WOOING OF THE ELECTORS
1
Party organization reached its highest point of perfection and
influence before the outbreak of the World War in 1914. Yet even at
that period it was remarkable how small both the Conservative Union
and the Liberal Association were in actual membership. It was unusual
to find among one’s acquaintances, however wide the circle, anyone
who belonged to either organization. Their power lay in propaganda
and direction. And if millions of voters acknowledged their sway,
there were other millions, though not quite so many, perhaps, over
whom they had no influence. At many General Elections before the War
not more than 50 or 60 per cent. of the electors went to the polls.
The absentees were equally numerous in electoral contests immediately
after the War.
Who are they, these silent voters, who constitute so unknown a
quantity, so sore a puzzle, to the Party managers, and sometimes
confound their nicest calculations? A man’s politics depends upon his
individual temperament and point of view, but, like his religion, it
is largely the accident of his birth and home environment or early
education. I have seen an election address in which the candidate
said: “I was born a Conservative on August 29, 1848.” Another man
is a Liberal because of the chance that it was Liberalism and not
Conservatism which he unconsciously imbibed at his father’s knee. In
fact, the sentry in Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic opera was not far
wrong in singing that every little boy or girl who’s born into the
world alive—
Is either a little Liberal,
Or else a little Conservative.
But the silent voter seems to have disdained to adopt fixed and
settled political opinions—like the generality of mankind—either by
inheritance or by an effort of thought. It may be that he is ignorant
of the object of politics, in the general sense of the word; it
may be that he knows what it implies, but thinks it unimportant.
At any rate, the cries of Party make no appeal to him. He owes
allegiance to none of the three great political organizations, nor
to any of the many smaller groups formed for the advancement of
particular purposes. He is scornful of the mere Party man. “Hack,”
indeed, is the word he contemptuously uses. In his opinion ordinary
politicians are but gramophones which mechanically grind out echoes
of the catch cries that emanate from the Party headquarters or the
Party newspapers. Indeed, the Party system appears to him a thing
eminently absurd. He sees nothing in it but three scolding political
organizations condemning each other’s methods and belittling each
other’s achievements, bent solely on the possession of office with
its attendant prestige and benefits. In his self-righteousness he
accounts himself the ideal elector who, animated by a high sense of
public duty, refuses to espouse any side in the Party struggle, and,
taking the welfare of the Nation as his guiding light, brings free
and reasoned judgment to bear upon the rival political policies at
issue in the General Election. On the other hand, the staunch Party
adherent calls him a “wobbler”—a sort of backboneless creature who
cannot stand steadily upon his legs, much less four square to all the
winds that blow, and who, when he votes, is influenced by some petty
mood of the moment.
But whatever he may be—whether the idealistic free and enlightened
elector, or a creature of unstable mind, whether he represents a
low standard of political intelligence, or the highest form of
integrity applied to politics—undoubtedly he it is who swings the
electoral pendulum. He is the human instrument for the working out
of that curious law of electioneering by which, before the World
War, with but little irregularity, one Party succeeded the other in
office, since the first really democratic extension of the franchise
by Disraeli’s Reform Act of 1867, when the principle of household
suffrage was established. The “wobblers” are not organized. They
have no newspapers. No common consciousness of similar aims unifies
or unites them. They do not appear upon platforms nor in audiences,
nor do they feel impelled to write to the Press. They keep their
own counsel, and rarely talk politics even in their own circles.
They are, in fact, ignorant of each other’s existence. Yet their
political influence is immense. It is not that they succeed in having
themselves largely represented in Parliament. A peer who sits on the
“cross benches” in the House of Lords—right in the middle of the
floor, unattached, between the Government and the Opposition—is the
closest analogue of the “wobbler” to be found in Parliament. Nor
are they successful in having their political views considered in
legislation and administration. Indeed, it is likely that they are a
very varied lot in ideas, sentiments, and tastes. Almost invariably
non-politicians are dead against change. So long as things go on
pretty much as usual they are content to stand aside. But if it
were possible to hold a convention of “wobblers,” and they drew up
a political programme, we should have, no doubt, a fearful mixture
of Toryism, Liberalism, Socialism, of the principles of free trade
and tariff reform, of open doors and closed ports, of loaves big and
little, of nationalization and private enterprise, of the whole hog
or none.
The power which is wielded by this silent reserve of voters, as
opposed to the crowd who belong to organizations, or who go to
meetings and make their opinions known, is this—that in many
constituencies where the steadfast Liberal, Conservative, and Labour
supporters are evenly balanced, they exercise, as it were, the
casting vote. In them may be said to lie the decision of the fateful
question of the General Election—Shall the Government of the British
Empire be Conservative or Liberal or Labour for a term of years? In
the mass they may be moved by opposing sentiments and motives, they
may be pursuing widely different ends. Many of them, no doubt, are
of the kind who can only support a cause so long as it is favoured
by fortune. But, as a rule, they are friendly disposed towards the
“outs.” “Let the ‘outs’ have a turn of office,” they say, as they
place their cross on the ballot paper in the polling booth. Thus
swings the electoral pendulum to and fro.
Occasionally there is a wave of national feeling—whether it be
enthusiasm for the new cause, or absolute weariness of the old,
which, as in the extraordinary General Election of 1906 that brought
the Liberals back to power after many years in the wilderness, sweeps
over the country like a tidal wave overthrowing the barriers set up
by the Party organizations and obliterating the lines of orthodox
Party politics. Then it is that the non-political electors who do
not trouble to vote on ordinary occasions flock to the polls in
their hundreds of thousands, that numbers of voters who held their
opinions weakly go over to the other side, and that the candidates
of the Party in power are made to feel the full weight of their
combined wrath. But this rarely happens. In the periods of calm which
more often mark the public life of England, when there are no really
fundamental or vital differences between parties, and interest in
politics is, therefore, at a low ebb, when the General Election means
no more than a struggle to get one set of Ministers out and another
set of Ministers in, victory for Liberalism, Conservatism, or Labour
depends on organization and persistent urging during the actual
contest, each on their own particular supporters, to fail not, on
their Party allegiance, to go to the polling booths.
2
The contrast between elections in the nineteenth and in the twentieth
centuries is very striking and interesting. We see the good effects
of Party in sweeping away electoral corruption, and also its
drawbacks in limiting the scope of independent opinion and character.
One of the most remarkable elections ever held was that which led to
the return of John Stuart Mill for Westminster, as an independent
Member, in 1865. Mill’s views were uncommon at the time. He held that
a Member of Parliament should not have to incur one farthing of cost
for undertaking a public duty. The expenses of an election ought, in
his opinion, to be borne as a public charge, either by the State or
by the locality. Mill also contended that the M.P. should not be
expected to give any of his time or labour to the local interests.
He declared that he himself had no desire to enter Parliament. He
thought he could do more as a writer in the way of propagating
his opinions. He declined to conduct a personal canvass of the
constituency. Mill thus set at defiance all the accepted notions of
right electioneering. A well-known literary man, he relates, was
heard to say that the Almighty Himself would have no chance of being
elected on such a programme. Yet Mill was returned by a majority of
some hundreds over his “Conservative competitor,” as he calls his
opponent. And all his expenses were paid by the constituency. It was
impossible in the state of Party feeling even then existing that so
independent a Member as Mill could be allowed to remain very long in
Parliament. So Mill was thrown out at the General Election of 1868.
“That I should not have been elected at all would not have required
any explanation,” he writes in his _Autobiography_. “What excites
curiosity is that I should have been elected the first time, or,
having been elected then, should have been defeated afterwards.”
The explanation was that his writings gave as much confidence
to Conservatives as they did to the Liberals that he would be a
supporter of their cause. The reason he was rejected was that in
Parliament he pleased neither the one nor the other.
Macaulay, like Mill, was opposed to canvassing. He declared that an
elector who surrendered his vote to supplication, or to the caresses
of his baby, forgot his duty as much as if he sold it for a banknote.
In his contest for the representation of Leeds, in 1832, he refrained
from asking a single elector personally for his vote. He wrote:
The suffrage of an elector ought not to be asked or to be given
as a personal favour. It is as much for the interest of the
constituents to choose well, as it can be for the interest of the
candidate to be chosen. To request an honest man to vote against
his conscience is an insult. The practice of canvassing is quite
reasonable under a system in which men are sent to Parliament to
serve themselves. It is the height of absurdity under a system in
which men are sent to Parliament to serve the public.
Gladstone, on the other hand, nor only recognized that canvassing
was essential to successful electioneering, but also positively
enjoyed it. He, too, was a candidate in that General Election which
followed the passing of the great Reform Bill of 1832. He once said,
towards the end of his long life, that in all the stirring and
momentous political scenes in which he had been an actor—fighting
for a seat in the House of Commons, making Cabinets, taking part in
historic decisions on peace and war—there was nothing to compare for
excitement with his first contest for Newark in 1832, out of which
he came victorious. There were 2,000 houses in the borough. It was
then the custom for the candidates in all elections personally to
visit every house, whether occupied by a voter or not, to solicit the
elector for his vote and the non-elector for his or her influence.
Gladstone went five times to every house in Newark, thus making
10,000 calls in all. In the twentieth century most candidates
are disposed to dispense with canvassing altogether. It must be
repugnant to sensitive souls, or to those with a quick response to
the ridiculous, to have to go from house to house following the
traditionally seductive ways of the aspirant to a seat in the House
of Commons. Perhaps the prettiest compliments that have ever been
paid, outside those of the lover to his mistress, have been paid by
candidates canvassing electors. Kissing even played a leading part
in the art in the gallant days of old. The custom had its drawbacks.
Did not the eloquent auctioneer who offered for sale the notorious
borough of Gatton, in Surrey, with its estate and mansion as well
as the power of electing two M.P.’s, set out, among its advantages:
“No claims of insolent electors to evade; no impossible promises
to make; no tinkers’ wives to kiss”! So kissing by candidates has
fallen into disfavour, and the most candidates are expected to do is
to pinch the cheeks of babies or chuck them under the chin, in the
hope of inducing the parents to recognize the merits of the Unionist
or Liberal or Labour cause. Perhaps canvassing ought to be included
in the practices which are declared by statute to be illegal at
elections. But its effect on the issue of the contest, especially
in constituencies where the Parties are rather evenly divided, is
sometimes decisive. The feeling of many electors is that in their
votes they possess a favour to bestow. They like to be asked for it,
and the candidate who comes to their houses, hat in hand, soliciting
their support, usually gets it, at least from the non-party electors
or the “wobblers.”
In days gone by, even candidates with the highest sense of virtue
and honour, public and private, had to woo the electors by a
lavish expenditure of money. Lord Cochrane stood as a Whig for
Honiton at a by-election in the spring of 1806 against Augustus
Cavendish Bradshaw, who sought “a renewal of the confidence of the
constituency” on accepting a place in the Tory Government. Bradshaw
had paid five guineas a vote at the former election, and on this
occasion expected to get returned unopposed at the reduced rate of
two guineas; but on the appearance of Cochrane in the field he was
compelled to raise his bounty to the old figure. “You need not ask
me, my lord, who I vote for,” said a burgess to Cochrane; “I always
vote for Mister Most.” The gallant seaman, however, refused to bribe
at all, and got well beaten in consequence. How he turned his defeat
to account makes an amusing story. After the election he sent the
bellman round the town, directing those who had voted for him to go
to his agent, Mr. Townsend, and receive ten guineas. The novelty of
a defeated candidate paying double the current price of a vote—or,
indeed, paying anything at all—made a great sensation. Cochrane
states in his _Autobiography of a Seaman_ that his agent assured him
he could have secured his return for less money. As the popular voice
was in his favour a trifling judicious expenditure would have turned
the scale. “I told Mr. Townsend,” he writes, “that such payment would
have been bribery, which would not have accorded with my character as
a reformer of abuses—a declaration which seemed highly to amuse him.
Notwithstanding the explanation that the ten guineas was paid as a
reward for having withstood the influence of bribery, the impression
produced on the electoral mind by such unlooked-for liberality was
simply this—that if I gave ten guineas for being beaten, my opponent
had not paid half enough for being elected: a conclusion which, by a
similar process of reasoning, was magnified into the conviction that
each of his voters had been cheated out of five pounds five.” In the
October following there was a General Election. Cochrane was again a
candidate for Honiton, and, although he had said nothing about paying
for his votes, was returned at the head of the poll. The burgesses
were convinced that on this occasion he was “Mister Most.” Surely it
was impossible to conceive any limits to the bounty of a successful
candidate who in defeat was so generous as voluntarily to pay ten
guineas a vote! They got—not a penny! Cochrane told them that bribery
was against his principles. What the trustful electors said about
their representative would not bear repetition here. But there was
another dissolution a few months afterwards, and Cochrane did not
dare to face outraged Honiton.
3
It was not often, however, that burgesses were outwitted by a
candidate. A story that is told of the Irish borough of Cashel
shows how the voters usually scored. The electors, locally known
as “Commoners,” fourteen in number, were notoriously corrupt, and
always sold their votes to the highest bidder. It was for this
constituency, by the way, that that very prim and straight-laced
man, Sir Robert Peel, was first returned to Parliament in 1809. The
usual price of a vote in Cashel was £20. The popular candidate at one
election, anxious to win the seat honestly and not to spend a penny
in corruption, got the parish priest to preach a sermon at Mass, on
the Sunday before the polling, against the immorality of trafficking
in the franchise. The good man, indeed, went so far in the course of
his impressive sermon as to declare that those who betrayed a public
trust by selling their votes would go to hell. Next day the candidate
met one of the electors and asked what was the effect of Sunday’s
sermon. “Your honour,” said he, “votes have risen. We always got
£20 for a vote before we knew it was a sin to sell it; but as his
reverence tells us that we will be damned for selling our votes, we
can’t for the future afford to take less than £40.” The borough was
ultimately disfranchised for corruption.
Bribery did not always mean the direct purchase of votes for money
down. Many whimsical dodges were adopted to influence voters
without running any great risk from the law. Cheap articles were
bought from the voters at fancy prices, or a valuable commodity was
sold to them at a fraction of its value. At an election at Sudbury
in 1826 a candidate purchased from a greengrocer two cabbages for
£10 and a plate of gooseberries for £25. He paid the butcher, the
grocer, the baker, the tailor, the printer, the billsticker, at
equally extravagant rates. At Great Marlow an elector got a sow and
a litter of nine for a penny. Candidates also suddenly developed
hobbies for buying birds, animals, and articles of various kinds
which caught their eye during the house-to-house canvass. Some were
enthusiastic collectors of old almanacs; others were passionately
fond of children’s white mice. “Name your price,” said the candidate.
“Is a pound too much?” replied the voter. “Nonsense, man,” said
the candidate; “here are two guineas.” Rivers of beer were also
set flowing in the constituencies. The experience of the Earl of
Shaftesbury (the philanthropist and friend of the working classes)
was common. As Lord Ashley he contested Dorset in the anti-Reform
interest at the General Election of 1831, which followed the
rejection of the first Reform Bill, and was defeated. His expenses
amounted to £15,600, of which £12,525 was paid to the owners of inns
and public-houses for refreshments—“free drinks” to the people.
In those days some of the most respectable as well as renowned
of parliamentarians got their chance by means of a judicious
distribution of five-pound notes among the electors.
When bribery was thus avowed and flagrant, no limit could be placed
to the possible cost of a seat in the House of Commons. Success
was won, or defeat sustained, in many an election at the price of
bankruptcy and ruin. The most expensive contest in the annals of
electioneering was the fight in 1807 for the representation of
Yorkshire. The candidates were Lord Milton, son of Earl Fitzwilliam
(Whig); the Hon. Henry Lascelles, son of Lord Harewood (Tory); and
William Wilberforce, the famous advocate of the abolition of slavery
(Independent). The poll was taken in the Castle yard at York in
thirteen booths, which, in accordance with the existing law, were
kept open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. for fifteen days. Wilberforce and
Milton were returned. The total number of electors polled was 23,007,
and the three candidates spent between them £300,000, or about £13
for each vote polled. Wilberforce’s bill ran into £58,000, which had
to be defrayed by public subscription. A good deal of this money went
into the pockets of the electors. Therefore it is hardly surprising
to read in the debates on the Reform Bill of 1832 the contention
advanced that a seat in the House was private property, that the
possession of a vote was a source of income, and consequently that
to take one or the other from a man without compensation, by the
abolition of small boroughs and fancy franchises, was as much robbery
as to deprive a fundholder of his dividends, or a landlord of his
rents.
4
All this but emphasizes the purity of the wooing of the electors
to-day. The various stringent Acts against bribery and corruption
carried in the latter half of the nineteenth century have not been
passed in vain. In 1854 bribery was made a criminal offence by the
Corrupt Practices Prevention Act. Election petitions by defeated
candidates claiming seats on the ground that there had been corrupt
practices were formerly tried by committees of the House of Commons.
Often the decisions were partisan, and directly in the teeth of the
evidence. Yet the House of Commons for centuries so jealously guarded
its own jurisdiction over all matters relating to the election of
its members that it rejected proposals of a judicial tribunal. At
length in 1868 the Parliamentary Elections Act was passed, and since
then two Judges of the King’s Bench Division try petitions, and
report the result to the Speaker. After the General Election of 1880
there were no fewer than ninety-five petitions impugning returns
on various grounds, including bribery, intimidation, personation
of dead or absent voters, and most of them were sustained. After
the General Election of 1885 there was not a single petition.
Between these electoral contests a statute was passed—the Corrupt
and Illegal Practices Prevention Act of 1883—which has done much to
make parliamentary elections pure. Its main purpose was the fixing
of a maximum scale of electioneering expenditure, varying in amount
according to the character and extent of the constituency, and each
candidate was required to make a statement of his expenses to the
returning officer within thirty-five days after the contest. The
expenditure of an election—other than the personal expenses of the
candidate and the returning officers’ charges—was limited by this
Act in England and Scotland to £350 for the first 2,000 electors
in boroughs, and £650 for the first 2,000 electors in counties,
with accretions of £30 in the case of boroughs, and £60 in the case
of counties, for every additional 1,000 electors. The personal
expenses of a candidate were confined to £100. The General Election
of 1880—the last election in which expenditure within the law was
practically unlimited, and, as the disclosures in the hearing of
the petitions showed, was most excessive—cost the candidates over
£2,000,000, or about 15s. for each vote polled. The General Election
of 1885, the first held under the Corrupt Practices Act of 1883, cost
only £1,026,646, or 4s. 5d. per vote. The tendency of the expenditure
is still downwards. Under the Representation of the People Act, 1918,
the expenses of a candidate must not exceed an amount equal to 7d.
for each elector on the register, in the case of counties, and 5d. in
the case of boroughs, exclusive of personal expenses. The fee paid
to the election agent must not exceed £75 in counties and £50 in
boroughs.
Still, the question is sometimes asked in all seriousness: Is
electioneering really any purer now than it was in the days before
the first Reform Act? It is admitted that seats in the House of
Commons are no longer openly purchased, that individual voters are
no longer directly bribed. But it is said that the old blunt and
barefaced forms of corruption have simply given place to newer and
subtler methods of bribery, which are just as dishonourable to
those who give and those who take. A candidate does not now buy a
constituency; he “nurses” it. In other words, he tries to secure
the good will and support of the electors by subscriptions and
donations for various local objects. Against this practice, with
its many by-ways of expenditure, there is no law. The objects for
which money is thus spent divide themselves into two classes—religion
and philanthropy, sport and amusements. Is a peal of bells required
for the parish church? Does the chapel aspire to a steeple? Is a
billiard-table wanted by the young men’s society? Are coal and
blankets needed by the poor during the winter? The open-handed
candidate is only waiting for a hint in order to supply the necessary
cheque. Then there are football and cricket clubs to which the
candidate is expected to give financial assistance. And give it
he does gladly, for, as he says, it is the duty of public men to
encourage national sports and pastimes. If the stories one hears be
true, it would seem, indeed, as if the old tradition that a vote is a
saleable commodity, and that parliamentary elections are held, not so
much that the country may be governed in accordance with the wishes
of the people as that the constituency may profit financially in
one way or another by the return of a representative, still to some
extent survives. It is even said that impudent individual demands are
made on the purse of the candidate. They range from five shillings
for getting a voter’s clothes or tools out of pawn to a five-pound
note for sending an invalid supporter to the seaside.
But these attempts to blackmail the candidate are, when all is said
and done, exceedingly rare. According as the franchise has been
broadened, as the property qualification for the vote has been
reduced, the purer have elections become. This is due to some extent
partly to the fear of the law against corrupt and illegal practices,
and partly to the size of the constituencies, which are now so large
that the purchase of a sufficient number of votes to decide the issue
is beyond the capacity of most purses. But I think it is more due to
the sturdy pride and self-respect of the new electors, the working
classes generally, as well as their sense of public duty, which have
put an end to the old petitional extension of hands for doles in
return for votes. Happily, there is no gainsaying the seriousness
and responsibility with which, on the whole, the franchise is now
exercised. Taking them all in all, the voters go to the polling
booths animated by a fine public spirit—respect for the Constitution,
devotion to the State—which it is not too much to say is aroused and
kept purely aflame by their different political convictions, anti
without a thought of individual gain.
Moreover, Party organization makes a representative largely
independent, not only of the local whims and caprices of his
constituency, but of any section of the electors who may look
for favours in return for their support. The representative may
occasionally be hard pressed by local interests, but as a rule
these are regarded as subsidiary to Party considerations, to the
supreme purpose of each Party to obtain control of the machinery
of Government. Therefore the secret of success in the wooing
of the electors to-day is not the distribution of blankets or
billiard-tables. It might perhaps be said that it is not even wit,
wisdom and eloquence in the candidate—though, of course, these
possessions greatly count—much less complete independence of Party
in public affairs. It is adherence to one Party ticket or the
other; it is agreement with the Party opinions of the majority of
the constituency. The victorious candidate does not always owe his
election to his personal success in turning the majority of the
voters round to his side. As a rule, his election means simply that
he has had the good fortune to present himself to a constituency
which, in the main, was already in agreement with his political
opinions. And instead of five-pound notes, he is expected to
distribute only Party promises and pledges.