The Sun.
London, England, 1838-02-17 00:00:00

SPIRIT OP THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

for a victory, or for a drawn battle, or for a small majority over
the fanatics who seek to bolster up this intended screen for
fraud and falsehood ; but the trumpet is blown because the de-
feat may have appeared to them less signal and total than on
some former occasions. The vaunt implies that regard has been
had to the mere numbers constituting the minority, not by any
means to its composition, or to the novel circumstances wldch
produced it. For the proposal generally to obtrude the Ballot
upon this nation, we have spoken of it repeatedly—as we felt,
and actually feel towards it—in terms of unmitigated re-
probstion. Englishmen have for centuries exercised their
political rights in the face of the day, and before friends
and foes hare discharged their political duties. This
habit has interwoven itself with the very nature of the
people of England, who, in their collective character, detest
falsehood, and despise concealment as its rowdy and cowardly
confederate. The Ballot is no further honest than in avowing
that which it would be ridiculous to deny—viz., that the mo-
tive of its advocates is to place a screen before proceedings
the actors in which would be ashamed or afraid to exhibit them
openly to the public. Protection to fraud and treachery is
the prime office of the Ballot. The main advantage deriv-
able to bad men from it was described will' unconscious
naivete by O'Connell, when he boasted that it would enable
Tim, or Jack, or Paddy, to " promise one candidate and vote
for another." " And so, boys (adds Daniel) here's hurrah
for the Ballot !" Now, Mr. Grote may lecture the House of
Commons until Doomsday, and burnish over his nostrum as be
likes, but never will he succeed in washing that Gipsy
walnut-stain from the skin of it, or present it to the
world under an aspect so true as that which was affixed
to it by the reckless and exulting profligacy of O'Connell.
It is said that the Ballot has become indispensable as
a shield for those depositaries of the right of voting
who are now intimidated out of the full enjoyment of their
franchise. Is it not a fair question whether the franchise
ought to be intrusted to those who arc debarred by their posi-
tion in society from its free and independent exercise? Is it
endurable that (on the hypothesis of the Ballot securing se-
crecy) a Member of Parliament should not know by what
class of the electors for a city or borough he has, in fact,
been chosen, and who it is that he really represents—whether
the most enlightened and respectable portion of the consti-
tuency, or the most ignorant and worthless? Is it desirable
that electors of a given county, city, or borough shall not
have any safe reliance on each other's declared sentiments, or
have the means of guessing who they aro that act upon com-
mon principles with themselves, and by whom they are
opposed and thwarted ? Is it or is it not desirable—nay,
indispensable to the full enjoyment of his franchise, and to
the defence of his own honour, truth, and consistency, by each
individual voter—that he should have it in his power to turn
to the poll-book on each successive election, and hold up to
the country the evidence there recorded and unquestionable,
that he had given his suffrage for this or that particular can-
didate, and thereby upheld, or endeavoured to uphold, certain
public principles of which such candidate professed to be the
organ ? Is it right that they in whose hands a high political
trust is deposited, should be exempt from all responsibility for
the discharge of it ? But the franchise, quoth that voluble
statesman, Mr. Ward—the franchise is not a trust, because it