The Sun.
London, England, 1856-05-22 00:00:00

YOUR L•.Fi'g TY DAN ER.

To concln.le, wi--A
I;ETST BAKER.

ASTLEY'3 ItOYIL
Lessee and iana:e:, Mr. 'Wm. Cc*lte.
Deci.ded and an,.,..Tilvaz.:d triumph !

TIIIS EVENING,
'flu; hizhl.7 sUceasfal Ilo;nantin T;quw.trian Spectacle, called
T lI9IZ.SE OF THE CAVERN, or the 31,..unted Brlzatria of the
A rnz-,:!, hi which Mr. Cooke 'a :Horsea. trained by him, will
e :titbit a nu n',er of no7el eff ,cts —tura.l.n> trio pon.lerona wheel of
vie cavern. fetchin' water from the (lova the door of
the guard-house; 9rf4l Erupt ion of
,VeStrvittl.
Atter which., •
The COl:tr.-ATM LN ACTS in the I.ltEgA, concluding with a
Gem of High Art.

opin fr ti 1 F01..r. Stvo Manager, Mr. IV.
West.. EqueAtrian Director, Mr. Y. Cooke. inn.

A.TEI3. AT TAO4,I'..DON 1111.1-,DGR.
DiY—Morn. 11 min. aft. 3—Evening 23 tain.aft. 3
T owl w or u. 4G cniu. aft. —iivaniiug 7 min. aft. 4

THE WEATHER—SUN: OFFICS, MAY 22.
THERMOMETER, IN V.HE SHADE.
68 -higbees; since noon pesters tap.
67 lowsfrtt this morning and /Airing the night.
6J —tblh day at noon.

BAROMETER, f;9.69.
WIND, Westerly, light and variable; now S.W., with
dull, rainy weather. It began to rain last evening about
8, and so continued (luting the night.

LE4iz„
Ai ,4„,
A 9-4 m,
-

LONDON, THURSDAY, MAY 22, 1856.

------..----•,....-.-..-----

Prince FREDERICK WILLIAM of Prussia has
safely arrived in England. He is now in com-
pany with his intended bride, and within a few
days, or weeks, everythi:ng connected with the
inanspicious marriage will be duly arranged. The
innocent victim will be botuad by an engagement,
entered into before she is capable of knowing her
own mind, or forming a correct opinionn as to her
prospects of happiness in the new state of life on
which she is about to enter. It would be well
to avert the sacrifice, even so far as merely
personal interests are concerned, until she
has attained a riper age. As we have already
stated few English parents would permit a
daughter to enter into so solemn a contract until
she,had long passed fifteen years of age.
But there pis another and far more important
view of the subject. The :marriage is solely advo-
cated as a matter of " State policy," and every
tax-payer throughout the length and breadth of
the land is deeply interests din a question on which
may depend the possession of the British sceptre
and the futuregovernment of the country. Many
concessions have already been made to Germanism,
whick may in a great degree, if not altogether, be
ascribed to this untoward event. Prussia was
chiefly concerned in obtaining the abrogation of
our neutrality. laws. She had already realised
great profits, as agent for the maritime trade
and cominorce of our late-Opponent, which was
conducted during the War through Prussian inter-
vention. Without the important assistance thus
afforded the CZAR would !have succumbed at a
mach earlier period. lied the transit by sea been
entirely cut off the sinews of war would have been
wanting. He could not have maintained the
contest, and fifty millions of pounds sterling, and
the lives of fifty thousand British subjects might
have been saved. Now, the improvident arran oe
mint entered into, without the knowledge or
assent of the English Parliament, will afford en-
onragement to future aggression, inaseaeo, as
nee of the most serious difficulties in the way,
not only of Russia, but of any Power that may be
involved in hostilities with the United Kingdom,
will be avoided ; while the Government at Wash-
ington, the only one that could offer anything
approaching to an equivalent for such an
arrangement, remains absolutely unfettered.
This has been ft sop to the Prus-
sian Cereceaus, a portion of the dower
to be paid with the illustrious victim. It would
indeed have been cheaper to give even the 70,000/.
per annum spoken of, ridiculous as it was, than
to surrender the principle which NELSON said Eng-
land would eupport with her last man and her
knit pound.

Bat sottin?, aside the welfare of the poor child,
and the heavy price already indirectly paid for the
dyiaastid connection, there are other matters of
still graver impost to h 3 taken into consideration.
We may become involved in Prussian and Ger-
man intrigues; and drawn into contests in which

we are in no degree concerned. We have already
had bitter experience of the consequences of a
Hanoverian connection, and should so far profit
thereby as sedulously to avoid a similar scrape,
that might involve us in serious trouble with-
out any equivalent, however insignificant.
But "this, and these, and all" are as nothing
to the possibility of the annexation of the Crown
of Great Britain to that of Prussia. There are
happily four Princes, whose claims are paramount
to those of the intended bride. But the Royal
Marriage Act is not calculated to produce legitimate
offspring: Her MAJESTY is the daughter of the
fourth Eton of GEORGE 111., and but for the ex-
traordinary inducement held out to princely mar-
riages in 1818—and which are not likely to be
again offered—there might have been a total
failure of the House of BRUNSWICK. There is,
therefore, not merely a possibility, but even a
strong probability, of a Prussian Sovereign suc-
ceeding to the sceptre of Great Britain at the
termination of lives now in being. Can such a
prospect be regarded with patience ? What would
be the inevitable result ? The Prussian Viceroy,
that would gladly degrade England to a third-
rate Power, would be speedily expelled. We
should suffer under internal commotions, and
endure—

" Civil dissension, with its vip'rons tooth,
That goaws the bowel.e of the commonweal."
Surely in such a case, where the succession to the
ThronUis concerned, and the future welfare and
prosperity of the nation is at stake, the Parliament
and people of Great Britain have a right to forbid
the banns, and interpose a veto against thu in-
tended marriage. If it must go on, there should
be a new "act of settlement" to exclude the issue,
being Sovereigns 'of Prussia, from the English
Throne. Even if the welfare of this kingdom
did not recognise such a proviso, the interests of
Europe, and the maintenance of "the balance of
power," about which so much noise is made,
would be sufficient to prevent "the union of the
Crowns." We should scarcely approve of the
amalgamation, by any means, of France or Aus-
tria with Russia. We aro even prepared to
protest against Denmark being added to the
Muscovite diadem, and surely the annexation of
the 'United Kingdom to Prussia would be just as
objectionable, and occasion as many serious com-
plications as those above referred to. Any deli-
cacy on such a matter would now be misplaced,
and we earnestly hope that some independent
Member of Parliament, if such there
are to be found, with sufficient firmness,
to " bell the German cat," will be induce,' to
exhibit such interrogatories to Ministers as mly
obtain materials whereon to frame a new Act of
Settlement, providing for the succession to the
Throne in certain, by no means remote coutin-
gencies.

" Secrecy is the parent of impunity, impunity
of corruption," therefore the Ballot is grandfather
to corruption ; so argues the Times, and so,
therefore, believe a host of virtuous members of
Parliament, of patrons of pocket boroughs, of
lawyers who work the business, and of Tory
squires and landlords all the country over. "Ah I
I always said as much," remarks some Sir JOHN
LEICESTER, as he lays down the paper to sip his
coffee, " These Secial!sts who advocate the Ballot
are the manifest friends of darkness and corrup-
tion ; they would utterly annihilate the salutary
effect of a landlord's virtue on his tenants—yes,
they would deliver the simple creatures over to
secrecy, impunity, and corruption. I shall write
to the Elitor, and thank him for his admirably
article, giving him leave to insert my letter, with
an order for a copy for each of my tenants, and
one to lie on the table of the Rose and Crown."

But when Sir Jon.); sits down to confer on Mr.
Editor the honour of his baronial thanks, it may
be his proud consort happens to glance at the
superscription " Mr. Editor." "Do you know the
man, Sir JOHN ?" " Know him, Lady LEICESTER
—of course not—but h; whoever ho be, has just
written a most admirable exposure of that absurd
and corrupting proposal of Vote by Ballot."
" Oh, yes, Sir JOHN, some writer for hire, I dare
say, writing in perfect secrecy, with perfect im-
punity, and no doubt ready to take any one's pay
—secrecy is the parent of impunity, and impunity
of corruption." " Why, that is the very thing he
says of the Ballot !" " Let him say it of himself
too, then," rejoins her Ladyship ; " about politics
I know nothing, and I care less, but I have
enough common sense to understand that a person
who publishes an article without a name, is not
just the man to blackball another who wishes to
vote without revealing his name."

Of course, Sir JOHN'S pen is paralysed by his
Lady's common sense, and he no doubt turns
the thing over in his country brains often
enough in his morning's ride ; but a solution of
such difficulties is not the game which country
squires can reach. Not that it is so very difficult.
Their JOHNSON'S dictionary, when theyhave blown
off the dust, will tell them that impunity means
freedom from punishment, and freedom from
punishment may be the removal of temptation,
and an encouragement to virtue. Both the jour-
nalist and the voter may escape by secrecy the
penalties of doing right. Speaking truthfully,
and acting out one's honest convictions, have in
all ages frequently incurred penalties of various
kinds. From the earnest professor of primitive
Christianity, to the denouncer of some social
or political evil, secrecy has ofttimes been the
only means of freedom from punishment ; but
the impunity has in these cases been parent to the
very opposite of corruption. If, indeed, legal or
social punishment followed upon wickedness only,
impunity could haire but one offspring ; but the
impunity sought by the writer through the first
person plural, and by the voter through the ballot
box, are sought on the whole for virtuous pur-
poses. The journalist wishes to write free from the
influence of some persons ho might not like to dis-
please. The elector, in many cases, wishes to do
the same ; and in either case mere modesty may
frequently prefer concealment to publicity. Wo
are confident that our contemporary will decidedly
assert that secrecy aids the independence of its
writers ; why should it not aid equally the inde-
pendence of voters ?

Our great contemporary, !however, takes its
cue this time from the House of Commons, and
as hon. members on Tuesday afternoon preferred
their dinners to a debate on Mr. H. BERKELEY'S
motion, has its?lf dismissed the subject with
merely a little oracular condemnation—no one
cares about, it can do no good ; nay, it will make
people worse. There is, of course, no denying
that a capital 1113 use of Commons speech from
and a single antagonistic speech
mr. BERKELEY, a silent seconding of his motion
E were the whole of the debate,
fbryomGemnerr.apl E, and
if such it eau be called---a division and dinner
and in a house of
were the preconcerted tactics,
261 members the Ballot gained only 111 of their
votes. There is little doubt that the War, the
Peace, and the Income-Tax have so absorbed the
nation's mind of late that Representative Reform
and the Ballot with it, has not been a practical
.topic with the public, and that the House felt it-
might securely treat it as a question on which no
business was just now to be done. Not A Mini'

ster spoke on the subject. It was a duel
between %one friend and. one foe, in which the
argumentative victory lay surely this time wholly
on one side, and the majority of votes on the
other. The cause of Reform itself, of Corn Law
repeal, and indeed every good cause, had many
such receptions as that of Tuesday night after
they became annual topics.
There is, however, the great encouragement,
as Mr. BERKELEY observed, that if the majority of
the House was against him, the minority of elec-
tors for whom his opponents voted was " ridicu-
culously small" compared with the large numbers
represented by his supporters, and adding the
non-electors, who were universally in his favour,
he cuuld claim a vast majority of the nation in his
favour. It was, of course, difficult to advance any-
thing very novel, but Mr. BERKELEY contrived to
make on the old subject a new and interesting
speech, sustaining attention for a full hour at
least. He happily diiposecl of the charge of
cowardice by observing that " the Army, the
Navy, the Nobility, and the commonalty voted
in that way, and if it was cowardly to do so they
must be regarded as so many packs of cowards."
He placed the objection, too, that electors were
trustees, and that their votes ought, therefore, to
be open in a happy light. Admitting, for argu-
ment's sake only, that they were trustees, how did
open voting secure their integrity ? It merely
proved which way they voted, but not from what,
motive they voted, while in the motive the whole
question of coruption lay. He also showed satis-
factorily, from documentary evidence, the value
attached to the, privilege of secret voting in
America, and the efforts now made to make it
really secret.

The Ballot, however, has but one argument
against it which weighs in the houss—the pocket
borough, and tenant-at-will argument. The
power :of patrons in snug Whig and Tory family
boroughs, and of the landlords in countie3, would
be imperilled, if men could vote without fear of
vengeance. All the world knows that every
other defence of the present system is mere
special pleading, without a trace of c)nviction in
it. No one really believes that it is un-English
and cowardly to do at elections what we all do
everywhere else. No one believes that it will be
a mask for corruption, or multiply electioneering
lying. No one believes that candidates will bribe
more than ever, and electors be converted into
hypocrites—but every one does believe that a
majority of Honourable Members sit in the House
by the corruption or the slavery of the electors,
and that buyers do not want to lose their market,
nor alaveholders the power of the lash.