Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-04-15 00:00:00

THE BALLOT.

THIS, in copular opinion, indispensable element in
any substantial measure of Parliamentary Reform,
is one of the matters on which the country is called
to decide in the approaching General Election. Par-
liament itself persists in repudiating it. And, as Mr.
BERKELEY told the House of Commons the other
night, it is to be feared it "is too hardened in its
course to be induced by any argument or reasoning
to change its opinion." The late appeal to that
assembly, therefore, " was not to the House, because
it was impossible to suppose that in its moribund
state it would turn to repentance." It was, through
the House to the country. " The question must be
carried by an influence which was not in that House,
but outside the doors. The carrying of the question
did not depend upon the 238 earnest members in
that House, but depended upon the constituencies of
the country, who had an up-hill battle to fight
against the overwhelming influences by which they
were beset." Such was the way in which the case
has just been put in Parliament by its most indo-
mitable champion. The people, it is assumed, require
it—pray for it. And, the Commons were further
told, " the days of their suffering must, have an end,
and the time will come when they will demand in a
in a voice of thunder that for which they now sup-
plicate." Such entreaties, the hon. member who
urged them was aware, he said, were of no avail
there where he uttered them ; but out of the House,
he was persuaded, they would not fall to the ground,
—and "it was because they were approaching the
great national saturnalia that he addressed these
observations," not to the House, but, through the
House, to the countr y.

Now, as this is the case--as the country is on the
point of being appealed to on the subject of Parlia-
mentary Reform, the Ballot, in popular estimation,
being, as we have said, an indispensable necessity
therein, it is interesting and important to mark the
way in which the two great leaders of the Liberal
Reform party in Parliament,—where, after all, the
question of the Ballot must still be decided,—now
treat this expedient .

Lord PALMERSTON has again declared his uncon-
querable aversion to it. Nay, he is not only still
opposed to it, but more opposed to it than ever. " I
entertain," he has just proclaimed, " all the objections
which I have ever expressed against- it, and I am
still more against it than I was before ; because,
heretofore, this measure of secret voting was not to
be imperative, but now it is admitted to be actually
a gagging Bill ; it is admitted that it is to be actually
compulsory, and that no man is to tell even to his
wife the vote which he has given. This is a sort of
tyranny to which the people of England will never
submit. You may pass what laws you please, but
you cannot overbear the spirit of the nation. The
British nation would disobey your laws ; they would
not submit to what I say would be perfectly unjust
and totally repugnant to the spirit and principles of
the British Constitution." These are strong antipa-
thies to the Ballot. And they are the antipathies of
one who has probably, next to Lord JOHN RUSSELL
himself, exerted the most powerful influence in,bring-
ing about the appeal to the country on Reform.
But Lord PALMERSTON'S persistent opposition to
the Ballot, however it may grieve, however it may vex,
the advocates of that expedient in the Reform party
with which he has, nevertheless, cast in his lot, is yet
explicable, and consistent, and straightforward ;
more especially, and indeed, strikingly so, as com-
pared with Lord JOHN RUSSELL'S. This noble lord
has just spoken in its favour, but voted for its
rejection. " I must confess," he now declares, " that
I have modified my opinions on this question, so far
as this, that I do not think, if this mode of secret
voting were adopted, it would have the injurious
consequences I formerly supposed it would have.
I used to have a fancy it would induce so much
disguise and concealment, as to operate injuriously
on the English character ; but on further reflection