The Express.
London, England, 1867-06-21 00:00:00

,IMMIIIMIND

VOTINO /IT VOTING TATA&

The Times sees in last night's debate fresh illus-
trations of the distress of the House of Commons in deal-
ing with as abstract question, and attributes its decision
on the voting papers purely to instinct and not to a com-
parison of arguments. To our contemporary the argu-
ments in favour of voting papers would be unanswerable if
we could have any sufficient security that they would be
honestly used ; hut the very consideration which justifies
them io university elections furnishes a conclusive reason
for rejecting their use elsewhere. We should not only he
without a guarantee that th • resulted an election represented
the free choice of the electors ; all experience tells us we
should have positive grounds for believing the contrary.
If voting papers would destroy the power of a crowd over
an elector, they would add indefinitely to the power of
individuals. The intimidation of a landlord or an employer,
practised probably through an agent, would be legalised.
A man's agent mie.t collect votes as he collects rents, and
many a county election would be determined by a com-
parison of lists of tenants. The facilities which voting
papers would afford to bribery are also evident. Mr.
Disraeli's offer to allow their use to be restricted at the
outset to county elections was too plainly consistent with
his dominant conception of making the counties the
stronghold of the conservative party, to find favour with
the committee.

The Daily Nexa quotes Sir Roundsll Palmer and Mt.
Denman to show that even under the peculiar circum-
stances of university elections the use of voting papers has
been by no moans unequivocally succenful. The plan
would give to coercion the aid of secrecy and the sanction
of law, and would deny to the consciences of dependent
voters such pool protection as they now derive from pub-
licity and n:,toriety. In a phrase as damning as the
adverse arguments of the opponents of the clause, Lord
Cranborne recommended it on the plea that it would make
the magistrate's drawing-room the place of polling. Again,
as to faggot ewe+, the law at present requires that the
elector should vote in person for each qualification, and this
check, their multiplicalon ; but with voting papers every
qualification will be turned to account, and men without
an acre of land, or four walls and a roof really their own,
would speedily be provided with as many faggot votes as
might be required fur the purposes of their patron or their
party. The machinery would be open to the easiest abuse,
and a collection of voting papers would soon become an
electioneering trade, rivalling, and perhaps dwarfing, even
the extravagant cost of the present system. The govern-
ment have been rescued by their adversaries from a gross
absurdity ; and the country has been saved from a con-
siderable danger. The bill is fast losing all the features
which might at one time have enabled Mr. Disraeli to
claim its authorship. He has furnished the clay, but the
opposition are the potters.
In condemning the government proposal, the Post says
that one argument alone would have sufficed to satisfy the
house in the matter, namely, that, whereas the briber
under the present condition of things has nothing but the
promise of the Toter itat the bribe will be fairly earned—
• promise not unfrequently broken—if the proposed change
was effected, the money would only be paid on the receipt
of the voting paper duly executed in favour of a particular
candidate.

The Herald observes that the vital part of the govern.
meat Bill, in which no alteration could be tolerated, is
the rating household franchise. The remainder, in com-
parison with it, is but as the husk or rind which surrounds
the kernel, which, if removed, mry grow again some day,
and is but of small consequence beside that great change
which was to place the electoral system of the country on
the firm basis guaranteed in the old constitution. The
Herald hu no doubt that permissive voting in writing will
ere long become the law of the land.
The Standard taxes Sir Roundell Palmer, Mr. Glad-
stone, Mr. Bright, and Mr. Torrene with nothing but
',garnets to exclude the votes of the educated, the quiet,
the sensible, and the moderate. All the solicitude for the
interests, the liberty, the morals of the poor, wee mere
Pharisaic pretence ; all the alarm about facilitating
bribery and intimidation a ridiculous affectation.