The Sun.
London, England, 1860-03-21 00:00:00

THE BALLOT.

Mr. H. BERKELEY, in introducing his annual motion
on the ballot, said that he rose to make that proposition
which ho had often made in vain, and which he expected
then to make in vain again. But nevertheless it was a duty
imposed on him to keep the question alive, and never was
it more imperative than at the present moment, when they
had a Reform Bill, so called, but without the only feature
which could give adequate protection to the working
classes in the exercise of the franchise. He must ask the
house to permit him to go back to 1852, when there was a
very severely contested general election. Both parties
sought then to obtain possession of Downing-street, and
great corruption was practised at every hustings. States-
men of all shades, including Lord Aberdeen, condemned the
state of the electoral system, and a committee of inquiry
was appointed. Shortly after its appointment, he (Mr.
Berkeley) met Mr. Bright, one of the members, and that
gentleman told him he had left the committee because it
was doing nothing. That committee made a report, and
from that report resulted a bill, called the Corrupt Prac-
tices Prevention Bill, in which bill the great principle of
how not to (IQ it was most effectively carried out. In the
House of Lords it was received with open arms, their lord-
ships, finding it likely to do nothing, being of course de-
lighted with it. (A laugh.) Whenever it was sought to
be put in operation it was met by a yell of execration ; in
fact it was worse than useless, it was positively mischiev-
-0118. When they met in 1859 every one said that some-
thing should be done with the Corrupt Practices Act, and
he had expected that a grand fetish was to take place, that
the Sergeant-at-Arms would be empowered to burn the
bill in Palace-yard, whilst the bells of St. Margaret's
tolled a funeral peal—(a laugh)—when the member for
Marylebone and thirteen.datber lawyers got hold of it, and
they crowded about it like so many crows over carrion.
He hoped that as the noble lord the member for London
would not include the ballot with his bill, be would
give him (Mr. Berkeley) some chance of introducing it.
This bill was founded on the principle which ho thought
best calculated to give to the electors of Great Britain and
Ireland that protection at the polling booth which they so
eminently required, and the security of which he felt would
procure in time purity of election, and wipe away a foul blot
from our national system of representation. When he enu-
merated the names of noble lords and hon. gentlemen who
had opposed this question, the house would at once see how
fearfully overmatched he (Mr. Berkeley) must be. Among
those who had opposed the ballot were the honoured names
of Lords Palmerston and J. Russell, Sir J. Graham, Sir G.
Grey, the Right Hon. S. Walpole, the Right lion. S. Est-
court, and Sir G. C. Lewis. These were men of undoubted
talent, great logical powers, and accustomed to take advan.
tags even of the slip of a word; and yet, although he had
employed himself lately in looking through Hansard and
reading their speeches, he had been unable to find one single
valid argument. (Laughter.) He said this with much aatis-
tion, but it was with regret he felt obliged to add that he
rose from the perusal of those speeches under the painful
conviction that they were disengenuous, and that the
thoughts of the distinguished speakers were apart from
their words. In fact they appeared to stand in the position
of some eminent counsel defending a prisoner, for they took
up any argument they could find in the hope of convincing
a jury. They reminded him of a ease which was defended
by one of the most eminent counsel at the bar—an hon, gen-
tleman then near him (Sir F. Kelly). That learned counsel
defended a man who had murdered a woman, and the wo-
man was murdered with prussic acid. The hon. gentleman
endeavoured to persuade the jury that the woman had died
from an over-eating of apples, the apple pips having gene.
rated prussic acid ; but the jury of course scouted the idea
out of court. Now, it was just such a sort of apple argu-
ments which were used against the ballot. (Laughter.) The
only difference between the opponents of the question and
the learned counsel being that he addressed an honest and
unbiassed jury, while they addressed an honest,of course, but
not an unbiassed jury. Among those whose great talents
he had to oppose was the noble lord the member for Tiver-
ton. He had made careful notes from the noble lord's
speeches in Hansard, buthad been unable to find anything
beyond the commonest platitudes. He could discover no-
thing like serious reasoning. The noble lord told them that
it was unmanly to vote in private—(bear, hear)—although
he voted in private himself in many quarters. His noble
friend also said that it was un-English. The word " un-
English" meant something contrary to the manners and
customs of Englishmen ; but how could the ballot be said
to be un-English, when it was the established mode of vot-
tng in every place but the election of members of Parlia-
ment? (Hear, hear.) Among other arguments the noble
lord stated that the elective franchise was a trust, but dur.
ing the debate there was a very powerful and logical speech
made by tit R. 13ethell, in which he declined the term
"trust," and said the elective franchise was a right. The
noble lord replied to that argument with a speech only re-
markable for its dictatorial tone and petulance, and con
tended it had always been a trust, and that the whole world
knew it to be a trust. This style of argument reminded
him of a certain argument in Dean Swift's " Tao a a