The Sun.
London, England, 1860-07-20 00:00:00

Now we will try to do justice to so respected an old
friend as the _Edinburgh Review, and though we
needs must condense, we will not, knowingly, mis-
represent. Let us then have a little easy conversa-
tion—E. R. of the Review, and E. S. the Editor of
The Sun.
E. R.—Mr. MILL, and higher authority, could hardly
be quoted, is against you.
E. S.—We admire Mr. MILL as a writer, and
replied to him at the time. His authority on this
subject is that of an easy living recluse. We have
more political faith in MILL the father, than in
MILL the son.
E. R.—But he says the danger is, now, not coercion by
landlords, employers, and customers; but of voting from per-
sonal interest, or class interest, or some mean feeling in the
elector's own mind.
E. S.—But Lord DERBY says, tell me the politics
of the landlords of a county, and I'll tell
you the politics of its representatives.
Our observations coincide in their result with
Lord DERBY'S. As to the latter notion
of Mr. MILL, it is in direct antagonism to Lord
JOHN RUSSELL'S argument for small boroughs ;
he defends them because all classes, even the class of
little agricultural boroughs, should be represented.
For ourselves, we think, that if every man voted as
he thought would be for his own interest, we
should get a real representatiou of the interests of
the nation. If all mistook their interests, let
experience teach them. Better vote for their own
interests than for those of landlords and lawyers,
and all the other political tyrants.
E. R.—lts (the ballot's) reputation, after all, is founded
much more on what it professes to do, than on any real
ability to come up to its pretensions.
E.S.—Whose fault is that ? You give us no
chance of displaying its real ability. At Hull, at
Cambridge, at Norwich, at Gloucester, at Wake-
field, we were willing to have our professions tested.
Your party always shrink from the test, even in the
"vilest body." We are obliged to believe that you
know Corruption Prevention Acts to be quackery,
and our cure to be efficacious, but that you hate
complete electoral independence.
E. 11.—Yes, we do (p. 281). We object to throwing the
voter loose from efficacious and salutary control—to leave
him to his own guidance entirely—(p. 282) with no check of
public opinion—to become indifferent, or to yield to the first
impulse of passion, interest, or chagrin.
E. S.—We thought as much. We on the con-
trary wish to leave the voter to his own guidance,
after he has heard " addresses," listened to discus-
sions, and read the free press of his country. As to
indifference, coercion has made the country electors
as indifferent as voting machines ; and bribery
does not create the " interest" you would defend ; but
as to " passion, interest, and chagrin," we do not
know what difference it makes, whether a few indivi-
dual tenants yield to their own passions and chagrin
or whether they have to yield by the fifty and the
hundred to the "passions" and all that sort of thing
of landlords. We have heard of such things as
JOHN BRIGHT himself being let into the city of
Durham to show what a chagrined Tory marquis
could do. Nor is that a solitary case.
E. R.—Never (p. 262), at any period of our history,
under Plantagenet, or Tudor, or Stuart, or Com-
monwealth, have we hitherto had anything to say
to secret voting at elections. History and experience give
us no reason to assume with confidence that secret voting
will promote civil liberty.
E. S.—At one time history and experience did
not tell us that reporting the debates of our repre-
sentatives would promote civil liberty, nor that
the abolition of the Test and Corporation Acts, and
of rotten boroughs, and of Catholic disabilities, and
the taxes on knowledge and free-trade would pro-
mote civil liberty. But all history and experience,
so far as we personally know it, tells us that the
Ballot, in even humble book societies, in clubs, and
in court-martials, does promote social and civil
liberty.

E. R.—But a scrutiny is the great constitutional remedy
against frauds, mistakes, and impostures ; they will be far
more easily perpetrated, and utterly incapable of detection
under secret voting.
E. S.—A scrutiny is nothing but a great, and
awfully costly constitutional imposture ; a fraud
itself, on the poor candidate, and a mistake if in-
tended to prevent tindue influence, or, even as facts
prove, bribery. But we deny the greater difficulty
of detection. The evidence of bribery would be
the same as it now is ; and, as you confessed (p.
270) that bribery under the ballot must be by head-
money, it must be bribery of such numbers as are
always found to be the chief means of detection.
E. R.—But you could not possibly tell how the votes were
given, and who, therefore, ought to be returned ?
E. S.—We can tell that the candidate who bribes
ought not to be—or that the agents who bribe
ought not to get their man in. And where candi-
dates are really personally innocent, if any such
number of bribed persons, or other bad votes, have
been given as would affect the return, the worst
result would be that another election might be
ordered.

E. R.—But what vast interests you would intrust to mere
mechanism, while you deprive them of the safeguards of
publicity.

E. S.—On the contrary, we would have the voter
come forward publicly and deposit his vote pub-
licly, and have it taken out and counted publicly .
we would only exclude the private corrupt bribery
and intimidation, by counter-privacy in regard to
the vote publicly given.
E. R.—The most ingenious devices can be met by more
ingenious ones. Why should the ballot-box be an excep-
tion ? In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the ballot
might be fairly taken, but in the hundredth there might be
fraud ; but if in the hundredth it were not so, how great a
blow would be struck at our liberties I
E. S.—The most ingenious locks may be picked ;
being therefore no more of HODGES and BRAMAHS.
The best checks which bankers can devise may
be evaded; give, therefore, free scope to your PUL-
LINGERS. Every Corrupt Practices Prevention Act
can be defied ; repeal, therefore, all of them. By
open voting not one election in ten is quite honestly
taken ; how have our liberties survived such
blows ?

E. R.—But you ballstists say that a vote to be honest
must be secret. Now discussion and combination have a
tendency to prevent the secrecy of a vote ; therefore—by
ARISTOTLE I—you are against discussion and combination.
E. S.—By ARISTOTLE !—we have not time for
further discussion just now. But you put a
universal into our mouths where we should
use a particular only. We ballotists say a '
vast number of votes must be secret to secure
honesty. We also say that the secrecyenables
all these persons to listen to discussion, with the
advantage of knowing that they can fearlessly vote
according to the impressions the discussions make
upon their minds, no one daring to interfere. Com-
binations are often tyrannies. They were so in
the case of workmen in New South Wales. The
Ballot leaves the combinations untouched so far as
they are not oppressive. But at Sydney the Ballot
proved in the case of the artizan the truth of your
description (p. 277)—" But under the Ballot JONES
may be quite at case ; he may smoke his pipe,
drink his beer, shout his three times three to the
last, march up to the ballot box with his brothers
in arms, and betray them without suspicion." We
must part for the evening ; perhaps we may meet
again.

We would most earnestly direct public attention
to another part of our impression of this evening,
in which will be found the announcement for Wed-
nesday next (the 25th instant) of a very remarkable
dramatic entertainment. It is a performance of a
peculiarly attractivg and miscellaneous character,
announced by the Committee of the Savage Club
for the beifit of the widow and children of one