The Sun.
London, England, 1869-01-13 00:00:00

LOADOiti, WEDNESDAY, JAN. 13, 1869.

We are glad to find that the B illot is not to be
omitted from the voluminous programme unfolding
before the new Parliament. Among the many sill
unaccomplished reforms awaiting the labours of the
yet untried M.P.'s, we may surely place the Ballot in
the very first rank. 'Whether we regard its import-
ance as a matter of principle in securing the inde-
pendence of the voter, or its practical utility in
solving the problem with which no other method has
satisfactorily dealt, we must acknowledge that the
Ballot has very pressing claims on the attention of
all earnest and single-minded Liberals. We have
yet to see the effect produced by the transfer of
authority in disputed election cases from the Parlia-
mentary Committee to a more rigid tribunal, but
unfortunately there is not much room to doubt that
however the court of appeal may be constituted
its members will not be left idle. There is no chance
of a maiden session, so far as elections are concerned.
and the potent, grave, and reverend seigniors, whose
fiat is to open or close the doors of St. Stephen's to
adventurous ambition, will have to see many a Par-
liament begin and end before they are entitled to
white gloves. The experience of the last general
election has not been encouraging in this respect.
Making every allowance for the warmth of party
feeling, and for the excitement produced by closely
run numbers at the poll, there has been an ample list
of disputed elections. The increase in the constituen-
cies, however useful in other respects, hal not
answered the purposes of checking bribery, preventing
intimidation, and removing corruption. We cannot
dispense with the Ballot. So long as there are
ambitious men, with more money than principle, on
the one hand, and unscrupulous men, with more greed
than integrity, on the other, so long, in short, as we
live in a motley community of men and women,and not
in a Utopia of political abstractions, we need Dot
expect to find all corrupt influences eliminated from
Parliamentary elections. We may, indeed, hope to
see a great improvement in the moral tone of the
people, as we have seen marked progress in other re-
spects, but the conscientious few can only raise the
careless and unreflecting many to their standard by
either removing temptation as far as possible from
them, or else by enforcing punishment with deter-
rent severity. The latter alternative in a case like
bribery or intimidation would be simply impossible.
Legislators who are implicated in the offence con-
demned would not sentence their fellows and asso-
ciates to criminal punishment for a fault they regard
as venial. Even supposing that they did so, we have
in America a notable instance of the futility of such
an attempt. There both briber and bribed are re-
garded as law breakers, not as mere conventional
offenders; and the consequence is that neither will
give evidence against the other, and as such transac

ions seldom admit the presence of a third party.

conviction is hopeless

The Ballot may not in some respects fulfil all the
expectations formed of it ; but it can hardly fail to
diminish very considerably the temptation to political
dishonesty, while it will inevitably remove much of
the disorder consequent on elections, by doing away
with the system of treating, the meetings in public-
houses, &c., which are all fruitful of evil. Its oppo-
nents are never at a loss for denunciation and ridi-
cule, but they have nothing to urge against the facts
that all their own specifics have failed to remove a
great disgrace from our English electoral system,
that the Ballot has never been tried in Parliamentary
elections, and has therefore been condemned un-
heard ; and last, but not least, that it is found an
efficient protector against embarrassing relations and
undue influence in clubs, associations, and societies.
It is impossible for a man in our complicated
society to be wholly independent of his
fellows, and even if he have no personal or cowardly
motive he may shrink from causing disappointment or
giving pain by his vote. The Ballot covers all secrets,
and enables a voter to give his vote as he conscien-
tiously thinks best, without having to pass through
an ordeal which very few men are inclined to
undergo. It is therefore highly satisfactory to find
that a great Ballot meeting is to be held at the
Arundel Hall on Friday evening, when Mr. MILNEP.
GIBSON is to preside, and when we hope the plan of
operations for the ensuirg campaign will be definitely
settled.

What are we to do with our criminals? This is the
question that is now being eagerly asked in all direc-
tions, and the more closely we study the details of
the subject the more fully must we be impressed with
its importance. It is of no use to mince the matter
and to put off the evil day of recognition, the crisis
is at hand, and we must prepare for it. Those who
may not fully appreciate the significance of the affair
will do well to peruse the comprehensive state-
ment recently furnished by Mr. FEN WICK, the
Chief Constable of Chester, on the subject of
" Crime and Criminals." In this startling revelation
they may find much to awaken reflection and give
rise to regret. There is certainly no reason to doubt
the truth of the first observation that we meet with,
" The profession of crime is thoroughly established."
Further on we come to the unpleasant fact that there
are at present in England and \Vales 22,889 " known
thieves," and these, with the receivers of stolen goods,
and the large number that comes under the head of
" suspected persons," make a total of 112,406 per-
sons of criminal tendencies at large among us. Well
may Mr. FENWICK exclaim, "If this army cannot be
cured, are they to be endured as at present ?" The
best way to arrive at a correct understanding of this
seeming mystery is to consider that very few of those
who are once convicted ever return to honest em-
ployment again, and the number of times that each
criminal is re-convicted and sentenced again
is amazing to the uninitiated. " Direct
aggressive action must be taken," is said
in this letter, and the force of the observation
must come tome to all. When we realise the truth,
that the number of criminals is increasing, it seems
time to act in self-defence for the preservation of
society, and fur the maintenance of order and peace.
Scale punishments seem to present advantages, and
at any rate it is worth while to try them. Thieves
calculate the chances for or against their con-

viction with great nicety, and never " give up"
until they are actually sentenced. They know that
it is not decisive for them if they are committed for
trial, because every fourth prisoner or thereabouts is
acquitted when subjected to that ordeal. Even
when the worst has happened, the " ticket of leave'
may be looked forward to. Mr. FENWICK thinks that

it would be advisable to drop the ticket-of-leave sys-
tem, and remove that temptation to think lightly
of penal servitude. Zhe supervision system
might be employed with advantage, after the
full period of the imprisonment has expired and the
ends of justice would be more fully met if a public
prosecutor were instituted. The writer of this letter
speaks with authority, and believes that many cases
are " hushed up" or " squared" from indifference or
sentiment on the part of the prosecutor, and the
ingenuity of the friends of the guilty party. If
these and other suggestions should awaken pub-
lic attention a great end will have been gained, and
it is for the interests of the nation that it should be
so. We have happily passed the time when cruelty
and oppression stained the records of our prisons, but
it is a mistake to go to the other extreme, and virtu-
ally to hold out a premium to crime through the in-
sufficiency of our restrictive laws and the inadequate
character of our punishments. When we read the
details of the proceedings at some of our cri-
minal courts, we are led to believe that the
learned authorities have forgotten that time honoured
adage Judex damnatur corn nocens absolritu-•. It has
never happened that the public mind has been roused
on any subject without some decisive result follow-
ing from it, and these handed arrays " who like
reapers descend to the harvest of crime," may be pre-
pared for the worst in earnest, for we can no longer
tolerate their unchecked ;course, and must set
to work with might and main to stem the tide of an
evil, which is as the arrow that flieth by day, and the
pestilence that walketh in darkness.

WE mentioned some days ago that Mr. DUDLEY
BAXTER had written a pamphlet in order to shew
that the general election proved the wisdom of the
Conservative policy in giving household suffrage.
Since then Mr. BAXTER has written a letter to the
Times, enforcing this conclusion of his. Mr.
BAXTER is an able statist. It required a very
able one to convince the public that the Con-
servative party have profited by the Reform
Bill. During the late Parliament the organs of that
party were never weary of taunting Mr. GLADSTONE,
with having converted a majority of 70 into a
minority of 40—a difference of 110 ; but now we hear
nothing of this feat; it is quietly assumed that this
majority was maintained until the end, and that all
which Mr. GLADSTONE has done has been to increase
it to 111. We might, if we chose, insist upon the first-
mentioned figures, and declare that the Liberal leader,
having lost 110 votes in the old Parliament, has in the
new not only regained them, but added another 110
to them. However, we are content to take Mr.
BAXTER'S own figures, though they over-estimate
the Liberal majority in the late and underrate that
in the present Parliament. One hundred and eleven
majority is a tolerably substantial fact. There has
been nothing like it since the Reform Bill of 1832
was carried ; and if Mr. BAXTER finds comfort and
satisfaction in it we can only congratulate him on
the perfect way in which he has learnt the first half
of HORACE'S lesson—

.PEquam memento rebus in arduis,
Servare mentem.

Perhaps we may some day have to congratulate
him on fulfilling the latter half of the injunction.
It must be admitted that in this respect he and his
friends have had little opportunity of shewing their

proficiency.
Mr. BAXTER analyses the electors as well as the
elected, and here he finds an unfailing source of com-
fort. True, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales have gone
against the Conservative party, but then the party
has gained in England ; that is to say, more persons
have supported Conservative candidates on this occa-
sion than on former occasions. Mr. BAXTER appears
to have arrived at this conclusion by assuming that
where a county like Kent or Lancashire has returned
a perfect phalanx of Conservative county members,
the whole of the electors are to be reckoned as Con-
servative, even though each seat mayhave been gained
by the narrowest majority. How untenable such a
supposition is we may easily see by supposing that in
each case the Conservative candidate was returned bya
majority of one. In such a county the constituency
would be divided equally, except for an unappreciable
fraction, and yet this fraction would be sufficient t 3
exclude every Liberal candidate. Mr. BAXTER draws
two principal lessons from the elections : the first,
that the Conservatives were justified by the result in
passing a household suffrage bill ; the second, that
the Liberal party must be careful how they venture
to set the rest of the kingdom against England.
As to the first lesson, we can only say that
if the Conservatives had foreseen that household
suffrage would place them in a minority of 111, they
would either have swallowed the " bitter pill " with
even more wry faces than they manifested, or not at
all. If the retreat of a Conservative Cabinet without
waiting to meet the Parliament which it had elected
be a proof of the wisdom of household suffrage
from the Conservative point of view, we can
only wonder what Conservative folly must
be. The antagonism between England and
the rest of the kingdom, presuming it to be a
fact—which, moreover, we do not admit—would only
shew that in England the love for ecclesiastical
establishments had for a time induced a section of
the Liberal party to leave their ranks. They will
not be able to prevent the disestablishment of the
Irish Church. Mr. BAXTER himself admits that;
and when this measure has been accomplished we
may expect to see the Liberal party strengthened
by the return of those men who are Liberals in all
other matters save this.