The Sun.
London, England, 1853-06-15 00:00:00

at best, but a regard for the outward semblance of intog
rity. (Cheers.) On these grounds he (Lord Lennox) should
vote against the motion of his hon. friend.
Mr. COBDEN remembered that about nine years ago he
brought forward a motion in that house, on which he had
bestowed more than usual trouble and attention, and which
time and experience had since proved to have been founded
in sound and true policy. He remembered that the right
hon. the member for Wiltshire, who was then in the Cabi-
net, and the colleague of older and shrewder heads, was
put forward to answer that speech, which was accompanied
by some memorable circumstances. Now the right hon.
gentleman was a little older, but he had hardly gained
much wisdom from experience—(laughter)—for he had
done precisely the same office now that he did then for
older and more sagacious colleagues. He had now taken
up the defence of a question which had been as completely
established by reason and argument as free trade had been
in 1811 (cheers)—and he ventured to predict that the
right hon. gentleman would live to make as manly a disa-
vowal, after he had seen by experience the results of the
ballot, of the opinions ho had expressed that night.
(Laughter and cheers.) This question, he (Mr. Cobden)
repeated, had been settled by reason and argument ; and if
they were discussing the ballot simply as a question affect-
ing a body of men, all of whom rested upon a social equality,
there could not even then be one argument or reason sug-
gested why it should not be adopted. (Hear, hear.) Hide
as they might—conceal it even from themselves,.if they
could—the fact was that they opposed the ballot because
they festered upon a discussion of it with a latent idea that
it was the duty of somebody to know how somebody else
voted. (Cheers.) But if a body of men—if 500 individuals
were placed in one apartment, and they wished to know
honestly the opinion of the majority of those men ; if no
ono had right or power, or pretension, to exercise any un-
due influence whatever, or any mastery over them,
except what he derived from argument and reason, they
would not find one of those 500 men that could say why
the ballot should not be adopted. (Hear, hear. The
right hon. gentleman had given them some arguments
with which he (Mr. Cobden)la hwe MustVilldnoeewrrepertoZteheed t()
deal. And in the first p
as-
sumption of the right hon. gentleman that any one who
had spoken before him had admitted, that the ballot
would be totally inoperative to put downebribery. What,
had been admitted by all its advocates was that it was per-
fect as against intimidation, and that it was a very potent
obstacle to bribery. But the right hon. gentleman went
further, and said that bribery might be an increasing evil,
but that intimidation, owing to the operation of public
opinion, was decreasing with the lapse of 'time. He com-
pared the present period with 1833 ; and said that we had
very much improved upon the state of things then, for po-
pular opinion had to a certain extent put down intimida-
tion. He (Mr. Cobden) denied that. What had been done
was, that the counties, in a vast majority of cases, had so
far succumbed to intimidation, and had so far become sub-
servient to territorial interest, that they had ceased to
make any struggle for independence. (Cheers.) Talk of
intimidation having diminished ! Was it not the recog-
nised principle and etiquette in county canvassing, that it,
was an insult to large proprietors to canvass their tenants
without first obtaining their permission ? (Cheers.) Would
anybody deny that ? Why, he had heard of one case, in
which there were two proprietors of rival pretensions,
where there was a quarrel, and some talk of a duel, in con-
sequence of their having poached upon each other's manor.
The counties, before the Reform Bill, were the strongholds
of liberal opinions in this country. There were members
for counties who took their stand on that side of the house
in defence of all our old constitutional freedom, and it was
mainly county members that had carried the Reform Bill
itself. (Cheers.) Why, then, had such a complete change
taken place ? They could scarcely now point to any county
where a contest, however hopeless, had been attempted on
liberal and reforming principles. (Hear, hear.) The
simple cause was, that they had given the proprietors such
power by the control of their tenants' votes, that the free-
holders, the ancient stronghold of popular rights, had been
swamped by a body of men, the most dependent and the
most subservient politicians they had in tne country.
(Cheers and murmurs.) They had had the experiment
tried. In South Northumberland, in North Northumber-
land, in Hertfordshire, in Herefordshire, and in West
Surrey, they had had contests ; and whether or not there
heel been any diminution of intimidation, let the right
hon. member for Morpeth answer. (Cheers.) He would
call Sir George Grey into . the witness-box. [The hon.
member then quoted a hustings' speech* of Sir George, in
which he complained that the name of those who had ex-
ercised undue influence over their tenants, against him was
" Legion."] But it was the same on the other side. He
found in a local paper this statement :—" Lord Ossulstou
and Lord Lovaine address the people from the windows of
the White Swan." (A laugh.) Lord Ossulston, speaking
of the Beaumont and other influence in South Northum-
berland, said—" Mr. Liddell went up to one of the polling
places, where he sat with the patience of Job, for
three hours, hearing vote after vote recorded against him.
At last a single elector polled for him, and he rose and
publicly thanked the voter, to the surprise of all who
did not know that he was present. A short time after-
wards, ono of the voters who had polled against Mr.
Liddell, came up to him, and taking him by, the hand,
said, " I have been compelled to vote against you, but it
is a d—d bad business." (Laughter.) I have given you
the man's own language, for I think the profaneness of the
expression is redeemed by its honest sincerity.. (Great
laughter.) Lord Lovaine also complained that the Green-
wich Hospital estate was canvassed by his opponent in
company with a Government commissioner, and that the
tenants had given their votes against him (Lord Lovaine),
although they were in his favour'. (Hear, hear.) He (Mr.
Cobden) might call attention to the case of Hertford-
shire i but in every case they would find the same ter-
rible intimidation practised. Indeed, the counties had
ceased to exist for all purposes ,of useful discussion
or manly contest. (Loud cheers and murmurs.) Well,
i now, let them go to Ireland, where county contests had
been renewed. Had they seen any failing anywhere of
this horrible intimidation, in Ireland, by the priests on ono
side and the landlords on the other? (Hear.) Why he
had begun at one time to cut extracts out of the papers
giving records of these cases, but he had thrown up the task
in sheer despair, for it was all intimidation and violence is
Ireland. (Cheers.) So much so, that the United Service
Gazette stated that 30,000 soldiers and police had been kept
actively employed throughout the late elections, .and that
they had visited 182 polling places during the contest.
(Hear, hear.) Was that a state of things to be passed over
or to be remedied ? (Hear, hear.) The right hon. gentle-
man said they could not remedy it in Ireland unless they
passed such a measure as would protect the people both
from the priests and the landlords. But what did they
want to protect them against ? They wanted to protect
voters against any coercive influences that should compel
them to vote against their will. (Hear, hear.) He might
be told that the influence of the priests would be exercised
in a private manner—in a manner which, whatever it
might seem to them, they neither could, nor had they a
right, to interfere with. (Hear, hear.) He (Mr. Cobden)
did not ask them to protect a man against a voluntary in-
fluence. He denied their right to prevent any man from
taking counsel from those whom he knew, or supposed to
be better able to advise him than he was to instruct him-
self. (Hear.) But this he did say, place a man in such a
[ position that he might either follow or disobey, as he
pleased, the instructions of those who undertook to guide
him, whether they were landlords or priests. They
had had, however, on the previous night, an explosion
from the honourable member for Enniskillen (Mr.
Whiteside) from which it appeared that there were some
influences exerted by priests which were not volun-
tarily submitted to. He (Mr. Cobden) had heard
of a Roman Catholic who had voted against the wishes
of his priest, and his seat in the chapel had been
torn up in consequence. Now that was a species of in-
timidation calculated to make a man vote against his
conscience; and so if they had the ballot it might protect
a mail, to some extent, even against the influence of the
priests. (Hear, hear.) Therefore, he said, let them try
the ballot. (Cheers.) The right: hon. gentleman told
them that it would be no remedy against bribery. He
stated that bribery would be carried on wholesale—that
one of your Parliamentary agents would go down to a town
and say to a number of people, " If you can return So-and-
so I will give you so much to divide amongst you ; but
unless he is returned you have nothing." Now his (Mr.
Cobden's) answer to that was, in the first instance, that
they did not intend to have any of these little manageable
boroughs. (Cheers.) It might be perfectly true of such
places as Wilton or Shoreham. for instance. But he would
put it to the house, could any Parliamentary agent go down
to such towns as Birmingham or Manchester, where there
were constituencies of 5,000, or 10,000, or 15,000 electors,
and buy them up wholesale? (Cheers.) With so large a
number to be represented, 26,000,000 persons to be repre-
sented by 658 members, they would have under the new
Reform i3ill—unless it was to be a mere sham and pretence
—none but large constituencies ; and he would appeal to
the house whether it was possible to buy constituencies of
some 8,000 voters each? (Cheers.) It had Lever been done
under the open system, and it would certainly not be done
under the ballot. (Loud cheers.) The right hon. gentleman
had touched upon the ballot at the clubs, buthe had not
been very happy in explaining why they were indulged in
that luxury while the people were not to have it. (Hear.)
It was said that in clubs they dare not vote openly ; but
really if any improper person were proposed for the only
club in London to which he (Mr. Cobdep) belonged, he
should not hesitate to vote against him to-morrow. (Hear,
hear.) It might be very inconvenient no doubt to vote
openly ; but were they to shield themselves against this
slight inconvenience when they would not allow the same
privilege to the masses? (Hear, hear.) Nor was the prac-
tice confined to the clubs. The East India Company voted
by ballot, and he did not find any provision in the new
bill to prevent them from continuing to do so. Twenty
years ago the magistrates for Devonshire adopted it in
elections for their chairman, and those of East Sussex in
the election of a chief constable. The noble lord opposite
said that the ballot would destroy the national character.
Did that apply to these magistrates? (Hear, hear.) But
he found in a Breconshire newspaper an account of an
archery meeting, and in that too he found a ballot for
members. In fact, there was no country in the world in
which the ballot was so much used. The right hon. gen-
tleman seemed to think that the secret voting was intended
p
it
fo
hbee
pc ?elan
epeudl,s or y
cover bhui te when the
with
tbhi
el I
nameas se set
fa
hisvoter
favouritein ,
candidate, or shout it at the top of his voice. All they
contemplated was such a provision as should enable every-
body to vote without anybody else knowing how he voted.
(Cheers.) Those who chose to be canvassers, or open and
above-board partisans, might do so ; but the number of
those who took an open, and prominent, and noisy part in
these public discussions and contests was a very small
fraction indeed. (Hear, hear.) The right hon. gentleman
said that the ballot was not popular in America. He
could state, from some little acquaintance with America,
that any politician there who proposed to abolish the ballot
in any state in which it prevailed, would be considered as
little better than a political madman. (Hear, hear.) It
was the cardinal article of their political faith • andthere
never had been an instance of a state which had
adopted the
ballot having departed from it, but the tendency had been
mcoonmsteanuttltyhtehree
wereot other way.
more than n
ay.
(Hear,
one or .)
twAet, and those
the present
slave states— Virginia was one—where the ballot was not
tolerated. (Cheers.) Much had been said about the cur-
ruption of the last election. That was patent to the world,
and they all admitted it. It was not merely bribery and
corruption in the ordinary sense of the word that they had
to deal with ; the great blot and disgrace of our electoral
system was the blackguardism and bullying that prevailed
at those contests. At Oldham it was stated by Mr. Fox's
chairman that his supporters would not have_been able to
vote at all, had they not crept down by-roads to the poll ;
and some actually went to Manchester and returned by
another train that it might not be observed that they were
going to vote. At Blackburn there was not merely open
violence on the day of election, but for days and weeks
afterwards the blackguardism was kept up, people were
carried off, and all sorts of violence were committed. In
one case a gun wr.s fired, and two shotswere lodged in the
face of an individual. Was that an English, was it a desir.