The Express.
London, England, 1857-04-24 00:00:00

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LONDOY, FRIDAY. APRI4 24.

TO OUR

A DOUBLE NUMBER of the EXPRESS will
be published TO-MORROW as anal, and daring
the Parliamentary ream.

Tile topic of Parliamentary Reform continues to
be discussed with increasing eagerness. Hitherto
its discussion has been marked by a cautious
avoidance of details, on which the opinions of
Reformers are seriously at variance. That this self
control should continue to be exercised when men
have talked themselves into a state of excitement
can scarcely be expected. In the progress of the
new Reform movement we must prepare ourselves to
witness those clashiugs and collisions of opinion
among those who have the same object in view
which appear to be inseparable from all popular
agitations. Nor is this perhaps to be regretted.
Frank and unreserved discussion contributes power-
fully to elicit truth. The wranglings out of doors
will serve as an index to Reformers in Parliament of
the nature and extent of that Reform for which
public opinion is ripe.
The various programmes hitherto produced em-
brace the customary range of topics. We hear
of the necessity of extending the franchise, of re-
adjusting the electoral districts, of shortening the
duration of parliaments, and so forth. The discre-
pancy of the different proposals, as we have already
intimated, is less than might have been expected.
Bat the article upon which there is the greatest
• agreement of opinion appears to be the Vote by
Ballot.

The great recommendation of the Ballot is that
votes given in secret are more likely to be sincere
than those given in public. When a workman
votes under the eye of his employer, • shopkeeper
in the outskirts of a manufacturing town under the
eyes of his customers, a tenant without a lease, or
with a lease about to expire, under the eye of his
landlord, a debtor under the eye of his creditor, a
young aspirant under the eye of his patron, one
and all are apt to be biassed by a desire to pleas®
men from whom they have much to hope or fear.
But when a man give, his vote with none but GOD
and his own conscience for witnesses, he is relieved
from the pressure of the,. distracting influences.
His vote may not after all be given with
intelligence or hum the most elevated mo-
fives. He may be an ignorant man; he may
be a prejudiced man ; he may be a vindictive man.
Still the aggregate votes of a community, when
given in secret, will be a faithful expression of the
aggregate feelings and opinions of that community,
which they are little likely to be if given under the
observation of those whom individual voters fear or
wish to please. And hence it comes that secret voting,
far more than any other mode, is calculated to estab-
lish and maintain the desiderated harmony between
those who legislate and those for whom they
legislate.

A shallower set of fallacies than those on which
the opponents of Vote by Ballot delight to en-
large it would be diffleult to find. For
example, we hear much sentimental wailing
about the encouragement it will give to in-
sincerity by enabling men to vote in a different
way from what they have promised. But when men
vote thus it will be because they have been com-
pelled to promise to vote against their convictions
or inclinations. Now, we are no admirers of insin-
cerity, but still less are we admirers of oppression.
There are promises which it is a greater crime to
keep than to break. Without seeking to palliate
the weakness of the man who yields to intimidation,
we fearlessly assert that the man who intimidates ix
the more culpable of the two; and the man who
promises to vote against his convictions, ender in-
timidation, is a fool (or worse) if he keeps his pro-
mise when the pressure of intimidation is removed.
Again, we are told that the electors hold the
franchise as a trust to be exercised for the benefit of
all, and that therefore all are entitled to know how
they vote. There is a mast extraordinary confusion
of ideas involved in this fallacy. In the first place,
it is uttered by the men who tell us that a numerous
section of the community ought to be denied the
franchise because they are unable to exercise it with
discretion. And in the next breath they tell us that
these men who are incompetent to vote are com-
petent to prescribe how electors ought to give
their votes. If it would be dangerous to give
votes to the non-electors, it must be equally,
or more dangerous to authorise them to
control the votes of the elector,. Besides,
how are they to control the votes of the
electors? You can only ascertain their opinion ea to
how the electors ought to vote by collecting their
votes on the point. This would be ridiculous, but the
only alternative is something worse. Except in a
very few cases, the only way in which the nov-
elettes, can control the electors in their exercise of
the franchise is by having recourse to violence. This
doctrine, that the elective franchise is a mere trust.
to be exercised under the surveillance and control of
the non-electors, is simply an exhortation to such
disgraceful acts as were perpetrated at Kiddermin-
ster. We seed toot expatiate hither ea the esti-
Ballot fallacies: they are all of about equal value,
that is, they an all alike hollow and worthier.

THE interminable cue of ATChdeIHOU DENBO"(
bas reached another, though not yet a final, stage.
Sir JOHN DOD4ON bas• decided in favour of the Arch-
deacou upon a preliminary objection, which, how-
.