Page:Notes on the Anti-Corn Law Struggle.djvu/81

 members of the Committee, Mr. C. Villiers, Mr. Leatham, and Mr. Fawcett, opposed the passage in the Report of the Committee, which expressed a fear of public inconvenience. When the Committee made their report there were two days—the nomination day and the day of polling. The ballot has got rid of the nomination day, and the inconvenience from the closing of public-houses, if encountered, would now be reduced from two days to one day.

The Committee of the House of Commons, sitting in 1869, naturally sought to avail themselves of the knowledge and experience which the Judges had acquired in their election trial circuits. On the point of reduction of expenditure, Mr. C. Villiers asked the following question of Mr. Justice Willes:—"Ought you not to discourage as much as possible anything that is unnecessary in the way of expenditure?" "Undoubtedly," replied the Judge, "otherwise you give a rich dullard the advantage over a poor man of intellect."

This raises a nice question. I will quote in the next chapter some words of General Thompson, that "the world wants honest law-givers not pious ones;" and it may be added that an honest law-giver, though he may not be a brilliant genius,