If at the expiration of the fixed term only one candidate has been nominated there is no need to take a ballot. The candidate is declared elected and the business is settled. If, on the other hand, and naturally this occurs the most frequently, two or three candidates have presented themselves in time, the sheriff fixes a date for the election, which takes place by secret voting, in the same way as with us, only in a polling booth.
These formalities are all essential. The omission of a single detail would render the election void. A certificate bearing the name of a candidate who has not formerly deposited his nomination is of no legal value and, the most singular thing is, that a member, whose election was invalid, is at once replaced by his opponent. I must add that in case of appeal, the cause is heard, not by Parliament, but in the ordinary law courts.
This legislation seems to me infinitely more reasonable than our own, except in a few details. In the first place, it prevents the scandalous invalidations which we see in France, and which are sure to occur when they are pronounced by men who are both judges and partisans. The idea of declaring a candidate elected because he has no opponent also strikes me as a good one. It may not often happen in France, but it sometimes occurs, and then what is the use of disturbing a hundred or a hundred and fifty thousand voters, since the result is a foregone conclusion and cannot injure any one’s interests? For if a minority wishes to reckon its strength by rallying round a name, there is no reason it should not announce its intention by a settled date.
But these arrangements have only existed a few years. They put an end to the formidable and legendary abuses of English elections. They were also effectual in reducing the candidate’s expenses to an enormous extent. An election amongst our neighbours is now far less onerous than with us. When the last elections took place in France, the conservatives spent about one franc upon every registered voter, and in many departments the republicans far exceeded this amount, thanks to the enormous sums placed at their disposal by the Government, sums probably raised from the Tonquin grants. In England the authorised expenses amount, according to the figures which have been given to me, to fifty or sixty centimes (5d. or 6d.) per voter. Now the electors are less numerous than with us, for universal suffrage does not yet exist, and it appears that these expenses are very little exceeded.
I had the good luck to find Mr. O’Brien in his office with another member of Parliament, who had also been elected without opposition.
Mr. William O’Brien was born at Mallow, in 1852. His career has been very eventful. After leaving the small college of Cloyne, where he had completed his studies, he threw himself headlong into Fenianism, whilst his brother, with a Captain Mackay, won a great reputation in the south of Ireland by the audacity they displayed in attacking several police stations, with the object of procuring arms for the insurgents. At last they were arrested. This Mr. O’Brien died in prison of a chest complaint, his death being hastened, so they say, by the governor’s neglect. His father died on the same day—a singular co-incidence.
William O’Brien then suddenly found himself at the head of a family, but without any resources. A pamphlet that he published by Captain Mackay’s advice, won him an appointment to the Cork Daily Herald, one of the best papers in the south. In 1876 he came to Dublin, and was attached to the editor’s staff of the Freeman’s Journal. There Mr. Parnell found him in 1881, and placed him at the head of the United Ireland, which was just being started as the Land League’s official newspaper.
Since this time Mr. O’Brien has waged perpetual war against England, a war which has doubtless endeared him to his fellow-citizens, for having succeeded, in 1882, in wresting, by 161 votes against 89, the seat of Mallow from a Conservative; he has since that date always been re-elected without opposition.
No one can pass through a career like Mr. O’Brien’s without making many enemies; but he must possess very fine qualities, for even his bitterest opponents acknowledge the perfect respectability of his life. In every one’s opinion he is a sincerely pious and exceedingly charitable man. Nearly all the money he earns, and he earns a great deal, is spent in good works. Last year, at the end of a political lawsuit, his opponent was sentenced to pay him 1,000l. damages and interest. With one stroke of the pen he gave it all to charity. Physically he is rather a small, dark man, who looks older than he is, in spite of the brightness of his eyes which shine through his spectacles. He has all the appearance of an enthusiast, and I believe that he is absolutely convinced of the justice of the cause that he serves without a mental reservation and with the most absolute devotion.