The Sun.
London, England, 1853-01-15 00:00:00

(From the Weekly Dispatch.) •
1111. EDITOR.,—The argument, on, vote by ball, of was
long since exhausted. The topics' "connected with it,
whether logically or rhetorically, have been drained to
the very dregs. There is nothing more to be said - that
is past question ; the only remaining inquiry is, what is
to be done ? or to be not done ? Of course this inquiry
was not to be escaped by the new Admimstration. It
has been answered. The ballot is not adopted by the
Government, but it is to be an open question. That is
where we are, and let us endeavour to ithderstand our
position.

Facts warrant the assumption that the ballot is a sine
2ecs non' of Referm. It is advocated by every news-
paper and periodical heartily devoted to the cause of Re-
form. It stands in the programme of every association
formed•to promote the- progress of Reform. It is a popu-
lar topic, at every great public meeting that entertains
subjects connected with question of Reforth. In truth,
it is, as much, as any particular item can .be,. altogether
one with Reforni. Some who claim to be, Reformers
would be satisfied. with the ballot alone. Others, and
they are far more numerous, require its combination with
other measures, such as a large extension of the suffrage,
the abolition of small constituencies, &c., as essential.
_But both-these sections-sag-- -tht the balift-caniest arid
must not be dispensed, with. They unite to say that if
there be no .ballot, there will be no Reform.
Froth a Government pledged to progress, it might have
been expected that something more on such a subject
would have been avowed than mere neutrality. Popular
questions, it is true, pass through the form of open, be-
fore they become cabinet questions. This ceremony has
heeirmany times recitated. • Hence many
..people have
rather prematurely rejoiced in the supposition that a
step onwards has been taken in making the ballot an
open question. There is a step taken, indeed ; but it is
a very little step, and.much shorter than they supposed.
The ballot has really been an open question fin' many
years. It was left so by. the Whi,g• Government that
carried the RefOrni Bill in I 832. It remained so with
the last Whig 'Ministry. Several members of that Go-
vernment voted with Mr. Henry Berkeley during the
late Parliament. I miglit aathe Sir A. Cockburn, Page
Wood, iind Sir John RomillY, while holding office.
What We Nave really gained now consists of two points ;
first, that it is an open question, not merely for the
members of a 117,11ig Government, but of a coalition
Government, comprising the leading statesmen of all
parties ; and secondly; that this openness extends not
only to the mei fibers. of the Government, in the large
sense of that word, but to the 'Cabinet itself; where the
ballot has at least one staunch idvOcate in the person of
Sir William Mole4orth. Theie are our eains ; these
and no more, whatever be their worth or their worthless-
ness.

Against these gains we have to set the yet unbending
hostility of two such influential statesmen as Lord John
Russell and Sir Jame; Graham. They profess' their
minds to be still unconvinced, and 'their antagonism
unabated. We must take the fact as we find it. To
solve the intellectual phenomenon would not •be easy..
To assign or imagine motives, would= be a less difficult,
but also a less agreeable, if not an unworthy occupation.
One inference may be safely drawn. If .not now con-
vinced, they are never likely to be. The argument for,
the ballot cannot, by the nature of the case, 'ever become
stronger. Th; pioceedingS in the late elections bring it
to a climax. Intimidation the most fierce, and corrup-
tion the most foul, have -, done their worst. For the
electoral system, there is no deeper abyss of degradation
into which it can possibly sink. The credit of represent-
ative government itself is imperilled. But there is no
need to bestow proof upon the existence or magnitude
of the evil, It is confessed. Lord John Rusiell con-
fesses it now, as he confessed it 18 years ago. He has
been confessing it all that time. He has been thinking
all along that " this gear must be mended." He is like
the sinner in the "Night Thoughts," who " resolves and
re-resolve, then dies the same." "There must be some
remedy," argues his lordship, " but I will not consent
to take vote by ballot for that remedy." What will he
take, then, for a remedy ? He does not know. He pro-
poses no equivalent' substitute. The experience 18 years
has revealed nothing ,to his. mind. The thought of
18 yeafs • has suggested no remedial deiice. All the op-
portunities of observation which office confers have been
repeatedly enjoyed. by his lordship, .but he has discerned
no 'means of obliterating this dark plagus.spot. Inter-
vals of leisure have enabled him to possess mental free--
dom. He lute had.tirrie •to read Thomai Carlyle and to
edit Thomas Moore_;, but neither in the excursiveness of
invention, nor in the intensity of meditation, has he ar-
rived at a remedy for gross and growing electoral abuses.
He is only now going, as he told the electors of London,
" to turn hin mind to tliose other means which he thinks
may perhaps be devised, ,in order if not to extirpate, at
all events to diminish those scandalous scenes of bribery and corruption which have unfortunately been _wit-
nessed." So we are put off with a possibility. The ex-
clusion of the ballot is' made absolute by his lordship ;
the exclusion, or even the mitigation of corruption, is
only subject to a "perhaps" and a " may be.:' This is
not the way to -deal with a nuisance which the -country
feels, and has long felt is not to be endured:

-- ---
The tenacity with which, Lord JO:id Russell clings
to open voting puts him into bad company. It
sorts him with those members of. the ruling classes
'Who are determined to remain the ruling classes -
as long as possible, In spite of the progress and just
claims of the industrial classes ; who-- strive for
Igigarelireal"Government under the forms pf democracy;
who will concede the show of voting, 'provided, the vote
can be bought or Oommanded ;. who regaid popular re-
presentation as machinery to be worked for aristocratical
purposes ; and who will consent to no reforms that
will endanger their own ascendancy. The antagonism
of this class to the ballot is perfectly intelligible. They are actuated, not by a hostile principle, but by a hostile
interest. Their real objection is not to the secrecy of
voting, but to its freedom. While fully acquitting Lord
J. Russell of any such sinister motives, I cannot but re-
gret that he should so far identify himself with them ;
that he should obstinately stick, in this matter, to their
obsolete politics ; that he should grace their bad cause
with the lustre of his name, character, and talents ; and
that, he should cater for them by suggesting reasons,
arguments, mid excuses, which they have not the know-
ledge or the wit to devise for themselves.
Eighteen years ago, Lord John objected to the irre-
sponsibility of ballot-voting ; now he objects to its
secrecy. The ground is shifted ; the objection remains.
I shall not stay to refute either. lam not arguin
J the question of the ballot, but commenting upon
Lord John
Russell's conduct and language in relation to it, and on the
position in which reform and reformers are thereby placed.
It must, however, be observed, that the last, and, I hope,
the final form of the objection is merely that of a senti-
ment. Lord John declared on the hustings his senti-
mental antipathy to secrecy. He cannot abide it. He
hates it as Shylock says some men hate " a harmless
necessary cat," and others "a swollen bagpipe," that
sings i the nose." He declared that he was against
secrecy in everything; that, "as he was against secret
trials in our courts of justice, that as lie was against se-
cret debates in our Houses of Parliament, so he was
against secret votes in our election." This fudge and
clap-tra ewere unworthy of the speaker. Is he against
secret pyer ? or secret almsgiving ? or secret consulta-
tions in the Cabinet ? or secret writing in Reviews I or
secret letters in the Post-office ? When the right of se-
cret debating in the House of Commons was asserted, in
the last Parliament, by Mr. John O'Connell, and the re-
porters were excluded, did his lordship's horror manifest
itself in any attempt to repeal the standing order which
authorises such secrecy? Does he ever object when the
galleries are cleared for a division, and the farce
performed of a secret voting by the members, which
is published in the newspapers the next morning ? Of
all men, Lord John Russell ought to know that, in cer-
tain cases, secrecy is that which he holds in most pro-
found respect, viz., a constitutional principle. Public
opinion, guided by a sense of public utility, has set at
nought that principle in certain cases, such as those just
specified, and in which, practically, it no longer exists ;
-but that same public opinion, guided by that same sense
of public utility, demands the application of the principle
in certain other cases. It is unfortunate that his lord-
ship's protests against the principle are reserved for the
instances in which it is required for the protection of the
people.

Trials are public, that the judges moabnysbibeilihteyld. tolitil:tetiro
responsibility. And so Lord John contends that the
wvohteemrs
lshmouledrebweahs ealdtbutoe,trheegriretrtefew
y`e'.p,,ebble the ,and a3.rrealinoo
Scott's "Heart of Mid-LothianL" wthhe
bsohoulidn wiwldhl
stones
;this judgesbellejstidgll gesoowderfeorsilthb
jest to the same responsibility
aA s
theill
populace could always
twr
hi
right
he
voternt
tthh ae
ty
shouldt
hweree badjubd eg
ep r
otected ? And, to make the cases
voters, why not good •
analogous, we must
gold in his hand, ton:ben
suppose a wealthy man sitting on
judges ? If it be
one side of the judge
of the evidence accorded be protected, why not that
gtihveenbee.nchth,
the .summing
amping purse of
bludgeon- 11z
h_
wibetttherhtihs on
thceor ed with his wishes ; and a
other side of the judge, ready
to break
Wish eao should the summing up not accord
is the problem;
an saucrpractices. It may be said that we Secret trials would be something
pre-
clude them, yeteff retain publicity. That is true ; but
how can that nbeandeLctet in
jethhne caleasevoesf tihtewivtohtera?
"per
haps, it may be."
Vainly seem the years to have passed over Lord John
Russell's head, since, on a public occasion, early in the
year 1835, he said, "I am sensible no man more so, a
.0
the progress which the question of' the ballot
ai:sas adn
during the late elections ; nor will I deny tt
;t
but let
ultimate remedy, we may be bbliged to adopt
dhinvestigation and
opinion and public shame—if by rigl
eans to check in-
us first exhaust every other. If byt e force
• hment—we can find m
be fully tried."
exemplary pums
these means
timidation and corruption, let And has the evil been
And have they not been tried
n?, ,e steady, rapid, and
checked ? nay, has it not a"
have been convictions, dis_
frightful progress ?
Thereions, and all the rest of the
franchisements, conuniss
experiments that are, or are likely
of public
addling and feckless
tuballot. Whatever could sharpen
wits ecurred, and left him still destitute of
to be substituted forfor the discovery of a remedy as good
IT does not affect to have entered upon
has oecurred,
promising process of discovery. He has only the
any
forlorn hope that
wait for that ?
content to wait . The very flimsiness of the
aaLs
so
utrigcilegJebsoathinnoen'ts.
ers
the innate hostility.
There is nothing left for it but to show an obstinate
tohbajtecotti ohnesrsshcao.nwsbetbase
osbtsrtien:the,
offlihe
fact, arguments, or reasons, why shoul.pdersio.sttswwie'thmwoahullot
have them, persist also ? If reason be resisted,n pres-
sure must be applied. For that,_ with due consideration
of the time and manner,
themselves. Reformers should prepare
PIIBLIGOLA.