The Sun.
London, England, 1860-02-02 00:00:00

.....4..•••••
has made their most respected and able
leader, the Plenipotentiary of a commercial treaty

with France.
But appearances must be kept. The Prevention
Act expires this year,' Gloucester and -Wake-
field have made their revelations, and the friends
of the Ballot are tolerably awake, with the argue
ment from facts stronger in their favour
every year. But how keep up appearances after
the Reports of the two Commissions ? The
Gloucester one is fully before uc. We see
the leading Innocents acquitted —in one case,
we are expressly told, because though the facts
were against the candidate, his word must be ac-
cepted against all conclusions to which facts
pointed ! It was clearly proved that an election
which a House of Commons committee had reported

to be a pure one, was one doubly steeped in cor-
ruption. And that, besides a host of humbler
men bribed, between eighty and ninety of another
class had been bribers ! That persons took bribes
who could not plead poverty, and that two hun-
dred others were bribed as messengers! Wakefield,
of course, will hardly yield the palm to Gloucester.
The utter failure of the present Act and the glar-
ing necessity of doing something in the boroughs
is therefore confessed.

Cleverly then steps in Mr. ROEBUCK. He,
lawyer-like, takes the firm ground of dealing with '
proved facts. Here are two boroughs which can-
not be made worse, Let us try the remedy of the
Radicals on them. Persist in this, Mr. ROEBUCK.
Let nothing bribe you to give way. You have
them on the hip. Their sham act confessedly
did no good at these two places ; do not let
them try any other aet, then, without the
ballot. Press your proposal ; it cannot be re-
sisted. They have not such a majority as will
permit them to dispense with your aid. Arrange
with Mr. HADFIELD, Mr. LINDSAY, Mr. WYLD,
Mr. lIORSMAN, and several other good men and
true, and tell the Government," We shall ask the
Ballot for many more constituencies, but if you do
not pledge yourselves to bestow it on Gloucester
and Wakefield, we will put you in a minority as
often as we can. Our demand is so moderate that
we will not give our confidence to men who can
refuse it."

IVe believe, however, as we intimated at the be-
ginning, that it is the terror of the Ballot which is
compelling all parties to assent to strong proposals
of a penal kind in regard to bribery. We should
not be surprised if even Mr. ROEBUCK be met with
the reply—try what imprisonment with hard labour
and efficient election auditors will do against
bribery. The thought of two boroughs placed, in
the Reformatory School of the Ballot will terrify
all the members who sit by bribery and intimidation,
more than any legal process for sending them to
the treadmill for a crime of which they can rarely
be convicted. If but two of the worst places
in the kingdom should be surrendered to secret
voting, the dread will be that others must follow.
The opponents of the Ballot are so sure a trial of it
will succeed that they will not, if they can help it,
tolerate even the proposed trial. All boroughs
would soon demand it. Municipal elections would
be conducted by it. And, most dreadful of all—
the counties, would follow, and the degrad-
ing reign of landlord terrorism be at an
end for ever. If any party, indeed, had a right to
complain it would be the friends of the Ballot. It
is they who make the sacrifice in offering to accept
a trial in such places. If the Ballot will, electorally,
deodorise Gloucester and -Wakefield it will purify
anything, while even to fail in two such places
would be little of an argument against it.

The arguments delivered yesterday from all sides
of the House against Mr. M‘MArroN's motion for
the second reading of the bill designed to give a
right of appeal in criminal cases, were overwhelm-
ing. As an inevitable result, the motion, though
seconded by Mr. EwART, was negatived, and the
bill summarily dismissed from the further conside-
ration of Parliament. Upon the old hackneyed
principle, De mortal's, 4.c., one might naturally feel
disposed, without one word more, to pass
by the still-born enactment. But the blun-
der of its introduction was altogether
so egregious that it appears to us almost to demand
a few passing sentences of retrospective reprehen-
sion. What, in effect, would have been among the
more lamentable, and almost we might say abso-
lutely unavoidable, ill-consequences of the measure,
supposing it to have been accepted and passed into
law by the Imperial Legislature ? It would, in the
first place, as the Home Secretary himself took oo-
casion very forcibly to remark yesterday in the
course of his really admirable speech—it would, to
begin with, have abruptly transformed the whole
character and operation of the criminal law of this
country, and in so doing must have militated against
the interests, must have actually operated against
the safety of life and property ! It would, as the
hon. and learned gentlemen the member for Mary-
lebone insisted, prove, in a great measure, imprac-
ticable in its operation, and, wherever it might be
be applied, eminently dangerous in its tendencies.
It would, as another hon. and learned member
maintained, hold out additional inducements to per-
jury, and lead almost by necessity to many more
fictitious defences being trumped up by those who
could afford to apply for a new trial in the Court
of Queen's Bench. It would, as Mr. HENLEY
forcefully put the case, diminish very seriously the
responsibility now attaching to the finding of
juries in criminal cases. Besides which, the Bill

itselfananalogy
w
as based upon a purely imaginary analogy,
which the new Solicitor-General (Mr.
ATHERToN) pronounced as plainly as words could
pronounce anything, to be literally undiscoverable
and non-existent—the supposed analogy between
Beyond
a civil action and a criminal prosecution.p
all, far above all which theropre
Nserrn. s Pt
rr Ld enactment
PHILLIPS,
would according to the showing o
tend practically to deprive the ofSecretary Stateurs ,
in
for the Home Department of that merciful
and benignant prerogative of revising the criminal
decisions, which that high and responsible Minis-
ter ter of State has hitherto possessed. The Bill, in
fact, would have gone the flagrant length of dim-
ming, if not displacing, the brightest and most
precious jewel of the Crown—the prerogative of
mercy solemnly confided to the Sovereign of these
realms upon the day of coronation.
It cannot be any wonder, therefore, after enume-
rating such objections to the bill as we have here
already in these few sentences particularized, it
cannot surely for one instant be any matter for
astonishment to find that Mr. M‘MmioN
's motion
was rejected, and the bill forthwith thrown out of
Parliament. If any additional argument were
required, however, to demonstrate beyond the
possibility of further misapprehension the
ill-advised measure of the measure thus thrust
upon the attention of the Legislature, it would be
Found summed
eiof n scseretar
ee, up in one sweepingly condemnatory
r
me
ec y :
thus expressed in the remarks of the
"In
.1848 a committee of the
Lords was appointed to consider the Cri-
minal Law
s
Administrationwejiaicmilinthea . Amendment Bill, and
Baron Parke, now
Wensleydale, and Baron
Alderson, were before it on the
very question to
bill referred. Lord
Lyndhurst, Lord Brougham, and Lord Denman