Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-04-25 00:00:00

THE NORTHERN TIMES, MONDAY, APRIL 25 1859

THE BALLOT AT THE ELECTIONS,

THE advocates of Vote by Ballot are energetically
urging this popular expedient upon all the candi-
dates who profess and call themselves Liberals ; but
they do not appear, so far, to make any decided
converts amongst the Whigs, who cannot be per-
suaded, it seems, to give more than a sort of passive
response to their entreaties, and their remonstrances.
We took occasion, the other day, to show how Lord
JOHN RUSSELL had sought to conciliate them,—
how, while he refused to assent to it, and rather
denounced it as a pregnant source of mischief,
he yet' counselled them to persist in agitating it,
giving them to understand, virtually, that when he
saw it could no longer be resisted he should then be
ready to extend to it his support. But the Ballot
&ciety have stepped in to reprehend this course;
and to repudiate an attempt on the part of their
President, Mr. BERKELEY, to obtain for fiord JOHN
their support,—or, rather, to hand it over to him as
a matter of course, notwithstanding his refusal to
import it into his polical creed. At a meeting of
the Executive Committee of the Society, attention
was called to an advertisement of the Central Com-
mittee of the four Liberal candidates for the City,
containing a letter from the Society's chairman, Mr.
BERKELEY, M.P., to the chairman of the Central
Committee, the object of which letter was to induce
the friends of the Ballot in the City to support

Lord JOHN RUSSELL, in spite, of his continued
opposition to the Ballot ; and great surprise was
expressed; by. the_ committee at this; letter, as an
address to the electors of the City of London,
advocating the oppoitite policy, was agreed to on
the sth of April, and a copy transmitted to Mr.
BERKET,Y, who expressed no dissent therefrom.
It is obvious, therefore, that Mr. BERKELEY'S zeal,
on this occasion, has outrun his discretion ; and to
prevent any idea being entertained that the
Ballot Society was a party in anywise to so unworthy
a compromise, the Executive Committee deemed it
necessary to adopt a resolution, as follows :—" That,
diclaiming any intention of dictating to Mr.
BERKELEY, or any other member of the Society as to
his exercise of the electoral franchise, this com-
mittee declare that the letter of Mr. BERKELEY to
Mr. INGRAM TRAVERS, the Chairman of the Central
Committee of the four Liberal candidates for the City,
recommending the friends of the Ballot to vote for
Lord JOHN RUSSELL, was not written with their
knowledge or concurrence."

Sir JAMES GRAHAM, at Carlisle, has pursued a
similar course respecting the Ballot to that of Lord
JOHN RUSSELL in the city of London. He is opposed
to it, and refuses to promise it his support, yet he
appears, to rejoice exceedingly at the progress he
believes it is making in all directions; and
he calls upon the electors to return as his new
colleague, not their late member, who, like Sir
JAMES, is opposed to the Ballot, but his (Sir JAmEs's)
nephew, a young gentleman, who is warmly in its
favour. " You will then," says the right hon.-
baronet, "show to the world, that what I declared
in my place in the House of Commons was quite
true, that the Ballot has made great progress among
my constituents." , Now all this May be very
flattering to the advocates of the Ballot. But will
it serve to carry the measure in Parliament ? It
is certainly very complimentary to them, and
it bears testimony to the popularity, if not
also the correctness, of their views. But
this only serves to make it all the more odd, not to
say inconsistent, that they who thus testify to the
merits of such an expedient as •the Ballot, do not
themselves adopt it as one of the articles of their
Reform Faith. Some of the Whig-Liberals, however,
not only persist in their opposition to the Ballot,
but in discountenancing it altogether. Among the
latest repudiations of it we have seen, is that of
Captain ANSON, at Lichfield, who says to the electors
of that borough—" I do not approve, and shall not
certainly give my vote in favour of secret voting, for
the simple reason that the Ballot is "contrary to the
spirit of the English people, and has signally failed
in every country where it has yet been tried." But
such assertions as these are not likely to be very
convincing in borough constituencies, although other
circumstances may countervail to prevent their
causing the rejection of the candidates who make
them.

There is another still more numerically powerful
party in the country, apart from those who 'are
confining. their attention more particularly to the
furtherance of the Ballot cause, which, whilst not
overlooking or undervaluing this cause, yet consider
that the great question of a general manhood en-
franchisement quite absorbs all other objects and
expedients,—we mean the unenfranchised, non-
electing legions of our countrymen. In an address
to the whole non-electoral body which their friends
have issued, they state that any practical benefit that
is to result to those, who most need reform from the
impending elections, must very largely depend upon
the action taken and the policy pursued by the
Non-electors themselves. "If you remain passive
spectators," the address proceeds to impress upon
them, "or if by indecision or irresolution you fail to
strengthen the hands of advanced reformers : or,
worse still, if you in any way countenance the can-
didature of anti-reformers, you will make shipwreck
of great hopes ; you will cast away a great oppor-
tunity, and the cause of Radical Reform will, for our
generation at least, be irretrievably lost ! But if, on
the contrary, duly impressed with your own just
claims to be considered in any future Reform Bill—
you at once unite and work, and determine to be
heard on your own behalf---depend upon it you will
be heard, and your rights will be conceded

Bear in

mind," it adds, " that the question is not whether you
will be governed by Lord DERBY, Lorcl PALMERSTON,
Lord JOHN RUSSELL, or by Mr. BRIGHT ; but,
whether you will any longer consent to be governed
at all, or by anybody, through the medium of a par-
liament the majority of whose members are elected by
200,000 persons, out of a population of 30,000,000—
and that 200,000 the least intelligent and indepen-
dent of the electoral body, the most amenable to
corrupt influences, and without the least sympathy
for, or interest in, the great manufacturing, commer-
cial, and industrial pursuits of the empire." We do
not now attempt to controvert the position thus
taken up. It is not likely that so sweeping an
assertion as to the comparative merits of the
two bodies, the Electoral and the Non-electoral,
will be assented to, in any considerable
degree, out of the ranks of those who make
it. But this aside, the power of so formi-
dable a body as those who are without the pale of
the favoured. 200,000, is evidently being concentrated
more and more upon practical objects ; and when
once it has acquired any available portion of, that
ascendancy which it seeks, the Ballot, if then it
should be necessary, or ary other measure they wish
for, would be carried as a matter of course.