I am not sure about bribery and corruption. It may be a bad thing, but
many seem to think otherwise. Much may be said on both sides of the
question. Oh! don't tell me of a worm selling his birthright for a
mess of pottage: I never read of such worms in Buffon, or even in
Pliny. But if they do exist in the human form, the baseness consists
in the sale, not in the _quid pro quo_. A mess of pottage in itself is
a very good thing--I should say, a very respectable thing; and no
exchange can take away from it that character. Still, if what we give
for it is an heirloom, coming from our ancestors and belonging to our
posterity, the transaction is shabby, and not only shabby, but
dishonest. If that is proved, I don't defend the worm. Trample on him
by all means--jump on him. But beware of insulting the mess of
pottage, which is as respectable as when newly out of the pot. Fancy
the sale to have been effected by means of some other equivalent: and
that, by the way, is just what puzzles me. There are numerous other
equivalents, not a whit more respectable in themselves--many far less
so--which not only escape all objurgation, but serve to lift the
identical transaction out of the category of basenesses. This confuses
a brain like mine, even to the length of doubting whether there is any
harm in the thing at all. Let us turn the question over patiently. I
confess I am slow; but 'slow and sure,' you know.
Bribery and corruption is a universal element in civilised society;
but let us talk in the meantime of political bribery and corruption.
It is the theory of the law--if the law really has a theory--that in
the matter of a parliamentary canvass, every man, as a celebrated
Irish minister expressed it, should stand upon his own bottom. By this
poetical figure, Lord Londonderry meant that the man should depend
upon himself, upon his own merits and character, without having
recourse to any extrinsic means of working upon the judgment of
others. It is likewise the theory of the law, that a man who _suffers_
his judgment to be indirectly biassed is as bad as the other--and
worse: that he is, in fact, a Worm, unfit to possess his birthright,
of which he should be forthwith deprived. Well, this being premised:
here is the Honourable Tom Snuffleton, who wants to represent our
borough, but having neither merit nor character of any convertible
kind, offers money and gin instead. The substitute is accepted; and
Honourable Tom, slapping his waistcoat several times, congratulates
the free and independent electors on having that day set a glorious
example to the world, by thus exercising their birthright and
upholding their palladium; and the affair is finished amid cheers and
hiccups.
When I say, however, that the substitute is accepted, I do not mean
that it is accepted by, or can be offered to the whole constituency.
That would be a libel. There are many of the electors who have a soul
above sovereigns, and who, if they could accomplish it, would never
drink anything less than claret. These persons are ambitious of being
noticed by the family of Honourable Tom. They are not hungry, but they
take delight in a dinner in that quarter. They also feel intensely
gratified by having their wives and daughters bowed to from the family
carriage. A thousand considerations like these blind them to the
absence of merit and character on the part of the candidate, and lay
them open to that extrinsic influence which, according to the meaning
of the law, is bribery and corruption. As for the man who takes his
bribe, for the sake of convenience, in the direct, portable, and
exchangeable form of a sovereign, he lays it out in any pleasure or
distinction he, on his part, has a fancy for. If he is a dissolute
person, he spends it in the public-house; if he is a proper-behaved
husband, he gives his wife a new gown; if he is a respectable, serious
individual, he devotes it to the conversion of the Wid-a-wak tribe in
Central Africa, and gloats upon the name of John Higgins in the
subscription-list. In whichever way, however, he may seek to gratify
himself, he is neither better nor worse, so far as I can see, than the
voter of more elegant aspirations: they have both been bribed; they
are both corrupt; they have both sold their birthright.
This is a homely way of viewing the question, but it suffices. If we
inquire into the motives of a hundred electors, we shall not find ten
of them free from some alloy of self-interest, direct or indirect. In
cases where the candidates are all equally good, equally bad, or
equally indifferent, there may be no practical harm in this; but it is
not a political but a moral question that is before us. The question
is as to the _bribe_. If we are to be excused because of the nature of
the solatium we accept, then should a thief successfully plead that it
was not money he stole, but a masterpiece of Raphael. What I doubt is,
whether they who have not been solely influenced by patriotic motives,
have any right to cast stones at the free and independent elector who
has sold his vote for a sovereign.
If the common saying be true, that 'every man has his price,' then are
we all open to bribery and corruption; and the only difficulty lies in
ascertaining the weak side of our nature. The distinction in this case
is not between vice and virtue, but between the various positions in
which we are placed. Money will do with some men; others, who would be
shocked at the idea of taking money, will accept of something it has
bought; others, again, who would spurn at both these, will have no
objection to a snug little place for themselves or their dependents.
The English, as a practical, straightforward people, take money--five
to ten pounds being considered a fair thing for a vote, and no shame
about it. The Scotch, as more calculating, like a _situation_;
anything to put sons into, will do--a cadetship in India, a
tide-waitership, a place in the Post-office, or a commission in the
army. From a small Scotch country town, which we have in our eye, as
many as fourteen lads in one year received appointments in the Excise;
everybody knew what for: an election was in expectation. No money,
however, being passed from hand to hand, the fathers of these said
lads would look with horror on such cases of bribery as have given
renown and infamy to Sudbury and St Alban's.
All men think all men _sinners_ but themselves.
Happy this consciousness of innocence! How fortunate that we should be
such a virtuous and discreet people! And thus does one's very notions
of what is right become a marketable article. Where neither money nor
place is wanted, a gracious look and an invitation to dinner may have
quite a telling effect. In fact, the more refined men have become,
through the action of circumstances, such as education and position,
the more abstracted and attenuated is the equivalent they demand for
their virtue; till we reach the highest grade of all, whose noble
natures, as they are called, can be seduced only by affection and
gratitude. Now observe: in all these cases the _thing_ is the same,
whether it be crime we have been tempted to commit, or mere
illegality; the only distinction lies in the value of the _quid pro
quo_. But is there a distinction even in that? I doubt the fact. I
don't say there is none, but I doubt it. Value is entirely arbitrary.
One man, at the lower end of the scale, sins for the sake of a pound;
and another, at the higher end, does the same thing for the sake of a
kindness. The two men place the same value on their several
equivalents, and each finds his own irresistible. Are they not both
equally guilty?
That a refined man is better than a coarse one, I admit. He is
pleasanter, and not only so, but safer. We know his virtue to be
secure from a thousand temptations before which meaner natures fall;
and to a large extent, therefore, we feel him to be worthy of our
trust. He will not betray us for a pound, or a dinner, or a place, or
a coaxing word, or a condescending bow: but we must not go too far
with him for all that. He has his price as surely as the meanest of
his fellows; and let him only come in the way of a temptation he
values as highly as the other values his miserable pound, and down he
goes! Refined natures, therefore, are only comparatively trustworthy;
and, however estimable or admirable they may be under other
circumstances, when they do fail they are as guilty as the rest. It is
a bad thing altogether, bribery and corruption is; and I don't object
to your putting it down when it takes that material form of money you
can so readily get hold of. But what I hate is the cant that is canted
about it by those who have not even the virtue to take their
equivalent on the sly. For it is a remarkable thing, that when this
does not come in a material shape, such as you can count or handle, it
is looked upon by the bribee as no bribe at all! Nay, in some cases he
will glory in his crime, as if it were a virtue; and in all cases he
will turn round upon his fellow-criminal--him of the vulgar sort--call
him a worm, and throw that mess of pottage at him! This refined
evil-doer may be as energetic as he pleases in his actions, but it
would be well if he were a little more quiet in his words. If he looks
within, he will find that the distinction on which he prides himself
is wholly superficial; and that such language is very unbecoming the
lips of one who might more truly, as well as more politely, say to
corruption, thou art my father, and to the worm, thou art my mother
and my sister.
The main cause of such anomalies I take to be, that there is among us
a general want of earnestness. We do not believe in ourselves, or our
duties, or our destinies. Our life has no theory, and we care only for
outward forms and symbols. Our taste is shocked by the grossness of
vice, but we have no quarrel with the thing itself; and if the people
around us will only preserve a polished, or at least inoffensive
exterior, that is all we demand. Why should we look below the surface
in their case, when we do no such thing in our own? We feel amiable,
genteel, and refined; we detest the appearance of low impropriety, and
would take a good deal of trouble to put it down; we look very kindly
on the world in general, if the low people who are in it would only
become as decorous as ourselves. In the old republics, the case was
different. There men had a theory, even if a bad one, and they stuck
to it through good report and through bad report. The theory was the
spirit of the community, and its members sacrificed to it their whole
individuality. No wonder that such little political unities held
together as if their component parts had been welded, and that they
continued to do so till they came into collision, and, from their
hardness and toughness, rubbed one another out.
Put down bribery and corruption: that is fair. And more especially put
down open, shameless, and brutal bribery and corruption, for its very
coarseness is, in itself, an additional crime. But no reform is
efficacious that does not come from within; and when refined men wage
war against vulgar vices, let them look sharply to their own. I do not
say, that by taking thought they will be able to do entirely away with
the seductive influence of a bow, or a dinner, or a kind action; and
that, in spite of these, they will do their duty with the stern
resolve of an ancient Spartan. But they will be less likely to yield
to temptation, and the price of their virtue will at least mount
higher and higher, which is as much as we can expect of human nature.
The grand benefit, however, they will derive from the inquisition, is
the lesson of tolerance it will teach. They will refrain, for shame's
sake, from casting stones and calling names. They will see that the
only part of the offence _they_ can notice is vulgarity and ignorance,
and they will quietly try to refine the one and enlighten the other.