The Sun.
London, England, 1833-01-09 00:00:00

or procure a penal sanction to the law of banishb
ment. We recommend the whole debate to the
mention of our readers, particularly the admi-
rable speech of the Duke de Broglie. The
manner in which the discussion was conducted

on all sides was extremely creditable to the
French Chamber, and would be so to any body
of men heated by the passions natural to such a
There was no bitter accusation brought

Crisis.

against the Duchess—no ungenerous allusions
made to her past conduct—no cry raised for her
blood or for rigorous punishment. The mis-
fortunes of the prisoner and the exile covered
the criminal adventures of the insurgent Prin-
cess; and if we were to find any fault with the
speakers, it would be that they seemed to leave
too much out of view the calamities of which
,he had been the cause in the unhappy province
Nbich she had excited to revolt.—Times.
We are not of the number of those who treat
all our political opponents as if they were dis-
honest or insincere. V.Te hold such indiscrimi-

,
nate imputations to be no less foolish than
wrong. Especially in questions new to the
public mind, as that of the ballot is, there will
he always an unusual number of objectors, per.

fectly sincere and conscientious, who have not
vet contemplated the subject with sufficient at-
tention to appreciate fully either the evil to be
cured, or the remedy suggested to cure it. But
with respect to those objectors who treat the
ballot as inefficacious and impotent, we are by
no means disposed to be equally charitable.
They dislike the ballot very sincerely ; but they
dislike it on account of its full efficiency, not
on account of its- impotence. No man can
look upon the same thing at once as a mischief
and as a nullity ; and the language of all ob-
jectors to the ballot proves that they regard it in
the former character, not in the latter. The
Times now feels assured that the ballot will

- -
prove a nullity, and this is one of their various
objections against it. But it was not always
that the Times felt thus with respect to the bal-
lot. We have now before us their article of June
14, 1830; an instructive and perspicuous sum-
mary of the French electoral system. The fol-
lowing is an extract from it :
" This leads us to mention, that in the French elec-
tions balloting alone is used, and the lovers of liberty in
that country are extremely jealous or apprehensive of any
change. If our readers have attended to the remarks
which we have repeatedly made in this journal on the cen-
tralization of power in France, and the extent to which
every man's interests are exposed in contes►s with the local
ilthorities—all rernoveahle at the pleasure of the Crown,
and consequently all political agents at a general election—
they will perceive that without ballot in that country,
there could be no electoral independence. In all the in.
strucfions given to the electors by their constitutional
friends, either in the journals or through the circulars of
'he directing committees, the former are particularly re-
quested to be careful in writing their bulletins, to avoid
the inspection of the President or Secretaries of the Elec-
toral College."—Extract from the Times, of June 14,

1630.
" Without the ballot (say the Times) there
can be no electoral independence in France !"
Is it possible to proclaim in dearer language the
irresistible efficacy of the ballot ? The language
of the Times does, indeed, refer exclusively to
France, but what is there to make it less appli-
cable to England ? If secret voting be found
to disarm the tyrant, and to insure the free ex-
pression of the voter's consciecce on one side of
ihe Channel, why should it fail of these salutary
effects on the other ? In treating of the ballot
as it is now seen working in France, we do not
believe that the most prejudiced critic ever re-
garded it as practically null and inoperative.
The reverse was too plain and notorious. The
intense anxiety with which this sacred shield
was guarded by its friends—the unprincipled
stratagems laid to steal it away by its enemies—
proved it to be no common implement of war.
No doubt the Government might guess, from
certain words and actions of an elector, in what
way he was likely to vote ; and their guess might in
some cases amount to a full and confident anticipa-
tion that he would vote in one particular way. If,
on the strength of this belief, they chose to visit
him with their displeasure, they might un-
doubtedly do so : but they could not make the
infliction of their displeasure conditional on the
way in which he actually voted, because they
could never know how he actually voted. The
dependant voter might have a motive to elude
their displeasure by simulated talk and simulated
action ; but he could not possibly elude it by a
simulated vote, any more than he could provoke
it by a genuine vote. The vote of every French
elector was rescued altogether from their control,
and became the undisturbed expression of the
elector's own preference. We cannot refrain
From saying, that the gratitude of the country is
due to the Times for the attention and sympathy
which they bestow on individual cases of elec-
toral oppression. Though we differ with them
about the proper remedy, we rejoice to see that
they feel a generous indignation against the evil
and its authors.—Morning Chronicle.
The arguments, or rather the excuses, put
forth by the Journal apologists of the Ministry,
in justification of the rumoured intention of
Lord Grey to permit the Tories to impose upon
him Mr. Manners Sutton as the Speaker of the.
first Reformed Parliament, are too transparently
absurd to influence the public mind, or to vindi-
cate such a pusillanimous act of a Whig Ad-
ministration. We may only ask—what would
those same apologists, a few weeks since, have
thought or written on such a monstrous propo-
sition as the re-election of a Tory Speaker ?
They would have treated it as a chimera—a
scandalous reflection on the Cabinet. Now
the reported intention of Lord Grey to pro-
mote the elevation of the Ex-Speaker to
his former important and responsible sta-
tion is defended, and, we boldly assert, is
maintained, on false grounds. Mr. Manners
Sutton is not espoused by Ministers because of
his appropriate fitness for the office. The Go-
vernment did not consider his re-election essen-
tial to the order and decorum of the new Parlia-
ment ; and, indeed, they would have paid but an
ill compliment to the Reformed Legislature, and
miserably appreciated the well-known qualifica-
tions of many old and independent Members of
the House of Commons for the situation and
duties of the Speakership, if any such reasons
had existed in their minds. Nor has Mr. M.
Sutton consented to resume his office because
he has been pleasurably surprised to find that
the Reform Acts have not filled his old House
with demagogues and paupers. Mr. Manners
Sutton never apprehended any such result from
the amendment of the representation. His long
term of service—his health, a material motive
—the probably objectionable political principles
of the new Legislature—and other goodly
motives, notoriously induced the Hon. Member
to resign his office. Ministers, before the Cam-
bridge University election, never contemplated
his re-assumption of the Speakership. The
Tories acutely. -brought him forward ; and Mr.
M. Sutton, smarting under the disappointment of
the non-attainment of the dignity of-the Peerage,
allowed himself to be played against the Go-