And it might have continued to be thought so, had corruption been confined to the smaller boroughs; but there was no doubt that in many large towns corruption was equally prevalent and inveterate, while there were also many counties in which the cost of a contest was by far too large to be accounted for by any legitimate causes of expenditure.  And consequently, as time wore on, severer measures were considered necessary.  Some boroughs were deprived of the right of election altogether; in others, whose population or constituency was too numerous to make their permanent disfranchisement advisable, the writ was suspended for a time, that its suspension might serve both as a punishment and as a warning, a practice which is still not unfrequently adopted.  But no plan could be devised for dealing with the evil in counties, till what seemed hopeless to achieve by direct legislation was, in a great degree, effected by the indirect operation of the Reform Bill of 1832.  The shortening of the duration of an election, which was henceforth concluded in a single day, and the multiplication of polling places, which rendered it impossible to ascertain the progress of the different candidates till the close of the poll, were provisions having an inevitable and most salutary effect in diminishing alike the temptation to bribe on the part of the candidate, and the opportunity of enhancing the value of his vote by the elector.  The vast increase of newspapers, by diffusing political education and stimulating political discussion, has had, perhaps, a still greater influence in the same direction.  And, as bribery could only be brought to bear on electors too ignorant to estimate the importance of the exercise of the franchise by any higher test than the personal advantage it might bring to themselves, it is to the general diffusion of education among the poorer classes, and their gradually improved and improving intelligence that a complete eradication of electoral corruption can alone be looked for.

Notes: 

[Footnote 1:  “Constitutional History,” vol. iii., p. 380; ed. 3, 1832.  The first edition was published in 1827.]

[Footnote 2:  Grampound.  Corrupt voters had been disfranchised in New Shoreham as early as 1771, and the franchise of the borough of Cricklade had been transferred to the adjoining hundreds in 1782.]

[Footnote 3:  Parliament was dissolved March 19.  Lord Bute succeeded Lord Holdernesse March 25.]

[Footnote 4:  The greater part of Lord Bute’s colleagues did, in fact, retain their offices.  Lord Egremont and Lord Halifax continued to be Secretaries of State; Lord Henley (afterward Lord Northington) retained the Great Seal; Lord North and Sir John Turner remained as Lords of the Treasury; and Mr. Yorke and Sir Fletcher Norton were still Attorney and Solicitor General.]

[Footnote 5:  Parliament was prorogued April 19, and The North Briton (No. 45) was published April 23.]