1819 Oct. 11

Parl. Reform Bill.

Reasons

§.5

§.8

Art Secresy

Burdet

2

2

To what is /has been seen/ above, the answer is as follows.

1. So far as concerns corruption, whether in the shape of bribery or any other, the reliance is not on the secret mode alone: in aid of it come two other arrangements – 1. the {shortness of a man’s term in his seat} largeness of the number of the votes. 2. the shortness of each man’s term in his seat.

The largeness of the number of votes is secured by the virtual equality given to the quantities of population in the several Districts.

The larger the number of votes, the greater the quantity of the money necessary to make up a bribe worth receiving: 2. and the greater the improbability that the offence should in every instance escape detection, prosecution, and conviction: for there is no way /mode/ in which if the necessary connection were formed between the success of the Candidate and the receipt of the bribe, evidence could not be made to reach it. Take at once the most promising mode: a wager laid that the bribing Candidate does not succeed: he succeeds accordingly, and the bribed voter, being on the winning side, receives the money staked, receives in a word the bribe.

2. The shorter each man’s term in the seat, the less the value of the seat to any such evil purpose. For so short a term it could never be worth the while of a majority of the Representatives to give each of them any sum of money worth acceptance, when at the end of the term, in case of detection perpetual infamy would be the consequence.