The Sun.
London, England, 1837-11-15 00:00:00

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1t that the great object in the election of
113Merintelk$0 Parliament ought to be to secure the un-
bought and unbiasssed suffrages of electors, and the
supporters of the Ballot have obtained the concession
of what alone amdunts to the chief justification of the
introduction of that mode of voting. The only re-
maining question, in fact, then is, whether such mecha-
nical contrivances can be employed as will ensure se-
crcsy and certainty. Let the result depend merely upon
this point, and the Ballot might be resorted to to-mor-
row. But those who abandon the defence of bribery
at elections, and who admit that it is a high
crime to offer a sum of money to a voter, still
insist that property ought to be allowed what
they call its " legitimate influence." But what
in most cases is the " legitimate influence of
property" but another name for a bribe ? It is the
same whether a man receives it in meal or in malt, in
money or in menace. If a landlord have the power
and the will to eject his tenant for not supporting a
particular candidate, and if it be worth a certain sum
to that tenant not to be deprived of his house or his
farm, it is just the same as if he were paid that sum
for his vote ; it is morally, and in firo conscientice it
ought to be considered a bribe, although it do not
bear that unpalateable name, and is not punishable by
any of the various laws against corruption. It will be
said, however, that this is not what is meant by " the
legitimate influence of property ;" but the fact is that
property, as property, ought to have no influence,
legitimate or otherwise. If a rich man stand well
with his neighbours, and secure their good will by
kindly and friendly offices, this is the influence—not
of his property—but of his personal character and
conduct ; and when those neighbours are voters, and
without judging for themselves, take his word as to the
fitness of a particular candidate, they rely on his better
means of knowledge, and on their own conviction that
he would not attempt to impose upon them a person
who is unworthy to be their Representative. The
Ballot, indeed, will diminish the illegitimate influence
of property—that influence which is only another
name for force, power, or compulsion ; but it will most
materially increase the influence of personal character
supported by wealth and station. In the words of
Mr. Grote,- in his speech of 1833, " it banishes from
the voter's mind both the hope of favour and the fear
of injury, while that affectionate and willing homage
which wealth combined with superior merit so infallibly
awakens, is left in full empire over his heart and be-
comes the determining principle of his vote." This is
the legitimate influence of property ; and what a motive
it furnishes to those who are possessed of it to cherish
and encourage the more generous feelings of our nature,
and to extend as far as possible the sphere of active and
useful benevolence. One of the earliest existing sta-
tutes on the subject of the election of Members to
serve in Parliament, 3d Edw. I. c. 5., in the words of
Lord Holt, " forbids, upon grievous forfeiture, that
any great man, or other, by power of arms, or by
malice, or menace, shall disturb any to make free
election ;" and to turn out a tenant, to dismiss a man
from employment, or to deprive a tradesman of custom
because he has voted in opposition to the wishes, or,
perhaps, the orders of " any great man," is clearly in
contravention of the Act, which was passed for the
protection of the elector in the exercise of what Lord
Coke termed " his English right," and which both he
and Lord Flak, as well as subsequent judges have
held to be a right at common law, prior to, amid hide-
pendent of, any statute. The object of the Ballot, then,
is to obtain for voters the free•and unshackled exercise
of this common-law right ; and those who oppose
it are bound to show, either that voters have no
such right, or that the effect of the Ballot will he
to defeat the purpose of the Act of A.D. 1275. But
some people affect a horror of what they call, by way
of o-dium, " secret votin!t," and they resist the Ballot
because they pretend it is not open, avowed, manly,
and straightforward—in a word, that it is un-English.
Now, passing 1w the obvious answer to all this—
munch-, that what is most pure and most free is
most English, it is quite clear that these ohjectors op-
pose the Ballot because they fear it will be effectual
for its, end, and because it will prevent, at least in a
!ercat degree, what we have called the illegitimate in-
fluence of property. Taking it for granted that an
elector, who may be more or less in the power of sons
wealthy neipliheur, keeps his own council, aS that
wealthy nei;itheur cannot ascertain on which side the
elector has given his suffrage he can take no step either
of malice or retribution against him : the rich man
may have his suspicions, and, according to their
strength or weakness, he may take measures against
the elector, hut that is the utmost he can do in the
way of revenge or retaliation. To refuse the flint
only iii other terms to sav that there shall he one law
for the rich and another for the poor. The rich, who
are least open to influence of any kind, do not hesitate
every time they elect a Member into a Club to resort
to the Ballot ; there it is least of all necessary ; hut
the moment it is asked as a protection to the man
who, from hi:, poverty, is exposed to influences of
every sort, and is not able to resist them, then an out-
cry is reised against secret voting, and it is not to be
tolerated in an English community. Who, let us ask,
arc the chief opponents of the introduction of the Bel-
lot ! Landlords, Magistrates, and Clergymen. They
wish to know how every fifty-pound tenant•at-will,
how every ten-posited Huseholdcr or holiest shopkeeper
votes, that they may either controul their choice
Leferee hand, or punish their independence after-
wards. Who are the friends of the Ballot ? The
poor farmer, who dares not vote according to
his conscience, and who is kept in a state of
subserviency to the owner of the soil, in order that he
may not have the means of exercising a free unbiassed
judgment ; the small housekeeper who pays ten pounds
a year for his dwelling, and may be turned out of it,
with his wife and family, the moment he displeases
his landlord ; but the greatest and the sincerest friends
of the Ballot are shopkeepers in country towns, who
are threatened by their wealthy Tory neighbours with
loss of custom if they venture to think of voting con-
trary to order. Even the relics and dregs of the old
corporations, the remaining freemen of boroughs,
would be favourable to the Ballot if they did not ap-
prehend that it would put an end to the corruption by
which, especially in nearly balanced constituencies,
since the passing of the Reform Act, they have been
the chief gainers. Those who contend that the adop-
tion of the Ballot would introduce immorality, by
which they understand want of faith towards such as
had solicited a voter for his suffrage, are guilty
of mere hypocrisy. They see no immorality in re-
quiring an elector to give a pledge one way when his
conscience dictates to him that he ought to give it the
other ; they see no guilt in the violation of the duty
which a man owes to himself and to his country ; and
yet they can vastly exaggerate the offence of a mere
breach of promise to persons who had no right what-
ever to insist upon a pledge. The effect of the Ballot
ultimately, and before very long, will be to prevent the
interference of the rich with the poor in the choice
of a member ; and in due time it will put an end to
the present system of canvassing, which, justly va-
lued, is derogatory to the candidate and insulting to
the constituent. The time will probably never return
when, as formerly, in the reign of Richard 11., a
knight, to avoid being elected for a shire, galloped off
at full
.speed and took sanctuary, as it were, in the
Chiltern Hundreds ; but the time may arrive, after
our representative system has been purified and per-
fected, when public men of known probity and abi-
lities, instead of petitioning constituences, cap in
hand, to send them to the House of Commons, will
be solicited to undertake the onerous, though ho-
nourable duties. If it be urged that the elective
franchise is itself a trust, and that the party enjoying
it being responsible, the mode in which he exercises it
ought to be known, the short and complete answer is,
that those who use this argument found it upon a
gross mistake, as every lawyer will admit. The fran-
chise is not a trust, but a right; it is not undertaken,
but conferred : and to confound trusts and rights is to
confound things essentiallc different. Chief Justice.
Coke and Chief Justice Holt, two of the greatest
authorities that ever sat upon the bench of justice,
treated it as " a right ;" and the first, in as
many words, stated that any man who was dis-
turbed in the exercise of this right had a clearground, of riaction. "It is a great privilege,
added- ,-'Lord Coke, " to choose such persons as

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