the single fact we have already mentioned about Mr. Parry’s gift of coals supplies condemnation enough of this eastern constituency. Now there is no want of borough constituencies in England. Pai'liament need not be driven to retain Boston as a borough constituency on this score. There are plenty of places like Rotherham, and Barnsley, "and Doncaster, in our own immediate neighborhood, which are little less populous than Boston, and quite as entitled to dii-ect representation, except upon the ground of precedent and possession. Boston and Norwich both seem to have forfeited their title derived from long possession ; anti we say again the Hoxxse of Commons shoxxld not be slack to punish such delinquency.