The Sun.
London, England, 1856-12-12 00:00:00

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.

Sin,—May I request the favour of your insertion
of the accompanying letter which I have addressed
to the Times ?—Obediently yours,
F. HENRY F. BERKELEY.
Victoria-square, Dec. 11, 1856.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.

Victoria-sqtiare, Dec. 10, 1836.
Sir,—Although I cannot admit the force of your reason-
ing, nor the fairness of your dealing• with the question of
the ballot, yet I admit your courtesy, and the spirit of fair
play which you, have always manifested in affording inser-
tion to those letters which I have had the honour to ad-
dress to you on the subject. I venture therefore to request
the insertion-of 'a:few remarks on your leading article of
the Times of this day.
When Iread yourglowing etilogium on publicity and its
essentiality to freedom, I expected to see the writer's name
signed to the article, but in that I was disappointed.
I will not. iterate the reply•which I gave a few days since
to your assertion that the nature of the English people is
adverse to secret voting. I proved to you that in England
secret voting is the rule, open voting the exception. I can-
not deal with the bold and bald assertion, " Let the Ballot
Society talk as they please, the people will have none of it."
The Times, with its vast influence, may, and too often does,
rely on its prestige, and asserts this or that, knowing that
its sic vole passes current with the generality of readers,
where argument. Would be expected from an individual who
has not the advantage of thundering forth opipions in the
first person plural from SJ distinguished an editorial ballot-
box as that of the Times. I give the Times all this advan-
tage with the unthinking portion of its numerous readers,
and shall content myselt with eadeavouring to prove to
those who take the trouble to thiak that the •article to
which I have referred is a string of weak fallacies. What
but a fallacy is your first assertion—" The ballot is one of
those panaceas which has survived the evils it was meant
to cure ?" -Has the ballot, then, survived corruption,
intimidation, and the general malversation of the
elective franchise ? Are the sales of - boroughs at an end,
and have the landowners ceased to compel the votes of their
tenants under pain of ejection ? Are tradesmen less under
the political dominion of the Court and aristocracy than
they have been proved to be ? To this there can be bat one
answer. Everybody has admitted the last general election
to have, if possible, exceeded in atrocity those that pre-
ceded it. Ido not know whether you keep a tile of your
paper; if you do, you will find in your leaders of 1852 and
18.56 proof sufficient that the evils which we say the ballot
can remedy 'flourish as the greeti bay tree. That is my
reply.

—The

You say that constituencies from mare. habit require a
pledge to support the ballot as a proof of liberal politics.
Does not this show that they still regard that support as
the test of liberal opinions ? Again, " Let the Ballot
Society talk as they please, the country will have none of

it ; the feelings as well as the reason of the nation are all
on the side of public voting." If this be so, haw was it
that in the Greenwich meeting—a meeting publicly con-
vened, composed of all classes, 'and numbering between
1,000 and 1,100 porton% to which every man had a right
to go, and when there express his mind, and where the
ballot was opposed, its opponents were beaten by a ma-
jority of between 600 and 900? As to its being impossible,
you say, "to get tip any enthusiasm for the ballot," our
experienceshows that the ballot is the one question which
is the most popular question in every constituency.
I next find the following assertion. You say that you
" tali:, the liberty of ranking the ballot with those contriv-

antes on which despotism Mainly relies." You appear to
me to take a great liberty with your readers in supposing
them so devoid of sense as to swallow such a dose of " flap-

doodle;" why it is the very essence of the stuff en "which
they feed fools." The ballot, id est protection to the elector
in giving his honest and unbiassed vote, his own opinion, at
the polling-booths, is thus twisted by you into the sup-
pression of the effects of public opinion, and 'into the
destruction of free discussion. Exactly the reverse. Of
what use is discussion or the effect of public opinion on the
minds of men incapacitated to carry out the fruits of argu-
ment at the hour of election? You may give your opinions,
you may lay down the virtues of certain measures on the
platform, but all your eloquence, all your truthfulness, is
thrown away, since the elector cannot apply your facts and
`arguments to his own conscience, but is compelled to take
his version of them from others. At present open discussion
is rendered nugatory, and the effects of public opinion lost
upon a frightfully large proportion-cif the-electoral-bodY,
entirely through want of protection in giving their votes,
and by their being subjected to the ordeal of open voting.
Give these electors secrecy, you destroy that entirely English
invention, the election screw, and you give a fair chance to
the effects of argument. At present all those who dare
argue a political question dare vote for whom they please.
How would the ballot then repress discussion? On the
contrary, protection at the polling booths would encourage
men to endeavour, by reason, to make that impression' on
the electors of this country, which if made under the system
of open voting is made in vain. What effect could the
ablest article that over appeared in the Times make upon
the votes of the 500 tenants of my Lord So-and-So? It
would be waste paper; the steward might put it into the
hands of each of the tenant electors, order them to vote in
its teeth, and be certain of obedience. What effect might
not such an article produce on the minds and votes of such
a tenantry simply by affording to the elector that same
principle of protection upon which the very existence of
the rinses itself depends ?
In short, if you have not the mechanical agency to pro-
tect the elector, as things are in England, all your boasted
moral and intellectual agency becomes as great a farce as
that of telling the tenants of my Lord So-and-So, the
tradesmen of Six Thomas T'otherbhing, or the operatives in
her Majesty's dockyards, that they are free and independent
electors. Your appeals hitherto to America for the failure
of the ballot have been very unfortunate ; as little reliance
is to be placed on your anti•ballot correspondents as on the
celebrated letters on "Railways and Revolvers in Georgia."
At first, ready to seize upon anything and hurl it at
the ballot box without reflecting upon the chance of

its breaking your own windows, you told us that
it was a failure bwause it was evidently obnoxious
to the pro slavery party, and they had tampered with it
and attacked it by brute force. No w you talk of despots
being in favour of the ballot; will you enlighten us as to
whether it was the despots in America who attempted to
put the ballot down, or was it the despots who defended
that institution ? That inquiry is a little awkward, so you
have dropped that phase of the subject. America, how-
ever, must be quoted, so you refer to the last presidential
election. Because it was easy, from the results of state
elections, to judge which way the contest for the president-
ship would go, you conclude that the ballot cannot, and
does not, conceal the votes of individual electors. Well,
then, if the ballot be not capable of secrecy, away goes
your argument which I hare just answered; but the bal-
lot is capable of secrecy where secrecy is necessary. Inti-
midation does exist in America, and is a growing evil ; and
although a vast, proportion of the population have no need
to, and do not, conceal their votes, so that a calculation
can be easily made of the result of an election, yet the
power exists in the New England States to maintain inviol-
able secrecy, and no free institution is more cherished and
less likely to be parted with throughout all the states
peopled by our Anglo-Saxon cousins than the vote by
ballot.

In making us a present of Belgium and Holland you
make us a valuable gift. I gave you in a former letter the
evidence of a distinguished Belgian. Allow me now to
give you that of a resident in Holland :—" The law of
secret voting has secured to every elector, however depen-
dent he may be, the means of rendering himself entirely
free from the influence of any one in the exercise of his
right of voting." Signor Valerio, one of the most distin-
guished members of the Sardinian Chamber of Deputies,
says :—" The laws established (i. c., the ballot) have been
found to preserve the independence of the electoral body,
and it never enters into the head of any one here to require
open voting. It is certain that if that system of open
voting was established the independent members would
be excluded from our Parliament, and all the elections
would as certainly result in favour of the candidates put
forward by the Government, the bishops, and the clergy."
To borrow your own words, "We are fortunate enough
to be thoroughly acquainted with an Anglo-Saxon com-
munity possessed of the inviolable safeguard and protection
of the ballot." The first election of the Legislature of Vic-
toria has just taken place under the ballot. A correspondent
of the Manchester Examiner says--" The ballot effectually
prevented bribery, corruption, intimidation, treating, and
all unnecessary, excitement and excess, and it saves a candi-
date from those ruinous expenses to which he is subjected
under the old system." The Melbourne Herald says—" The
Government has received its deathblow, not by the iron
hand of a fierce democracy, but by the secret vote of that
privileged class which was created for the avowed purpose
of serving as a barrier against popular extravagance."
The Melbourne Argus says—" We point with a feeling
of pride and gratification to the quiet and orderly circum-
stances under which, thanks to the ballot and good sense
of the community, the elections have been conducted.
While the admirable working of the ballot is an occasion
of pride and satisfaction to ourselves, its successful opera-
tion iu colonies mill bo watched with interest by all
the friends of progress in Gloat Britain ; and it is not un-
reasonable to suppose that the adoption of the principle of
secret voting (so perseveringly and strenuously contended
for by politicians of the most advanced views in the British
House of Commons) will be very materially accelerated by