The Sun.
London, England, 1862-05-07 00:00:00

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THE SUN.

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, MAY 7, 1862.

Our readers will see that the Ballot Society has
addrt ssed a spirited and business-like letter to the
Liberal members of Parliament, one which the
if he intends to continue in office,
Premier himself,
had better not treat as a joke. We can state, from
personal knowledge,
that members of the first posi-
tion, and of well merited influence in the Liberal
ranks, are not only prepared to respond to the
wiews expressed in his letter, but are perfectly
satisfied that, unless the Government can rouse it-
self to do justice to the more truly liberal of its
supporters, its duration will be but brief, The
apathy complained of is due to the unreal character
of Government Liberalism. The kernel of the
Liberal cause in each borough is no 4 the men
who will "vote yellow, be the candidate who he
may," but the Inch who regard yellow as but
an emblem of real Liberalism in Church and State.
Dishearten these men, end the life of Liberalism in
a borough is gone. There may still be
a fight of
party, that is of wills against wills ; but principle,
not wilfulness, is the living soul of a conflict. Men
are ashamed in cooler moments of earnestness and
passion for purely arbitrary differences, but no
man, not even when defeated, is ashamed of being
defeated for a noble principle. Our Government

has too much forgotten this. More than half its
Liberal supporters who have incurred defeat at late
elections have been men of whom the defeated
Liberals have said after the election, that they
should have been little better off had they succeeded.

The Ballot Society recognises clearly this state
of things. They found upon it an appeal to the
liberalism of the House of Commons. On one
matter of fact neither the Government nor the
House of Commons, nor the public, can have any
difference of opinion. " Corrupt practices at elec-
tions" have become the rule rather than the excep-
tion. The slow and generally secret, yet efficient
poison of landlord influence has completely extin-
guished all political life among county electors, and
left what still remains with the landlords only, who
generally know each other's relative strength too
well to trouble themselves about a battle ; or, if
there be one, it is for show merely. Of the boroughs
the letter gives a perfectly fair sample. Priestly
terrors, mob law, and bribery, are notoriously the
common agencies employed in the borough consti-
tuencies. We reed not describe or particularise,
because we hardly know that anyone would jeo-
pardise his character for honesty and sincerity by
denying what stares us all in the face.
Facts, then, being thus, the Ballot Society sug-
gests, we think, a very fair issue to the Government;
indeed, as old and steady supporters of the Ballot,
we had broadly hinted something very similar a
week ago. The society says—give us now a trial
of the ballot. The Government is talking of re-
newing the old Corrupt Practices Prevention Act.
We wonder it is not ashamed to do it. Sir WM.
HATTER himself declared that be regarded it as a
dead letter from the day of its enactment ; the
Times, though hostile enough to the ballet, yet
described the act as " a pompons profession, meant
to be filoperative." We need not say how every
commission, every Parliamentary election commit-
tee, might we not say every election since the act
passed, has but corroborated the truth of these
prophecies which accompanied the birth of this now
defunct Bill. Yet, with all this before their eyes,
the Government proposes to recal it to life ! It is
proposed to lower the penalties, to lop off the
auditors, and make a few other trivial alterations,
and a feebler Act is then to give a death-blow
to corruption and undue influence !
The Ballot Committee, therefore, calls on the
majority of the Liberal members who have
hitherto supported the Ballot, to demand of
the Government that it should make the Ballot
a Government measure. It is not insisted
on that the measure should be permanent,
but that it should at least have a trial. The Go-
vernment has done all it could—and it has con-
fessedly and publicly failed. One plan alone has
not been tried, and it is a plan for which a majority
of the supporters of Government have for a long
time voted. The minority of Liberals have had
their way all this time, they have voted with the
Tories against the majority of their fellow Liberals.
Surely that majority is now entitled to say—" You
and the Tories have failed—you have almost
broken down the Liberal party by your failure—
try our plan for a while at least." We should say
the demand should be that if the Horse will not
make the Ballot law permanently without a trial,
let ii enact that it shall be the mode of taking the
poll for at least two or three years after the next
general election. Such a trial could not surely
hurt the most timid. When the time ex-
pired the whole subject would of itself
come again under discussion, Just as the
old Sham Act now does. If, therefore, such
a moderate demand be rejected, one which cannot
be pompously rejected as a "Great Change "—for
it will be but a temporary one, a mere trial—
we shall only have fresh confirmation of the
dogged hatred of the Government, or the majority
which resists the proposal, to electoral indepen-
dence. We know, indeed, they hate it—but their
votes against a five years' trial of the Ballot would
proclaim their hatred.
We hope that every really independent mem-
ber of Parliament—by which we mean everyone
who does not fear the Ballot for himself—will
accept the proposal now made. The time for action
is come. Argument is now superfluous. Let fifty
sincere members band themselves together and in-
form the Government that their support is no
further to be relied on if their reasonable request
be any longer denied. They must insist on the
Ballot being made a Government measure ; insist,
at least, on the five years' trial, or henceforth
leave a Government, which refuses to deal with
electoral corruption, to be dealt with by Tories
according to their will and pleasure.

Captain Wi4LlAis WILSON'S recapture of the ship
Emilie St. Pierre, of Liverpool, on the 21st of
March, 1862, will henceforth—we may be quite
certain of this—for ever occupy its place con-
spicuously upon our national records of hair •breadth
'stapes and heroic acts of daring done upon the
high seas. Viewing the achievement simply as a
deed of valour, it is not in any way extravagant
to assert distinctly that it is one which has seldom,
if ever, been surpassed. The whole achievement,
from first to last, for its consummate effrontery of
pluck was just, in three words, Worthy of DUN-
DONALD. Higher praise than that we could not
give it. But, in giving it, we do not for an instant
exaggerate the merits of Captain WILSON, of the
Emilie St. Pierre. On the contrary, we do him
simply justice. For he is—beyond a doubt of it—
exactly one of those gallant sea captains aftre the
heart of ocean-demigods, like Lord NELSON and Lord
CocHRANE. A salt-water hero, whose soul could
never
quail, whose cheek could never blench—
come what come might.

The narrative recently penned by Captain WIL-
SON, and read by him with simple and manly
emphasis on Saturday afternoon in the rooms of
the Liverpool Mercantile Marine Association, we
published in extenso in the columns of The ,gun of
Monday evening. It has doubtless been read by
this time by all who have turned over that impres-
sion, with scarcely one solitary exception. For,
although several weeks have already elapsed since
the first particulars of this astounding ex-
ploit came to the knowledge of the public at
large, getting immediately noised abroad, as
indeed it well deserved to be—it was something
surely worthy of the attention of all when the
Hero or the Exploit himself came forward as the
narrator ! Not spontaneously, it should be remem-
bered, but reluctantly and simply in answer to the
summons of his admiring compatriots. Trifles
though the tokens of admiration already presented
to Captain WILSON, or about to be presented to
him, by his applauding fellow -citizens, may be, it is
still interesting to bear them one and all in mind, as
evidences of the instant cordiality of that admira-
tion, and as substantial proofs that the brave tar's
almost matchless audacity upon this occasion is to
the full appreciated. The gold pocket chronometer—
the massive salver with the inscriptionupon it—even
the homely but costly silver tea and coffee services—
have their significance in this way, hardly less than
the gold medal about to be struck in Captain WIL-
SON'S honour, or than the two thousand guineas
about to be presented to him by the owners of the
I Emilie St. Pierre as tokens of their gratitude. As
Ithe .....Rnsli§h reeding public has recently had the