We were petitioned against on the usual charges of bribery and intimidation. To the charges of direct bribery and indirectly bribing by the promise of work we replied, I believe, to the satisfaction of the Committee. The case of the petitioners rested upon the charge that we had engaged too many committee rooms. The Committee unseated us because: "It had been proved that acts of bribery had been committed by the engagement, by the agents of the sitting members, of an excessive number of public houses, in which it was proved that none of the legitimate business of the election was transacted, and for which sums varying from £10 to £20 were paid. That it has not been proved that such acts were committed with the knowledge or consent of the said Sir Henry Hoare and the said Henry Labouchere." Now this decision must have been come to on the supposition that Sir Henry Hoare and I were responsible for the eleven committee rooms, paid for by Mr. Flower, because we both swore that the nine committee rooms were taken with "knowledge and consent." The Committee consequently must have concluded either that Mr. Flower, Mr. Durrant, Sir H. Hoare, and myself {79} were guilty of perjury in swearing that the payment by Mr. Flower was _bona fide_, or that Sir H. Hoare and I, in taking on agents in May, became responsible for what these agents had done in the interests of a third party during the winter. Our case rested on the fact that "none of the legitimate business of the election" was transacted in Mr. Flower's public houses, and that if a bill with the words "Committee Rooms" was hung over any room in Mr. Flower's public houses it was because the publicans considered they would advertise their own political principles by showing that they had been engaged by a Liberal candidate who had retired. Every one knows that, if an electioneering bill over a public house is an advertisement for a candidate, it is also an advertisement for the public house, and that publicans like it to be supposed that they belong to one or other of the parties during a contested election. As a matter of fact some of Mr. Flower's publicans did not vote for me. I may then fairly state that my late colleague and I were unseated because one of our agents had been concerned, months before he became our agent, in taking public houses in undue numbers for Mr. Flower. Now, sir, I would venture to call the attention of the Legislature to the new and strange principle of jurisprudence on which the decision of the Windsor Election Committee has been based. I do so in the interests of all candidates, for, as far as I am concerned, I have unfortunately no appeal against the decision.