The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1883-02-27 00:00:00

Pant Conatg exprpoo.

DOKOHISTER, riBRUARY 271 b, 1883.

Sir Charles Dilke's Ballot Bill does more than
oonvert • temporary into a permanent institu.
tion. It proposes important °hangs' in the law,
and throws • new and serious burdan of
respoosibility upon the shoulders of the Return.
tug Officers. It provides that informalities in
the filling-up of ballot papers shall not invalidate
them se long as the intention of the voter is
apparent. If experience did not prove it, it
would be difficult to believe that any person
mild make • mistake in fillln,irup so eimple •
form se a bellot paper. And, certainly, if a man
I. so densely stupid as not te be able to plane a
cross after the name of the candidate for whom
he means to vote, there is some ground for the
argument that he is an unfit person to exercise
the electoral franchise.

Mr. O'Donnell is preparing a new scourge for
Parliament. He takes a personal interest in
Indian &Wm, which the position his brother
enjoys in the Indian Oivil Service has led him
to study. He is organising an Indian party
amongst native gentlemen in this oountry, and,
with the assistance of some other Irish Members,
ha hopes to be be able to keep up a battery of
inoonvenient questions, and to raise irregular
debates upon Indian matters, which will serve
the general purpose of obstruction and il'ustrate
the Home Rule theory that the British Parlia-
ment is incompetent to deal with the multi-
tudinous interests confided to its supervision.

If local government be not soon established,
it is pretty certain a substitute will be found for
11. Piecemeal legislation, especially in reference
to Temperance, has been triad in Ireland, in
Wales, and in Cornwall. It is now sought to
be Introduced in the Isle of Wight. After •
while there would be no reason why each oounty
should not maks its own experiment, use Its own
Local Option, and thus obtain those advantages,
though. perhaps, by a slower process, which are
claimed for local government. Sir Wilfrid
Lawson desires nothing more than this, and we
think he may be considered the unconscious
=of • reform which all parties alike are
of bringing about. We may expect the
fast aorta of land government :13 b 3 directed
to the licensing system, u being connected with
abuses calling loudly for removal. We give
Temperance, reformers credit for a full belief in
the thin end of the wedge. They no longer
attempt to make the whole nation sober by Act
of Parliament. They would, it is true, set up
the groom of Local Option; but their immet
Mato aorta are directed to Sunday Closing, no
here, there, and everywhere, but in districts
calculated either by locality or some peculiar
•PProgriateneis for the experiment The step
from load to general adoption will not he a
difficult one; and when the machinery has been
found to work beneAcially with regard to control
of the trafßo on Sundays, what is to prevent its
MIZU;n to the most important point of pro.
ablichonses altogether I We have said
that plernmeal legislation is preparing the war
for local government. It will be absorbed in it
by-and-bye. Its occupation will be gone. Will
all the hopes entertained of local government be
realised? We should not like to say so. The
dower will exist; but it may not at all times be
exerted. Traditions linger a long time in
England.