The Express.
London, England, 1851-11-14 00:00:00

Stine erprefso.

position to emigrate, at least to the southern colonies,
appears less active than usual. Government, in-
stead of being worried by applicants for free'
find some difficulty in filling up the vessels:stir;
have laid on for Port Philip and Sydney. This is
satisfactory in so far that it shows the Ifnglish pub-
lic have outgrown the childishness of scampering off
recklessly towards any El Dorado.
The only suspicious symptom that has yet pre-
sented itself is a alight eruption of prospectuses of
joint-stock companies to purchase and excavate
tracts of land in the gold region. Of course in a
country where the railway mania, and the previous
joint-stock manias, have called into existence a class
who live only by getting up companies, such a ma-
nifestation was to be looked for. The wonder is that
there have been so few projects of this kind an-
nounced. It would almost look as if the gullible
portion of the public were beginning to acquire
common sense at last, and that the calculators upon
its visionary tendencies and gambling propensities
were aware of it.
l'robably, however, the generally easy and pros-
perous state of the community has had more effect
in bringing about this temporary shyness of emigra-
tion and reluctance to listen to the temptations of
company projectors than strengthened powers of
self-control or habits of prudent forethought. In
Ireland the stream of emigration appears still to set
in with unabated force and rapidity on the American
I shores. Where there is suffering, men are still eager I
to fly to any new and untried country that is acces-
sible. The apathy of the emigrating class in Eng-
land and Scotland—their tardiness in the acceptance
of offers to waft them to new homes in distant re-
' gions, indicates that they find themselves able to get
on tolerably in the old country—or at least that their
prospects for the immediate future are sufficiently
i promising to tempt them to one trial more before
they throw up the cards.
One valuable lcvs)n is taught by this state of
affairs. It would appear that an eager and name-
, rous emigration is produced less by the allurements
' of the new land than by the repulsions of the old.
. There are always small swarms a-throwing off by
any old stock. flat when the community is compa-
ratively prusperous, these swarms arc composed
exclusively of the high-spirited, the imagina-
tive, the robust y healthy —the comparatively
few. When we witness old age and infancy,
the pale and emaciated drudges of sedentary
, trades, the dreamy scholar, thronging our harbours,
, jostling each other in their haste to cram our mi-
. grant ships—then we may be sure that they are pra-
t pelted from behind, not attracted from before ; that
comfortless homes, or visions of impending poverty,
scare them from their old familiar haunts. -

70 CORRESPONDENTS.
Owed DOM rd" The Itsprro." essisilin; 'be Ism irmilre•
Gaseiregs pabilohed sway Tondo mai Yrids, .t t. Is use
Iler wt.
aim wirer 'storied Offroillo 6p s." Lemke Wising paw,
art be lathe WM, Issesiverairest. tiy Too *Nip& as the
Os et pribUmnsa.

111011 WATILK AT LONDON BRIDGE
ms—alaning, Ilk 166..--Afterema. 3k. fikk
Twookar.-11sesios OW PM 6k. U..

LONDON, FRIDA 4- NOVEMBER 14.

IT is clear that if bribery at elections is ever to be
d tciently restrained, if not altogether put down, two
things must lie done:—The number of electors in
each constituency must be so extended as to render
wholesale corruption by candidates of ordinary for-
tune impossible; and the ballot must be rendered
univemd. Without these csscntial conditions the
new reform bill will be valueless and rain. Both
arc indispensable, and we hardly know which would
be most illusory—the ballot without a large exten-
sion of the suffrage, or an extended franchise without

the ballot.
'fake the instance of St. Albans, the anatomy of
whore baseness, perjury, and ecoundrelism has re:
eently been laid lure to public gaze. Out of '.."33
voters at the last election but 21i were suspected of
not !wing received money, and even in their can
the etespicton of purity seems to have rested upon
very dubious foundation. In effect the whole consti-
tuency was in the market—hawked by political
broken from door to dour in the City and the West-
mid for the usual time—hid for, and bargained for, by
one candidate after another as a whole, and finally
appropriated at the stipulated price in much the same
way as eu enterpi iOng grazier purchases a fine lot
of wethers or a drove of oxen. In all the negotia-
tms for the purchase, it seems to have been almost
tacitly understood that, to use a commercial phrase,
" bulk was not to be broken.° The comparative value of
an individual vote is but rarely and incidentally men-
tioned. Some. no doubt, cast more, some less; hut
that appears to have been a matter left altogether
to the discretion of the brokers who undertook the
sale of all for the common interest. No candidate
seems to have trafficked in particular votes ; it was
the compact and corrupt constituency or a clear ma-
ty thereof, that was tendered for sale, sold,
tig.ht, and paid for. One simple gentleman is
stated to have wasted a morning in making a per-
sonal canvass, during wLich he was delighted to find
a very general coincidence, existing or prufessed,
between his own opinions on Alum of state and
those of the electors. But great must have been
his disenchantment when told, on his return
to the inn, that unless he were prepared to
Pay down a heavy round sum it would be absolutely
idle to pursue the matter further. Coincidence or
difference of opinion had, in short, ceased lung ago
at St. Albans to form any perceptible feature in con-
tested elections for the borough. How would the
application of the ballot essentially change the sordid
and scandalous system revealed us existing there ?
Certain modifications might be found necessary by
the Beerms and Erwattoses, were the practice of
secret voting adopted at St. Albans. The less reliable
and more dissolute members of the narrow electoral
fraternity would lie engaged to disappear the day
before the poll as the consideration fur their share of
the plunder. Their hands would not be trusted in
the ballot-box. 'I heir absence would be the thing
required. But with the 111:1.1.4 of the constituency
such a course would be alike impossible and unneces-
sary. We have it in evidence that the greater
number of these who during the last twenty years
pocketed the wages of political prostitution are per-
eons in comfortable circumstances, decent in
their habits of life, and, in short, what are
called very respectable men. Between such men
and the undertakers who bargain fur their
joint-stuck sale there evidently subsists a well
understood and recognised species of confi-
dence. Before the Reform Bill of IS:12, the money
was always distributed previous to the pull, but
since that 'period the practice has been the reverse.
One hundred and twenty electors put their trust in
Erwviers, and vote in faith, nothing doubting, for
whomsoever he bids them. Not till the deed is done
and the member made, do they ask to touch the
money. Elm %mei has a character as a man of poli-
tical business to support; it would never be worth
his wine to deceive them, and in a little town,
with a limited constituency, it would never be
worth their while seldom in their power—
to deceive hint. Ten shillings in the pound down
and ten more in the event of success, would be a
simple and compreliewsive mode of checking any
irregularities of dealings. The public scandal would
be got rid of, but the work of corruption would goon.
11w ballot would do nothing towards eradica-
ting bribery in very small constituencies. But
let the nunthers in such a case be multiplied by
ten, let thousands have the right of voting fur
each repress ntative where hundreds only have the
privilege now, and the mere terror of the expense
which would then berme requisite would in itself
operate as a very serious check upon coe-
niption. What is much more to the pur-
pose, however, utter and hopeless uncer-
tainty would overhang the whole transaction.
The discovery becomes manifestly impossible in
proportion to the numbers who vote. We know
that in certain large constituencies, where parties are
evenly balanced, gross bribery takes place, be-
cause there is open voting, and the broker is able
therefore to undertake that there shall be value re-
ceived. But how would it be possible in Notting-
ham or Liverpool to trace the vote of any individual
elector where thousands had on the same day all
voted penally We do not say that means might
not in particular circumstances be found for the sur-
reptitious:indication of unlawful influences. We do not
shut our qt., to the Eut that under any systetnit must
still be possible to induce men fur the sake of money
to absent themselves from the urn. What we con-
tend for is, that with the ballot in lame constituen-
elm the heart of bribery would be broken—bribery
as it now stalks up and, down the land both blas-
phemous and unblushing. It might still perhaps be
occasionally seen, trailing its paralysed limbs along or
whispering its filthy seductions to the ignorant and
poor. But the impudent swindle would no longer
outface political honesty in high places, or take its
foremost scat in the councils of a cheated nation.

'rhc practical application we would make of these
reflections is, that no attempt ought to be made to
stimulate by artificial means the present comparative
stagnation of the cmirant tide. We will not be
suspected of undervaluing the advantages which our
colonies offer to those who have nothing but their
heads or hands to depend upon, or to those of
limited means. We have too frequently endeavoured
to lay before our readers the inducements which
such have to emigrate ; wo have made too great
exertions to procure authentic information for them,
to be liable to a suspicion of this kind. We arc as
convinced as ever we were that in new countries the
poor of average capacity and industry have an infi-
nitely better chance than in old countries, and that
the drain of an old country's population by a pros-
perous colony adds to instead of diminishing its
strength and resources. But we believe that emigra-
tion and colonisation, to be really advantageous, must
be spontaneous. We believe that their activity is,
like everything human, intermittent. And we are
convinced that, as nothing can be more mischievous
than any attempt to check the spirit of emigration
when it is active, so nothing can be more dangerous
than to stimulate it when it is languid. The present
languor is only temporary; it is the result of tem-
poruxy causes, and will soon pass away.
Assuredly there is no necessity for pressing these
considerations upon government; unless, indeed, our,
rulers shall prove to be inspired by such an invete-
rate spirit of contradiction as to become, now that
the emigrating spirit is sluggish, as mischievously
busy, i 1.4. when it was eager and impetuous, they
were mischievously remiss. It is for the shipping
and colonial interests that our warning is meant.
The former are naturally impatient at any intermis-
sion in the demand for ; the latter at any
interruption of the rapiamrVpment of colonial re-
sources. It is indeed teasing for =lent and active
natures to be kept partially unemployed; but no-
thing is to be gained by forced work. The lull will
soon pass away. The mere increase of population by
the temporary damming up of the stream of emigra-
tion, will in a short time make it overflow with its

old vehemence and rapidity.
Unless some unforeseen casualties occur to derange
all calculations, the first revival will be felt in the
direction of the North American colonies. 'I he
works which are there on the eve of being com-
menced under the auspices of Mr. Howe and his
associates u ill open up in themselves a rich field of
remunerative labour; and by accelerating the love
lop:tient of the internal resources of the colony, and
drawing the transit trade of the new north-western
states of the American Union in that direction, they
will render the country still more alluring. The
recent changes in the local administration of Canada
we are disposed to hail as favourable to these
prospects. no star of Mr. llincxs is evidently in
the ascendant, and none of his fellow-colonists sur-
pass him—if indeed any equal him—in judicious
appreciation of the importance of promoting indus-
trial enterprise, or in practical tact and versatility of
resources as a statesman.
The revival, so far as the Australian colonies
are concerned, may possibly be a little more tardy.
Nor is this altogether to be regretted. The dis-
covery of the great gold deposit must produce a kind of
revolution in all their industrial arrangements. It is
better that they should be left to adapt themselves
to their new circumstances in a calmer mood than
would be possible were they labouring under the
excitement of a spring-tide of immigration.
As for South Africa—a country in all but its mi-
neral resources singularly resembling and equally at-
tractive with Australia, and one-half nearer us—its
uresent unfintuuate condition baffles all conjecture
respecting its future.

The value of the ballot as a protection against inti-
midation exercised by customers, landlords, or others
over their less opulent fellow citizens is in itself so
great, that were it incapable of restraining the other -
great cid of bribery, we should still earnestly call fur 4.,
its adoption. To give to artisans or the humbler
classes of tenants in either town or country a politi-
cal right, u hose open exercise must continually expose "
them to shameful humiliation or pecuniary loos, would I
be a bitter mockery. If the satety of the state re-
quires an extended suffrage, the justice of the state
is called on to provide a protection for these defence- I
less men whose social service it requires. To
tell the working man, the small shopkeeper,
or the tenant at will, that the honour of a
voice in the representation shall be graciously
conceded to him, and in the same breath to warn him
that he must give utterance to that voice at his own
peril, would be to trifle with popular right and po-
pular feeling, and to precipitate the very danger it
was proposed to avert.
In counties where there already exists a much more
equable constituency than in the towns, the ballot
is peculiarly requirc:d. The House of Commons is
notoriously a house of landlords, elected by landlords
through the intervention of their unprotected ten-
antry, and apparently as insensible to the
wants and feelings of that numerous and
long deluded class as if the knights of the
shire were iliyted solely by their own liveried
servants. To multiply the voters in counties with-
out affording them some shelter against the intru-
sive tyranny of landlordism would effect no change
whatever in the present condition of things. If
county expenditure is to be made amenable to the
Opinion of the ratepayers, if the inordinate preserva-
tion of game is to be curtailed, if the tithe compo-
sition is to be adjusted to the change of prices, or
if compensation for improvement made by the tenant
is ever to become the law of the land, freedom of
election, by which we mean freedom of voting, must
be first secured to the farming class; and we know
of no means whereby that freedom can be secured
INTO by the ballot.

Tut: discovery of gold in Australia does not ap-
pear to have turned the heads of the emigrating
due in this country. At present, indeed, the dis-

THE EXPRESS, FRIDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 14. 1451