The Sun.
London, England, 1851-11-03 00:00:00

THE SU

champion of popular emancipation conspicuous.
It is this wide-spread evidence of the feelings of ad-
miration with which he is viewed by the multitude
both in England and in the United States, both in
the Anglo-Saxon Monarchy and the Anglo-Saxon
Republic, which justifies us in looking forward with
I such enlarging confidence to the ulterior success of
the dormant but unconquered and unconquerable
energies of Hungary.
While we are compelled to exult thus cordially in
the movement made in this island, as expressive of
the national sympathy for Louis KOSSUTFI and
his heroic countrymen, we are equally compelled
to assert that his acknowledgment of this sympathy
has been in every instance worthy of himself and his
magnificent antecedents. His speeches upon every
occasion, from the first moment of his stepping upon
L the shores of England at Southampton until now,
I have been remarkable for the generosity and mag-
' nanimity of their sentiments. Added to those orations,
we have now been enabled to examine that ex-
traordinary document in which the Governor
of Hungary has responded to the inha-
• bitants of the United States. It will be found
on perusal that that address contains within it a
masterly analysis of the great war of Hungarian
independence. If for nothing else, the paper would
be interesting, for inasmuch as it contains the first
allusion to the treason of ARTHUR GORGET we have
yet had directly or indirectly from the lips or from
the hands cf Louis KossuTu. Referring to the
glorious epoch when the armies of the KAISER had
been ignominiously drawn back to the very walls
of Vienna) and when the llapsburg dynasty
appeared to be trembling on the verge of
dissolution, he asserts—" Had it not been for the in-
tentional and traitorous disregard of my commands
by one of our leaders, who afterwards shamefully
betrayed the country, not only would the imperial
family have been driven from Vienna, but the entire
Austrian ❑ation would have been liberated." Addi-
tional interest is imparted to the same document
by the anticipations expressed by KossuTu
in regard to the future, as well by his
recollections as to the past—by predictions as to the
ultimate success of the cause of Hungary, as well
as by lamentations over its recent subjection to
the calamitous influences of treason. Frequently
before this Louis KOSSUTH has given utterance to
the language of prophecy in reference to the future
of the Hungarians. He foretold their rise, and they
' rose : he foretold their triumph over Austria, and
they were victorious : he now deliberately and
loudly, in the face not of Europe alone,
but of the four continents, proclaims his con-
viction of the ulterior independence of Hungary
and of the other oppressed races of Christendom,
saying—'t Although my dear native Hungary is
trodden down, and the flower of her sons executed, or
wandering exiles, and I, her Governor, writing from
my prison in this distant Asiatic Turkey, I predict—
and the eternal GOD hears my prediction—that there
can be no freedom for the continent of Europe, and
that the Cossacks from the shores of the Don will
water their steeds in the Rhine, unless liberty
be restored to Hungary asserting in ad-
dition to this that the hour of that liberty
would at length be struck, and that when
that glorious epoch arrived the destinies
of the house of Romanoff would be fulfilled, the
CZAR, succumbing at last to the force of that
grand and irresistible movement which must
dissipate to the winds of heaven the
already effete an,l fading authority of the
KAISErt. In anticipation of that epoch the leader of
the Magyars must be consoled by the admiration
evinced towards himself personally by the great
Anglo-Saxon race, the people of England and of
America.

The advocates of the reform of reforms, of that re-
form without which every other measure of electoral
reform can be but at best little better than a mockery ;
the advocates of protection to the voter, the advocates
of the vote by ballot are under infinite obligations to
those persons through whose influence the St. Alban's
Bribery Commission was issued, and to the Commis-
sioner:, who, by their manner of conducting the in-
vestigation, made patent to the public, the whole
Ti rt and mystery of corruption, as practised in the
borough of St. Alban's. The evidence of Mr. ED•
WARDS should henceforth be the study of the advo-
cates of the ballot, for not only does Mr. EDWARDS
state the sum he have to each individual voter, but be
also explains the reasons which induced him to give
those sums, and his evidence proves clearly and dis-
tinctly that the ballot would most effectually
prevent bribery, and completely refutes the silly ar-
guments of those who contend that under a system of
secret voting men would still continue to bribe, albeit
they might be ignorant of the manner in which the
bribed voter polled. The race of " managers of elec-
tions" are not such very simple persons as these gen-
tlemen would fain have us imagine; they are
too shrewd to invest money upon a chance;
they know their men before they risk their cash,
and albeit the money of the bribing candidate maybe '
given to men who do not poll, as a reward for past
services, and to keep up the connexion between the
manager and the managed, in order to secure the
benefit of the vote for the manager's candidate on a
future occasion, yet the money is never given to a
voter of whose vote the manager is ignorant, or
whose antecedents do not show that he keeps faith
with his briber. "The daughter of an elector," says
Mr. EDWARDS in his evidence on Thursday, " the
daughter of an elector who had his leg broken during
the election called upon me and I gave her 11., though
her father was physically incapable of voting at the
election. If she had come again I should have given
her another 11., and perhaps another, for he had voted
with me on many former occasions." The voting with
the briber, then, on many former occasions, was the
reason why Mr. EDWARDS gave to this voter the
money. The corrupt voter had on former occasions
given Mr. EDWARDS consideration for the bribe, and
therefore Mr. EDWARDS, taking the will for the
deed, advanced him money on the occasion of
the last election with a view to secure his vote
for a future election. The money was ad-
vanced because Mr. EDWARDS could, under the system
of open voting ascertain, and had clearly ascertained,
that the elector had voted with him ; but it is equally
clear that had not Mr. EDWARDS been in a position
to ascertain that fact he would never have advanced a
single farthing to the man. Now the taking of the
votes by ballot would render it impossible for Mr.
EDWARDS or for Mr. Anybody-else to ascertain
whether or not the elector would have voted for him,
and we therefore have it clearly proved by the evi-
dence of one who speaks from an experience of twenty-
five years, as a manager of elections, that the ballot is
a remedy, an efficient an i effectual preventative of
bribery ; for it is clear that as Mr. EDWARDS gave
this man money "because he had voted with him on
many former occasions," he wou'd not have given the
money had he not clearly ascertained that he had so
voted; and it follows therefore as a corollary that
any system of taking votes which should render it
impossible for the briber to ascertain how the bribee
had voted would, and that after the lapse of a very
short time, put an effectual stop to bribery ;
and that the ballot would render it impos-
sible for the briber to ascertain how the
bribes
presentm itt e d ac
hadf
t , for the
we may now take to be an ad-
the most vehement advocates of the
system
of taking votes have long since aban-
doned the argument that the ballot is insufficient to
secure secresy ; indeed, after the experience of the
clubs, it would require more unblushing
proposition, effrontery
than even they possess to maintain such
But there is a crime of even a deeper
the
ee
parent
tthe
f
crime of bribery—a crime which is h
bribery, and which in some instances gives to bribery
the appearance rather of compensation for injuries
suffered, than of plain downright corruption, thus
reducing it to almost a venial offence—the crime of
intimidation, for which the ballot furnishes the only
effectual remedy. Many a high-minded, he nest man,
I who would not only repudiate a bribe bat spurn the
offerer of it, as he would " a strange cur over his
threshold," is forced to yield to intimidation—he
must either vote against his conscience, or involve
not only himself but his family in irretrievable
ruin. Intimidation of this sort has been
practised by " the influential persons " residing
in St. Alban's and its neighbourhood to an immense
extent for a long series of years. Tradesmen have been
coerced by threats of withdrawal of custom, the
" money pressure"' screw has 4,in applied unmerci-