The Sun.
London, England, 1863-01-24 00:00:00

so large a majority of the Liberal candidates have to
make it one of their hustings articles of faith ; nod
is it liked, on those occasions, if the candidate does
not give his " unfeigned assent and consent" to its
necessity. It is, however, a superstition, in the
sense that it is a merely inherited belief, or point
in the creed, is believed in without conscious reason

by constituents, and accepted by candidates as a

me:e matter of form. Indeed, we are told respect-

ing the candidates, that their reason for consenting
so easily to vote for the Ballot, is the certainty that
their votes will never carry their ostensible object.
Of too many of the candidates we can easily believe
this. Why we should believe it of electors is not
so apparent. Many a candidate must be aware that
he has no title whatever on the ground of mental
and political qualifications to appeal to a constitu-
ency at all, and he may reasonably dread a system
which would deprive him of adventitious and irre-
velant influence, and throw him upon his merits
solely. It is not so clear that electors can, from
any but party motives, dislike the mode of
voting which leaves them every present advantage
untouched, and confers on them others, which can
be secured by no other known means.

For our part, if the demand for the Ballot be
likened to a worship, we must think that, so far
from being a superstition, the electors well know
what they worship. But few of the respectable
electors have not, in some form, had to do with the
Ballot. It is employed in so many societies, social►

commercial, and literary—its essential principle is
so strictly, and properly, adhered to in courts mar-
tial, and even our jury and militia systems appeal
to its equivalent—that it is not easy to think of a
man's occupying the electoral status in society,
and being unacquainted with the simple and ra-

tional device which excludes unfair partiality, un.
due influence, and bribery. If superstition be cre•
dulous and unreasonable worship, we should say
that the elector who asks the candidate to vote for
the ballot is a man of easy faith, only because the
reason for his faith is so simple and obvious, that it
seems like a truism if put into express terms. To
the unsophisticated Liberal elector there is no
point in his Liberal creed which he less
takes on trust. On the duration of Parliaments,
on the extension of the Franchise, on the fairer ap-
portionment of Members, and the like, he may lean
a good deal on the opinion of others. In regard to
the Ballot, he trusts his personal observation and
knowledge. In hardly any town, city, or county
in Great Britain, can he have passed through many
elections, without having either personally felt the
need of the Ballot, or without having witnessed
with pain the humiliation, through the want of it,
of many of his brother electors.
Superstition often believes in the existence of
what is non-existent. But if the evils to remedy
which the Ballot is demanded, exist, like witchcraft
and sorcery, in imagination only, all we can say is,
that a long list of abortive Acts of Parliament, and
certain expensive Royal Commissions, are strong
evidences of superstition in quarters supposed to be
tolerably free from it ; not to mention the facts de-
tailed to us by the confessors at St. Alban's, Glou-
cester, Wakefield, and other distinguished places.
Lord RUSSELL and good Mr. WALroLE must have
been very superstitious men, when they combined
their skill to produce a " Corrupt Practices at
Elections Prevention Act." Unless, indeed, we
presume, from their expunging from the Act as
proposed the clauses most calculated to prevent such
practices, that the Act was mere political quackery,
and concocted to make a show of believing what they
did not believe. We admit, indeed, that it was
passed to make a show of preventing -what they did
not wish to prevent; but we take it as proof that
they could not deny the existence of the facts on
I which it was based.

Another common mark of superstition is, faith in
fanciful means and remedies. Homoeopathy, and
all the devices of medical quackery, charms, amu-
lets, and idle ceremonies to avert the wrath or pro-
cure the favour of Heaven, are every day illustra-
tions. Now, we may be told we expect too much
from the Ballot—that is quite possible, though we
doubt it. The advocates of the Ballot, like those
who have struggled for any of the social or political
reforms of late years, may easily, in their hard fight
with the bitter defenders of existing abuses, exagge-
rate the value of what they fight for. If, for instance,
any of the Liberal party have imagined that it
would place their party in undisputed possession of
power for an indefinite period, we have no such
thought. We believe there is quite as much con-
servatism as desire for progress in the English
mind, and that, too, amongst the humbler as
well as among the richer classes. Even the
Radicals of England are not destructives. Under
the Ballot each of the great parties would be as
liable as ever to disgust the electors who respec-
tively support them as they now are; and we may
add, would, have as much opportunity to gain
their goodwill. The supporters of the
Ballot ought not to have, and generally, we
believe, have not any oblique purpose. Their
single object may be expressed in the short
sentence, sent over, we believe, originally from
that tabooed source of political instruction, Ame-
rica,—" The Ballot enables every man to do his

own voting."
Where is the superstition of believing that it does
this ? We mean, of course, when the Ballot is a
bona fide one—when it is conducted, as it easily
may be, and is every day, in England itself, for
other than political matters—that no one can know
before, at the poll, or after it, any person's vote,
,unless he himself discloses it. The t easonableness
of the Ballot, as the means of enabling each indivi-
dual to vote in freedom from unfair external influ-
ences, must be very obvious, when we find it in use
from almost the earliest periods of civilised political
freedom; and when it has been spontaneously
adopted by bodies and communities of the most diverse
character, for the one object of securing a free vote.
Resort to it, for this purpose, must really be either
an instinct of the race, or one of those first conclu-
sions of reason which most resemble instinct. Many
of the private or public societies who have adopted
it cannot, in numberless cases, have learned it of
predecessors, yet it occurred to them as soon as the
circumstances required it. A few individuals, com-
bined for a common object,
aonrdcitpizroentesctuinointi, oaggfroere
their common government
that the will of the maj.lrity shallsodnecaildienfldiusepnucteesd,
questions. Warmth of feeling, per
fear of giving offence, and sometimes corrupt
in-
athueee:teurtss' are soon observed to influence some of
to represent always the cool and unbiassed judgment
of the and to cause the majority of votes, not
majority
of
give his vote that no persons.ext "
ra
ne Lo
uest
ienafle h of u
encue
es,
can bias
so
it," is, under the circumstances, the first demand of
common sense; the idea of superstition in tho
matter is simply ludicrous.
If experience be appealed to, we really know of
none which does not prove that common sense was
right in resorting to the Ballot as the means to se-
cure a free vote. We are pointed to America—
well, thero the mischief is all due to the formerly
dominant party appealing to the ballot, and then
rejecting its decision, because it was against them.
That party was itself in power at the time the Bal-
lot was taken ; yet with all the immense patronage
of the American Government, it could not prevent