supply the voter with another. There is the elector who
is blind, or has no hands, or is incapacitated by any physical
cause from marking the ballot paper himself. There is
the elector who declares his inability to read. There is
also the elector who, being a Jew, is precluded by his religious
belief from marking his vote himself should the polling be
on a Saturday, which is his Sabbath. These are dealt with
alike. The presiding officer, in the presence of the candi-
dates' agents, marks the ballot paper in accordance with
the wishes of the voter and places it in the ballot box. The
greatest problem of all that confronts the presiding officer
is the recording of the vote of a deaf and dumb elector who
can neither read nor write. A list of the votes so marked,
and the reasons for so marking them, must be kept by the
presiding officer and supplied to the returning officer. The
presiding officer may also put questions to ascertain
whether a person who asks for a ballot paper has
already voted in other constituencies in which he is
entitled to vote. A man may vote by reason of a residence
qualification in one constituency and give one more vote
in another constituency where he is registered for a business
premises qualification, or as a University elector. A woman
can vote in only one constituency where she is registered
by virtue of her own or her husband's local government
qualification, but she can vote also at a University, if she
is on its register.

The poll closes at eight or nine o'clock. Ballot papers
cannot be given out after that time. But any voters who
have received papers before the hour has struck may put
their votes into the ballot box. The presiding officer, in
the presence of the agents of the candidates, then stops up
the slot of the ballot box and seals it, so as to prevent the
insertion of any more voting papers. The ballot box, securely
locked, bound in red tape and sealed, is then brought by
the presiding officer to the place appointed for the counting
of the votes, which is usually the town hall or county hall,
and is delivered up to the returning officer, together with
a statement in writing of the number of ballot papers supplied



52 THE PAGEANT OF PARLIAMENT

to the polling station, and accounting for them under the
heads of " used," " unused," and " spoilt," and also the
counterfoils of the used ballot papers, the unused ballot
papers, the marked copies of the register of voters, and the
list of tendered votes, all of which had been carefully made
up in separate parcels and sealed before leaving the polling
station.



CHAPTER IV

THE COUNTRY'S VERDICT



How simple and decorous is a parliamentary election now-
adays compared with the tumultuous polling when voting
was open, before the Ballot Act of 1872 ! In remote times
an election was decided by a show of hands at a public
meeting of the electors. The right of a candidate to challenge
the decision on a show of hands and demand a poll was
established in the reign of James I. However, it continued
to be the practice for the sheriff or returning officer on the
day of nomination still to ask for a show of hands on behalf
of each of the candidates, and to declare for the one in
whose support the larger number of hands had been uplifted.
But as the majority of the crowd were usually non- voters,
the demand for a poll by the other candidate followed as a
matter of course. Formerly the election might last for a
month, and the voting stations might be kept open until
late into the night. Early in the nineteenth century a limit
of fifteen days was fixed for the polling. The Reform Act
of 1832 further reduced the period to two days, and provided
also that the voting should take place between the hours
of nine and four o'clock, with the option of opening an hour
earlier on the second day, if the candidates agreed.

But on the polling days — whether forty, fifteen, or two —
disorder and violence were common throughout the country
at the General Election. Indeed, one of the first acts of a
candidate was to have organized a mob of bludgeon men
to protect himself and his adherents during the campaign,
and also, of course, to intimidate the supporters of his
opponent. Between the rival mobs the constituency was

53



54 THE PAGEANT OF PARLIAMENT

kept in a state of excitement and uproar during the polling.
The most trying part of the contest was the ordeal of the
hustings. These were temporary platforms erected in the
square, at the market cross, or in some other open place
of the borough or chief county town, where the candidates
were proposed and seconded. The speeches were usually
little better than mere dumb show. Each of the rival
politicians made determined but usually vain efforts to
convince the shrieking mob, amid showers of stones, mud,
rotten eggs and dead cats, of the sublime virtue of his
opinions, or of the utter depravity of the views of his
opponent. The sort of item that was common in a candi-
date's election bill before the Ballot Act was this : " To the
employment of 200 men to obtain a hearing, 460s." These
men believed that the best way " to obtain a hearing " for
their employer was to prevent his rival being heard ; and
as the hired mob on the other side was likewise animated
by the same conviction, both candidates were equally
shouted down. There is, for instance, the evidence of
Bernal Osborne, a famous wit and Member of the House
of Commons. " The honourable gentleman talked about
the voice of the electors," he said in a debate on old open-
voting ways. " As if the individual voice of an elector
was ever heard at a nomination, and as if there was not
a general agreement to roar, to hiss, and become debased
with drink ! The true-born Englishman is said to delight
in that day. Now, who are the true-born Englishmen ?"
he asked ; and answered, " Why, the representatives of
muscular Christianity — prize-fighters and people of that sort.
I have spent as much money in retaining the services of
those gentlemen as anybody in this House. One of my
most efficient supporters in Nottingham was a man who
was always clothed as a clergyman of the Church of England,
but who was really an ex-champion of England, Bendigo
by name."

As an illustration of the treatment a candidate had to
expect at the hustings, and of the style of speaking which
was thought appropriate to the occasion, listen to Disraeli
addressing the Buckinghamshire electors at Aylesbury.
Received with a cry of " You look rather white," he thus



THE COUNTRY'S VERDICT 55

retorted : " I can tell you that it is at least not the white
feather I show. [Laughter and cheers, mixed with howling.]
If any member of the melodious company of owls [loud
laughter] wishes to address you after me, I hope that you
will give him a fair hearing. [Interruption.] I can tell the
honourable gentleman who makes this interruption that if
it were possible for him to express the slightest common
sense in decent language, I should be ready to hear him.
In the meantime I must say, from the symptoms of intelli-
gence which he has presented to us to-day, I hope he is not
one whom I number amongst my supporters.*' (Cheers and
laughter.) Disraeli, still directing his attention to his
opponents, further said : " Your most brilliant argument
is a groan, and your happiest repartee a hiss." A voice
then exclaimed : " Speak quick, speak quick ! " for he was
a slow speaker, and he retorted : " It is very easy for you
to speak quick, when you only utter a stupid monosyllable ;
but when I speak I must measure my words. [Loud cheers
and laughter]. I have to open your great thick head.
[Laughter]. What I speak is to enlighten you. If I bawl
like you, you will leave this place as ignorant as you entered
it." (Cheers and laughter.)

Another picture of a scene at the hustings which I call
up from my reading on the subject is of a painful kind. It
was in the year 1865, when there was a contest for West-
minster, and from the hustings erected in Covent Garden,
at the base of St. Paul's Church, John Stuart Mill, the Radical
candidate, addressed the crowd. In his pamphlet, Thoughts
on Parliamentary Reform, Mill bluntly said that the working
classes, though ashamed of lying, were yet generally liars.
This statement was printed on a placard by Mill's opponent
and aroused against Mill the animosity of the working men
of the division. At one meeting he was asked whether he
had really written such a thing. He at once answered,
" I did," and scarcely were the words out of his mouth
when, as he states in his Autobiography, vehement applause
burst forth. The working men present were, according to
Mill, so used to equivocation and evasion, that this direct
avowal took their fancy, and instead of being affronted,
they concluded at once that Mill was a person whom they



66 THE PAGEANT OF PARLIAMENT

could trust. But Mill does not mention the hostile reception
he got when he appeared on the hustings. Before the
speaking commenced a member of the crowd asked an
enthusiastic supporter of Mill which of the gentlemen on
the hustings was the candidate. " There," exclaimed the
admirer, as he pointed at the author of the treatise On
Liberty, " there is the great man." " Then," said the
other, taking a dead cat from under his coat and flinging
it at Mill, " let him take that." When Mill afterwards spoke
he was pelted by the porters of Covent Garden with the
garbage of the market.

The mob influence exercised at elections — often the
determining influence — might be intimidatory, but it was
not always venal. These unsavoury arguments, dead cats
and rotten apples, were at times the expression of sincere
political convictions on the part of people without votes.
As it was only by the use of violence in some form or another
that non-voters could have weight in public affairs, the
Chartists were opposed to the introduction of secret voting
so long as the franchise was restricted to the comparatively
few. They admitted that the ballot would be an excellent
thing if universal suffrage were established under it. Until
then they avowed their determination to see to it that the
unfranchised part of public opinion should not be deprived
of the chance of influencing the electors, under a system of
open voting, by the methods of blacking eyes and smashing
windows.



To convince Parliament of the beneficence of secret
voting at elections took forty years of unremitting advocacy,
though meanwhile the franchise had been enlarged. Grote,
the historian of Greece, who sat as a Radical for the City
of London from 1832 to 1841, annually moved a resolution
in favour of the ballot. It was always rejected. On the
retirement of Grote into private life in 1841 Henry Berkeley
continued to move the motion every year, with the same
want of success until 1851, when, despite the opposition of
the then Whig Government, headed by Lord John Russell,
he carried it by a majoiity of thirty-seven. Nevertheless,



THE COUNTRY'S VERDICT 57

twenty-one years were yet to elapse before the ballot was
finally established by Act of Parliament. A Select Com-
mittee of the House of Commons, which sat in 1868 to inquire
into corrupt practices at elections, reported in favour of
the ballot as a measure likely to conduce to the tranquillity,
purity, and freedom of contests. The undue influence which
was exercised in various forms at open elections is strikingly
set forth in the evidence taken by that committee. Its
most common shape was the direct physical terrorism
exercised by hired mobs. There was also the more subtle
intimidation of tenants by landlords, of workmen by
employers, of servants by masters, of tradesmen and shop-
keepers by customers, and, more reprehensible still, the
undue spiritual influence of ministers of religion, who, in
the guidance of their flocks as to the way they should vote,
did not scruple to invoke the terrors of the world to come.
The report of the Select Committee, which appeared in
1869, greatly helped to turn public opinion in favour of
the ballot. In the following year W. E. Forster, a Member
of the then Liberal Government, with Gladstone as Prime
Minister, introduced a Bill abolishing nominations at the
hustings and introducing vote by ballot. It passed through
the House of Commons, only to be rejected by the House
of Lords by 97 votes to 48, on the motion of the Earl
of Shaftesbury. The arguments against the measure had
been set forth long before by John Stuart Mill, one of
the ablest and most distinguished opponents of secret
voting. As the franchise was a public trust, confided to
a limited number of the community, the general public,
for whose benefit it was exercised, were entitled to see how
it was used, openly and in the light of day. The ballot,
therefore, meant power without responsibility. It was also
cowardly and skulking. Under its shelter the elector was
likely to fall into the temptation of casting a mean and
dishonest vote for his own benefit as an individual, or for
that of the class to which he belonged. The Bill was rein-
troduced in the following session of 1872. It passed again
through the Commons, was sent up to the Lords, and, despite
the renewed opposition of Lord Shaftesbury, was carried
to the Statute Book, Since then the elector has been free



58 THE PAGEANT OF PARLIAMENT

to vote as he pleased, according to the dictates of his con-
science, his political convictions, his foolish whims and his
wayward fancies without anyone knowing a bit about it.
The Ballot Act was not, however, made the permanent
law of the land. In the House of Lords an amendment
limiting the operation of the Bill to eight years was accepted
by the Government. Therefore, from 1880 the Ballot Act
had to be renewed every year by being included in the
Expiring Laws Continuance Act — otherwise the measure
would have had to be reintroduced and carried through
all its stages in both Houses — until 1918, when a clause of
the Representation of the People Act transformed it from
an annual into a permanent statute. Yet there is one
election to which the Ballot Act does not apply — an election
for the representation of a University. During the time
allowed for the polling — about five days — electors can vote
either personally or by proxy papers, which, having been
signed before a justice of the peace, are sent by post to
the University, and in either case the votes are openly
declared before the presiding officer.

In the Life of Groie there is recorded an interesting
conversation between him and his wife on the subject of
secret voting after the Ballot Act had been passed. " You
will feel great satisfaction at seeing your once favourite
measure triumph over all obstacles," said Mrs. Grote to her
husband one morning at breakfast. " Since the wide expan-
sion of the voting element, I confess that the value of the
ballot has sunk in my estimation," the historian replied.
" I don't, in fact, think the electors will be affected by it
one way or another, so far as Party interests are concerned."
" Still," said the wife, " you will at all events get at the
genuine preference of the constituency." " No doubt,"
said Grote ; " but then, again, I have come to perceive that
the choice between one man and another among the English
people signifies less than I used formerly to think it did.
The English mind is much of one pattern, take whatsoever
class you will. The same favourite prejudices, amiable and
otherwise ; the same antipathies, coupled with ill-regulated
though benevolent efforts to eradicate human evils, are
wellnigh universal. A House of Commons cannot afford



THE COUNTRY'S VERDICT 59

to be above its own constituents in intelligence, knowledge,
or patriotism." But this must be said — thanks to the
ballot, all parties are united in eliminating from the stock
of political arguments rotten eggs, stale fish, dead cats, over-
ripe fruit and decaying vegetables, and, in agreeing that in
electioneering it is better to count heads than to break them.



One of the most memorable of General Elections under
the Ballot Act surely was that held in December, 1918,
following the passing of the Representation of the People
Act and the close of the World War, when women voted
for the first time. The scenes I saw in London on the
polling day, that historic Saturday, made a profound impres-
sion on me. Women in thousands flocked to the booths
as well as men. Many wives and mothers of the working
class brought their babies in perambulators. What did
they think of it all ? They were not subdued in demeanour
and thoughtful, in keeping with the greatness and gravity
of the occasion. On the contrary, they were joking and
laughing, as if quite elated at the notion that they should
be voting for a Member of Parliament — and a Parliament
in which, as it turned out, a representative of their own
sex was to sit for the first time in the person of Lady Astor,
of the Sutton Division of Plymouth.

Even so, was not this the last word in ordered and
organized democracy ? Could there be, I asked myself, a
more advanced and striking manifestation of the free
citizenship in the most perfectly planned Republic ? Then I
wondered what the Barons of Magna Charta — whose statues I
have so often looked upon in the House of Lords — would have
thought of it, those feudal lords who, over 600 years before,
extracted from an absolute King the first great enunciation
of constitutional liberty ? Nay, why go back so far and
remotely ? What would the working men who, as a protest
against the denial of electoral reform in July, 1866, tore
down the railings of Hyde Park, have thought of it ? What
they wanted was the extension of the franchise to male
householders. They could never have imagined that their



60 THE PAGEANT OF PARLIAMENT

grand-daughters would have that which they themselves
did not then possess — the vote for a Parliament the least
fettered in the world by a written Constitution and the most
omnipotent in the exercise of its legislative powers.



The counting of the votes takes place on the night of
the polling day, or the next day as the returning officer may
appoint. In county constituencies, where the polling stations
are many miles apart, it is impossible to commence counting
the votes until the next morning ; but in boroughs, where
all the ballot boxes are delivered up to the returning officer
within a quarter, or at most half an hour, of the close of the
poll at 8 or 9 p.m., the counting is got through as a rule
by eleven o'clock. No person may be present at the counting
of the votes besides the returning officer and his counting
clerks, the candidates and their agents, except by the authority
of the returning officer, and everyone present is placed under
an obligation to maintain, and aid in maintaining, the secrecy
of the voting.

The first thing that is done is to check the number of
votes in each ballot box with the return furnished by the
presiding officer of the number of ballot papers issued at
the polling booth, in order to see if they tally. All the
ballot papers from all the boxes are then mixed up together
in one great heap, so as to make it impossible to find out
how the voting went in any particular polling district. The
ballot papers are next placed on the table faces upward,
so that the number printed in each case on the back — the
only thing which might give a clue to the identification
of a voter — shall not be seen. Any person who attempts to
obtain the number of a voting paper in violation of the
secrecy of the ballot is liable to six months' imprisonment.
The ballot papers are then distributed among the large
staff of counting clerks seated at scattered tables in the
room, and the counting of the votes recorded for the several
candidates begins. There are two ways of counting in
vogue. In one — the London way — the clerks are divided
into pairs. One clerk is provided with a sheet of foolscap



THE COUNTRY'S VERDICT 61

containing the names of the candidates with a number of
squares under each, and the other clerk goes through the
ballot papers calling out the name of the candidate opposite
to which the voter has placed his cross. If the vote is given
for " Robinson," a stroke is inserted in one of the squares
under Robinson's name ; if it is given for " Smith," a stroke
is put in one of the squares under the name of Smith. Pro-
vision is made on each sheet for 250 votes to be thus counted,
and when either of the candidates has received that number
the figures for each are put at the foot — " Robinson, 250,"
" Smith, 76 " — and the sheet is passed on to the returning
officer. Under the other system of counting, each clerk
places on the table in front of him the ballot papers for
each candidate in separate piles, makes them up into packets
of fifty, placing an elastic band round each, and hands them
over to the returning officer.

The work of the counting clerks is closely watched by
an agent representing each of the candidates. All votes
about which there is any doubt are referred to the returning
officer. Any paper which has on it any writing or mark
by which the voter could be identified is rejected. Some
electors are so vehemently partisan that, not content with
making the simple "X," they add personal remarks about
the candidates or comments on the political issues as the
strong feelings of the moment prompt them. I remember
at one election where only Liberal and Socialist candidates
stood many angry Conservatives wrote across their ballot
papers such phrases as " Betwixt the devil and the deep
sea," and " God help England ! " Every voting paper so
defaced is cast aside. Any paper which contains votes for
more candidates than the elector is entitled to vote for is
also void. There are also voting papers about which hang
the element of uncertainty. On some the " X " is made
on the candidate's name ; on others it commences in one
square and ends in another. Other electors, again, impishly
desirous no doubt of puzzling everybody concerned, make
their " X " meet exactly on the line which separates the
names of the candidates. Each paper thus irregularly
marked is judged on its own merits, but the guiding rule is
that the vote is given to the candidate whose name appears



62 THE PAGEANT OF PARLIAMENT

within that section of the voting paper where the Hnes of
the voter's cross touch each other.

The candidates are also present in the room with some
of their leading and more intimate supporters, and often
with their wives, awaiting with such composure as they
can command the result which is to realize or disappoint
their hopes and ambitions. Sometimes the candidates
never get into personal touch with one another until they
meet in the counting-room. And though Party feeling
usually runs high, those contests are not without their
charming amenities. It was on such an occasion that
Thackeray was paid what he thought was the greatest
compliment of his life. He contested Oxford in the Liberal
interest in 1857, and, meeting his opponent, Edward Card well,
he remarked : " Well, I hope the best man will win." " I
hope not," replied the Tory candidate. Notwithstanding
all the care of the officials, aided by the vigilance of the
candidates' agents, mistakes are occasionally made, and,
what is more annoying and perplexing, are not discovered
until after the result of the count is supposed to have been
ascertained, though not officially declared in the room.
A bundle of counted ballot papers may fall unnoticed under
the table, or may be erroneously placed in the batch of
the wrong candidate. Surely no disappointment more bitter
can befall a man than that of the candidate who within
five or ten minutes of his feeling certain of being duly returned
to Parliament finds there has been an error in the counting,
and that he has really been beaten after all.

The returning officer cannot vote at the election ; but
should there be a tie between the candidates he may, if a
registered elector, give a casting vote. At a by-election for
South Northumberland in April, 1878, the candidates,
Albert Grey (afterwards Earl Grey) and Edward Ridley
(subsequently a Judge of the High Court), polled the same
number of votes — 2,912 — a thing unprecedented in the
case of a big county constituency. The sheriff declined
to give a casting vote as returning officer, although himself
an elector, preferring to make a double return by declaring
both candidates elected. A few days later Mr. Grey and
Mr. Ridley presented themselves at the Table of the House