Edward Le Quesne: Parish Elections

Edward Le Quesne (1882-1957) was elected a Deputy for St Helier No 2 district in 1925 and held the seat until he stood successfully for the new office of Senator in 1948. This is an extract from a journal he wrote entitled “50 Years of Memories”, written sometime around 1949. 

Note that at the time he is describing, around the start of the 20th century, the Jurats were elected for life and on an Island wide mandate, the Rectors sat in the States, and the Connetables and Deputies are the only members still forming part of the States, although the Dean of Jersey sits in the States, can speak, but has no vote. 

There were twelve Jurats, replaced in the 1948 reform by 12 Senators, also elected on an Island wide basis but with 6 being elected every 6 years, while Deputies were elected every 3 years, and Constables every 3 years, but from the vacancy of the office holder, which meant all over the place, as some had died in office, and over the centuries it became very random. 

Now there is one election day, a four year term of office, and the Senators will no longer sit in the States, while the Deputies will no longer represent a parish but a "superconstituency", leaving the Parish representation to the Constables, who will now be the sole voice of their Parish in the States. As I am  politically a Distributist, and therefore a confirmed believer in the importance of the principle of subsidiarity, I'm pleased that remains.

Despite the prevalence of obvious bribery, it was an offense. Against bribery involved in elections, the UK passed the 1883 Corrupt Practices Act, but there was no Jersey equivalent except for the customary law offence of bribery, even though it clearly wasn't enforced well in Le Quesne's account. Only recently, bribery was placed on the statute books as a general offense, not just a political one, with Corruption (Jersey) Law 2006, replacing custom law. 

As Bedell and Cristin remarked:

The aim of the Corruption Law was to introduce comprehensive measures to combat bribery and corruption both domestically and internationally. A "start from scratch" approach was adopted, abolishing the customary law offence of bribery and certain existing statutory offences so that all such offences are dealt with by one statute.

The new law also put into perspective what did exist until 2006. There were a number of specific antibribery offences in various Laws (such as the States of Jersey Law 1966 and the Companies (Jersey) Law 1991) and there was a customary law offence of bribery, just about the only recorded incidence of which, since the Second World War, was Attorney General -v- Langtry.

In October 1945. Mrs. Langtry was convicted and fined £25 for offering a bribe, in the form of a £5 note, to the Chief Aliens officer in return for a permit to travel to England. (The Chief Aliens Officer, incidentally, declined both to accept the bribe and to issue the permit, and instead, reported Mrs. Langtry to the police.)

Parish Elections.
by Edward Le Quesne

Island and parochial elections were great events, and some of the things that happened at those elections hardly appear credible to-day. In most of the country parishes two parties existed, The Rose and The Laurel. Neither part had any political creed, in fact it is questionable as to whether two per cent of the electorate knew the difference between one party’s politics and the other’s.

But you had to be either a “ Laurel ” or a “ Rose ”, and whether your candidate was good, bad or indifferent, you were expected to loyally support him with all the resources at your disposal. Whether it was for the office of Connétable, Centenier, Vingtenier, Officier du Connétable or even Roads’ Inspector, no man who was not of your party must be permitted to obtain election without a contest. Elections were expensive, and if a close contest was expected large sums of money were expended to buy the votes of waverers, or of those suspected of being amenable to a “ pourboire ”, to induce them for once to forget their loyalty.

One man might be offered £20 for a heifer or cow worth £10; the opposite party, hearing of this, would probably increase the offer to £30, and having accepted the larger amount the elector would probably vote for the first. In some cases, when there was great doubt as to how a man would vote, he had to be kept away from the polling booth by some means, and a favourite method was to get him so drunk on election day that he could not possibly attend to record his vote. Another method was to get him intoxicated, placed in a boat and taken for a trip to Sark whilst the polling took place. I have known of families almost facing ruin due to the monies spent on getting their particular party candidates elected, often to posts for which they were entirely unfitted.

In a long political life I can recall many humorous incidents connected with Elections, some connected with Island elections for the juratship, some connected with election for municipal offices in the Parish of St. Helier.

There was a vacancy for the position of Jurat, and no candidate was forthcoming. Three of us were seated chatting in a local office. “ We must find a candidate ”, said one of my friends. “ I know a little fellow who would take if asked. Let us ring him up ”, the other friend replied.

We telephoned the gentleman concerned.

“ A large and influential deputation would like to call on you in order to seek your willingness to accept nomination for the vacancy on the Bench of Jurats ”.

 “ I would be delighted to receive you ”, came the reply. '

We were in a fix, but one on the phone and the two others running around, we eventually secured some twenty people willing to accompany us to the home of our candidate.

We were well received, refreshments provided, and the candidate, with tears in his eyes, thanked the deputation for the great honour and placed himself entirely at our disposal. Unfortunately another candidate appeared on the scene. The whole Island had to be canvassed. Free drinks at the Inns in each parish had to be arranged for on election day and cars provided to bring electors from outlying districts to the poll.

The election cost our candidate over £1,000, and unfortunately he was unsuccessful. But, trying again at a later date, he had better luck and an expense bill that did not, on the second occasion, exceed £800. To our sorrow he turned out to be one of the most useless members that ever donned the Red Robe. “ Sic transit gloria mundi ”..

Another case was that of a Centenier who had given many years of valuable service to his Parish. His time for re-election was approaching but no one had apparently appealed to him to again come forward. Sitting in an ofiice at the Parish Hall with a colleague he entered and complained of the lack of appreciation of his services. My colleague and I felt that something had to be done, so again by means of the phone and personal interviews we arranged for a deputation to meet at a local hotel in the afternoon, with the object of asking the gentleman to again come forward as a candidate for election.

The meeting took place, and much to our astonishment another gentleman, whose term of office had also expired, graced the meeting with his presence. The two gentlemen were called in ; and the appointed chairman having explained the object of the meeting, both gentlemen expressed their willingness to again accept office. One of them, in accepting, expressed his particular pleasure at the “ spontaneity ” of the request of ‘ his fellow-citizens. Refreshments were provided, but when the time came to pay, one of the candidates had disappeared, leaving the man for whom the meeting had originally been called to “foot the bill ”!