The Sun.
London, England, 1862-04-26 00:00:00

THE BALLOT IN FIZ.INCE.

In reference to a recent letter of the Vice Chair-
man of the Ballot Society on the subject of the
ballot in France, the following letter has been re-
ceived from a member of the English bar, officially
connected with the city of York, and now resident
in the south of France :

I observed in the York herald of the 12th inst.,
a letter from you relating to a letter from the Hon.
J. E. Dundas, in which he says that "in France tho
existence of the ballet is merely nominal." You then
observe, "if the ballot be (as I concur with Mr.
Dundas in thinking) in France merely a name &c."
This statement was so extraordinary and startling,
that I made inquiries of French gentlemen of this
place (Montpellier), and amongst others of an ancient
Prefet ofa Department, how elections were conducted
in Franca. They take place in every Commune before
the Make of the Commune, `or each Commune has its
Moire. On the day appointed the electors repair to
the Maire's house or office, each elector writes upon
a small piece of paper the name of the candidate he
wishes to vote for, folds it up, that is, doubles it
up so that no one can see the name thereon written,
and presents it to the Maire, who in the presence of
the elector drops it into a box like a letter box.
The elector may write this piece of paper at his own
house, or where ho likes, and puts it in his pocket
and keeps it there till he arrives before the Maire.
Very often a candidate has his name printed on a
slip of paper, and distributes them to those he be-
lieves will support him, and there is often a tumult
at the door, the friends or agents of each candidate
persuading the electors to accept voting papers of
such candidate. They may succeed or they may
not, but if any electors, to escape importunity, ac-
cepts a paper with the name of Mr. A. upon it,
that is no reason why he should not have
another in his pocket, with the name of
Mr. B. upon it, which latter he presents
to the Maire. Nobody can know what he bas
done, unless he is so unwise as to tell of himself.
This state of things has only existed since the in-
troduction of the universal suffrage. Great abuses
existed before, when electors were obliged to have
a qualification. At present there are some eight
million electors in France, and in each a conscrip-
tion (ordistriet), there may be some 30,000 or 40,000
voters. It is not to be expected that they all vote,
but perhaps some 25,000 or 30,090 may vote, and it
is absurd to suppose that such a body of men could
be bought or intimidated either by the Government
or any other men or body of men. It is generally

in small constituencies such as Wakefield, Gloster,
or Preston, that men are bought, intimidated, or
cajoled as slaves. Ballot is a hopeless case in En,;-
land, unless the people rise en masse and desire it,
because as it is, any man who has from £5,000 to
£lO,OOO to spare, may think it mighty genteel to
buy into Parliament, and any Peer or great man
having a stupid son or nephew may think it mighty
aristocratic'to have a scion of his noble and ancient
family in Parliament.

A PIiOSPEKOUS COLONY.

(From the.l(ielbourne Herald.)

Not only were there in times past, but there are even
now, as fine opportunities in this colony for a man bettering
his condition in any walk of life, as were ever before pre.
sented in a colony not numbering more than five or six
hundred thousand souls, We shall not be guilty of the
folly of comparing Melbourne with London, which now
possesses a population in excess of that of the ancient king-
dom of Scotland. And for the same reason we abstain from
any comparison between the merchants, the shopkeepers,
or the tradesmen of the two clam. If persons of this, or
of any other class, had been doing all they wished or ex-
pected in London, they would not, we presume, haw had
themselves transferred hither. Or if, during their absence,
they nave-a-mpoirea.so
_ranch more capital or skill as to justify
their removal to the world's great-mart of enterprise and
industry, we have no right to suppose that they will long
continue to favour us with the sunshine of their presence.
There are exceptions of course. But we are now speaking
of these classes as a whole. And we have no hesitation in
again saying—a little more definitely now perhaps—that
there is no other place in the world, with a population
of little more than half a million of souls, in which
there is a fairer field for the investment of capital at
remunerative rates, than Victoria, or in which there
is a wider scope for labour, whether educated and pro-
fessional, or mechanical and artistic, or unskilled only.
That is our position in reference to Victoria. To that ex-
tent we are justified in entertaining hopes of success, which
should cheer and not depress, in the midst of our struggles.
And it would be an agreeable, if it were not a forbidden,
task, to produce in the history of some of our more wealthy
Victorians life-like pictures of what we have now been
labouring to enforce.

We need not go into any particular class for instances of
success. The whole Colony is a success. And every class
in it furnishes instances of almost unexampled success.
We are not so squeamish as to think of excepting any,
from the fact of their having been proscribed by envy or
the want of better information. Who has placed the
millions of sheep and hundreds of thousands of cattle and
horses on our runs and stations ? By whose hands have
millions of acres of land been fenced in, and hundreds of
thousands of acres been cultivated ? Whose ate the houses,
the stores, the shops, the warehouses, and other buildings,
in Melbourne and its suburbs ? To whom do the gold fields,
towns, and the property on the mines belong, with the vil-
lages, the homesteads, and the vineyards, scattered over
the whole face of the country ? Are these no proofs of the
prospects the colony holds out for success ? Where are the
owners of these millions upon millions' worth of property
Remember, we are little more than half a million ourselves
in the gross, and this is a great deal of property to be divided
among so few. But where are its principal possessors ?
Some of them treading our halls of legislature, some occu-
pying seats in our courts of justice, some plodding in the
counting-house, at their respective professions and trades,
or in the workshop, and some still labouring on• their runs,
in the vine)erd, or the field, under the hope of making
much more. And is there no hope for us in this As the
owners of these vast accumulations were only a few years
ago what many who boast no share in it are now, what is
there to hinder the latter from aspiring to the like position
a few years hence ? What is to stand in the way of their
becoming capitalists, as others have before them ?