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London, England, 1858-12-14 00:00:00

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THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 14, IMSB.

they were when the denial of the ballot acquired a
shape ten times more offensive than it had at pre-
sent—when it was not accidental but deliberate—.
when it was not founded on convenience but prin-
eiple—when it did not take the form o f adjourn
meat and delay, but that of permanent and abso-
lute resistance? The absence of the ballot must
deprive this comprehensive scheme of the duration
and stability which its whole design appeared to
be to bring about. In point of fact, a Minister
opposing vote by ballot would find it difficult to
enter upon any of the well-known projects of
Reform with ease or with consistency. For what
was the dormant view by which such a I
Minister was swayed in his resistance to that
measure ? Sir Robert Peel, in 1833, when Mr.
Grote submitted his first motion on the sub.
ject, manfully avowed the principles which urged
him to resist it. And although few might have the
manliness and frankness of Sir Robert, all leading
men, they might depend upon it, who opposed the
ballot, shared the views which on that occasion he
avowed. The argument he used was, in other
terms, that the ballot would emancipate the voter
from the influence of property—that it would give
perfect vigour to the system of 1832, and put an
end to the subtle causes by which that system was
impaired in its efficiency. Sir Robert Peel opposed
the ballot because it seemed to him adapted to pro-
duce the very end it was desired to obtain by it.
(Hear.) And there was not any reason to suppose
that in that respect Sir Robert Peel was less liberal
than others.• pe point which he (the speaker)
submitted to them was, how could a Government
imbued with such a mode of thinking on the ballet
advance towards the other changes which were
now so frequently discussed ? Let them glance for
a moment at the franchise of the boroughs. He
offered no opinion on that day—he was not entitled
to offer an opinion as to what ought to be done upon
the franchise—but this he would maintain without
fear or hesitation, that if they went beyond the
barrier imposed in 1832, they would not find it pos-
sible to stand on a £.5 or £6 limit. (Cheers.) A
limit not founded upon any of the natural divisions
of society, not sheltered by prestige of any kind, or
by prescription, could not be a lasting one. No
prudent man would take the trouble to defend it
against the classes excluded, and who would
naturally seek for an encroachment on it. If they
went beyond the borough franchise of 1832, they
must advance, it might be with gookeffects, or it
might be with bad ones, to household suffrage.
(Hear, hear.) As regarded household suffrage, they
knew, because authentic figures had explained it to
them, that it would more than double the electors
in nearly every place where it occurred. (Cheers.)
It would be, in point of fact, a transfer of elective
power from one class to another. He did not
say that such a transfer would be mischievous.
But in what manner would it strike the mind
of any Minister who reasoned against the
ballot as Sir Robert Peel had done in 1833 ?
It was clear that all consistency would lead him
to oppose it to the utmost of his power. Such a
man, therefore, would find himself unable to touch
the borough franchise—(hear, hear)—unless he in-
troduced a bill rather to amuse the country than to
influence the statute-book. ok. So with regard to Mr.
Locke King's proposqion. Much ability had been
shown in supporting it. Specious arguments had
been directed by Lord J. Russell, Lord Palmerston,
and other grave authorities against it. Whether
for good or evil, it was now explained by statistics
that the addition of electors would be such as to
make anew class ascendant in the counties. (Cheers.)
And how was it possible to reconcile the views of
Sir R. Peel against the ballot with a change so
much more serious and violent as that of Mr. Locke
King? Resistance to the ballot, on the grounds
which always had impelled resistance to it, al-
though they had not always been a7owed, cut off
the Minister from another means of giving satis-
faction to Reformers. So also with regard to the
well-known project of electoral divisions. The
very essence of that scheme (he did not mean to
praise or to condemn it) was to make numbers the
foundation of our system. Could Sir R. Peel, or
those who reasoned with him in our day, accept
the project of electoral divisions, and at the same
time maintain a firm resistance to the ballot ? He
need not touch upon the plan of large disfranchise-
ment, because it was implied in the system of elec-
toral divisions. But the conclusions to which his
observations tended was that a Minister who started
as an opponent of the ballot on the'grounds of Sir
R. Peel—and no other grounds could be embraced,
although others might be stated—would find him-
self obliged to give his negative to every scheme by
which it was proposed to meet the expectations of
the moment. If it was an easy thing to alter the
Reform Act—if it imposed no grave responsibilities
on any Government attempting it—if a Minister,
by turning to his papers or his friends, could at
once command a budget of safe ideas and useful pro-
positions on the question—it might be less desirable
and urgent to embrace a proposition so moderate
in scope, so luminous in principle, and so little
to be apprehended iu its operation as the ballot.
In real fact, however, the problem of amending the
Reform Act was so difficult and grave that scarcely
any plan was found to meet it satisfactorily. The
boundless difficulty of the problem arose from this
circumstance that the House of Commons was a
body with two functions—one to represent the
people, the other to make laws and watch admini-
strations. If they merely viewed it in its repre-
sentative capacity, it was easy to suggest improve-
ments whichits legislative
alone upon that point. If they
viewed it in legislative character, it was easy to
propose reforms by which that character would
singly be elevated. But the task before which
statesmanship and genius were exhausted was to
construct a scheme which answered one of these
demands, and did not militate against the other.
As he had no desire to perplex them by vague and
barren generalities, he would ask leave to give au
illustration so clear and brief that it would reach
the mind of every man he was addressing. Sup-
pose their aim was merely to improve the represen-
tative exactness and fidelity of Parliament, to have
general elections once a year or more frequently
would do it. No doubt, under such a change, the
House of Commons would respond with greater
pliancy and quickness to the views of its consti-
tuents. It would be more fully and precisely the
organ and the reflex of the people than it had ever
been before. It would therefore gain in point of
representative capacity, but it would lose in legis-
lative character ; since the excitement of general
elections constantly impending would take away
that power of weighing and investigating details,
without which public business could not be effec-
tually advanced. Suppose their aim was merely to
increase the business-like capacity- and legislative
vigour of the house, they might do it in a moment
by a large reduction in the number of the members.
No man of common observation ever sat in Parlia-
ment without forming the opinion that the present
number went beyond the limit by which the inte-
rests of business wouldbemost effectually consulted.
Why should they not reduce it P Because, if they
reduced it, the different portions of the country could
not have that full representation and that influenc-
ing voice to which they were entitled. The duty of a
Government approaching the Reform Act, to dis-
turb and to revise it, was to discover changes by
which representative efficiency would be more
thoroughly secured, and by which the character,
the elevation, and the power of the governing as-
sembly would not in any way be injured. He had
not any hesitation in contending that vote by ballot
would not be found to run counter to either of the
tests it was so difficult to satisfy. It must, by
emancipating voters, improve the representative
efficiency of Parliament. (Cheers.) Its influence
extended to all the various constituencies into
which our system was divided. Neither counties,
nor great cities, or the boroughs of an intermediate
kind, would be withdrawn from its power. By a
single blow it touched the whole representation.
But in what manner could it sully or degrade the
character of Parliament ? No party would be
strengthened, and no party would be weakened by
it. No clas3 would be elevated of those who sat in
Parliament, and no class would be depressed.
Questions of finance, of foreign policy and war,
would not be debated or determined by a body less
independent in its circumstances, or less enlightened
in its views, or less respected out of doors, than the
body who now controlled these matters. (Cheers.)
So much might be contended for the ballot ; and
he would venture to inquire if there were many
schemes of which the same assertion could be
hazarded ? (Hear, hear.) It might be urged,
however, that although Governments had every
inducement to view the ballot in a friendly manner
in connection with the whole question of amending
the Reform Act, if examined on its merits it was
found to threaten evils too great to be submitted
to in spite of the advantages it very obviously
implied. He would therefore reply briefly to the
prevalent objections. The most commonly ad-
vanced of them involved a fallacy so barefaced that
it was not easy to approach it with the calmness
he was anxious to preserve. It was all summed up
in the word responsibility. The elector, it was
argued, was responsible for the use of the power he
enjoyed; and they could not ascertain how far his
exercise of that power was correct unless it was

exercised before the criticism of the public.
He would put two questions. First, what was
the duty of the voter ? secondly, under what cir-
cumstances would his duty be most faithfully per-
formed ? The duty of the voter :was—and he
might state this without fear of contradiction—out
of all candidates proposed to him, to support the
candidate he most approved: Here his deity began
and here it ended. Would that duty be most
faithfully performed when his mind was influenced
by fear, or when no fear of any sort controlled
him ?. The fact was, no publicity whatever could
exer&the detective force which these reasoners so
eagerly insisted on. If the vote was declared with
the power of a thousand trumpets in all the market
places of the kingdom, they had no better means of
proving its accordance with the judgment of the
voter than if the vote remained a secret in his
breast. But the only thing to be inquired into, the
only thing on which his integrity or the want of it
depended, was the accordance of his vote with his
ideas. The upshot of the whole was, that publicity
was no aid to a conclusion of the question as to how
far the elector gave effect to his convictions, while
the fears publicity begot were, in innumerable
cases, a solid guarantee that these convictions
would be stifled on the polling day. Mr. Campbell
then referred to the controversies on the ballot,
drawn from practical experience of the United
States. Some maintained that it worked well
there ; some maintained that it worked ill. Some
thought it aimed at secrecy in .the United States,
and some only at rapidity in voting. He did not
care in what way this controversy ended, because-
he felt that neither opponents nor supporters of the,
ballot could rest on the United States as an autho-
rity against it or in favour of it. Britain was an
old country; the United States had not long en-
joyed a national existence, In Britain society was
complex and divided; in the United States great
equality prevailed. In Britain capital and labour
did not always find the scope which was essential
to them; the United States possessed a territory
which was at once rich and unexhausted. The
United States were governed by a President and
Congress ; in Britain the form of monarchy sur-
vived; and the question our Governments and
Parliamentso were called on to decide was, not
whether vote by ballot would succeed in a republic
of America, but whether it was well adapted to
a monarchy of Europe. Instead of plunging into
difficulties with regard to the United States, which
could not lead to any satisfactory conclusion, their
eyes ought to be directed to those monarchies of
Europe in which, along with institutions not unlike
our own, the ballot was established. (Much cheer-
ing.) Holland, Belgium, and Sardinia, were those
monarchies. (Hear, hear.) It was only there that
the political experience of other countries could be
useful to us on this question. If it was shown that
in Holland, Belgium, and Sardinia the ballot was
inoperative, that it left the voter in the same con-
dition he would be without it, or that it led to evils
by which his independence was too dearly bought
in those communities, Britain was bound to hesi-
tate before consenting to adopt it. But if from
these three monarchies not a single argument had
yet been drawn against the ballot, while many had
arisen in its favour from them, so far as the experi-
ence of other countries could guide our own, there
was nothing to prejudge the course which he was
advocating. He would now refer to an objection
less frequently avowed, but more weighty in its
influence, perhaps, than any he had mentioned. It
was thought by some that, provided they did not
go so far as to emancipate the voter—provided they
kept alive the subtle forces which controlled him—
it did not much matter what other organic charges
were conceded; the publicity so much vaunted as
a detective power would always neutralise and
balance them. The generous and unlimited reli-
ance, he might almost say the warm-hearted en-
thusiasm, with which these reasoners confided in
the influences which vote by ballot would remove,
often called to his mind the well-known terms in
which-Mr. Sheridan had eulogised the power of a
free press in 1810. " Give them," said Mr. Sheri-
dan, " a tyrannical Court, give them a servile aris-
tocracy, give them a venal House of Commons ; but
give me a free press, and I defy them to encroach a
hair's breadth on the liberties of England." (Loud
cheers.) In a very different sense, but with the
same degree of chivalrous audacity, these rea-
soners appeared inclined to exclaim, " Give
them electoral divisions, give them universal
suffrage, give them unlimited enfranchisement ;
but give us intimidation and corruption—with
these simple means we undertake to keep the con-
stitution on its basis." (Laughter.) The reply to
this argument, if it ought to be considered, was,
that the organic changes these men were so ready
to propound as a kind of set-off against their refusal
of the ballot, must so far extend the number of
electors in want of shelter and exposed to interfe-
rence, that the measure which they deprecated
would become an object of more imperious and irre-
sistible demand. He had dwelt at length upon
the arguments which ought, as it occurred to hint,
to recommend the ballot to the minds of Govern-
ments and statesmen; but he was not indifferent
to the views which made the topic a familiar one
amongst the haunts and firesides of electors. In
this country Ministers of State were exposed to no
coercion in the discharge of public duty. The in-
dependence of judges; had long been a common
theme of pride and exultation. Since 1688 no
Court had dared to attempt the coercion of our
representative 3 in Parliament. It was therefore an
anomaly, as well as a misfortune, that the elector,
by whom the whole machinery of Government was
called into existence, should be oppressed in his
performance of the duty the Reform Act had as-
signed to him. They knew, for well-authenticated
figures had explained to them, that a very large
proportion of electors in the country lived in houses
between the values of .£lO and £l5. Such men,
however honest in their characters, however sound
in their political opinions, ;were cut off from the
various excitements of which wealth and ease were
indispensable conditions. It must occasionally
happen that rent and local rates pressed with too
much severity upon them. Unhappy speculation
might embarrass them. Debt might choose them
for its victims. And these evils undoubtedly re-
ceived a cruel aggravation if, at the very moment
the elector would seem to be enabled to dismiss
them from his mernory—when he was called upon to
do his duty to the public—to assert the tenets which
he held, and which perhaps his forefathers had
left to him—he found himself compelled, as he ad-
vanced towards the hustings, to balance the reproach
of sacrificing his convictions, and the fear of ruin-
ing his home. Why had he refrained from dwelling
upon these topics ? Because they appealed to senti-
ments and touched on passions which were wholly
unnecessary to the purpose he had in view. He had
no occasion to appeal to any animosities on which
a revolutionary system might be founded. If free-
dom of election, at which the ballot aimed, were
thoroughly established, they might still have a
national establishment, as they had at present.
However thoroughly the voter was emancipated
from any judgment but his own, there was nothing
to prevent them from retaining one hereditary
chamber, as they done for many ages ; or that un-
paid magistracy of which the chairman of the meet-
ing was himself an exemplary ornament. (Cheers.)
It was not from the fragments of a throne or plun-
der of a church that the supporters of the ballot
desired to raise another temple to the freedom which
imparted a dignity and charm to every homestead
of the island we belong to—that freedom of which
the Laureate assured us—

" Her open eyes desire the truth ;"

but of which be afterwards described a better image
as he viewed her

" Turning to scorn with lips divine
The falsehood of extremes."
(Cheers.) He had only one more word to add. None
of those present would have forgotten that we had
only just emerged from two national exertions, cal-
culated, beyond almost any event which history
had recorded, to try the energy, the heart, the firm-
ness, and resources of an empire. He need not say
that he adverted to the Indian mutiny and to the
Russian war. Among the various advantages by
which they were enabled to pass those fiery ordeals
unscathed in power and in name, a high place ought
to be given to that union of purpose and of senti-
ment in all the classes of society which free trade
had signally extended a few years before. (Cheers.)
With an eye to new emergencies, it was not a rash
or short-sighted policy to draw still closer these
moral ties which doubled the strength by concen-
trating the opinions of the nation. Without attach=
ing too much importance to the rumours and anxieties
of which Europe was full just now, no one could
deny that its affairs for many centuries had exhi-
bited an unvarying propensity to move to conflict,
and to gravitate to arms. Whatever struggle
might await us, and whatever quarter it proceeded
from, no reproach would fall on those who, like
themselves, had come forward to the utmost of their
power to support, to countenance, and vindicatethe
only practicable remedy for an evil which continued
to estrange the aristocracy and people.
At the conclusion of the speech the whole meet-
ing rose from their seats and gave a round of loud
applause.

,fr 4

_

PRICE 4D. STAMPED, SD.

THE TROOP TRANSPORT BOMBAY.

PLYMOUTH, DFC. 13.
By order of Major-General Eden, Commander of
the Forces in the west, dated 9th inst., the follow-
ing communication from Col. Gordon has been read
on parade to the several detachments who embarked
in the Bombay, and are now distributed in the va-
rious barracks of this garriion

" Horse Guards; Dec. 7.
" To MAJOR-GENERAL EDEN. .

" Sir,—With reference to your letter of the sth inst.,
forwarding Captain Steel's report of the freightship Bom-
bay, I have the honour, by desire of the GeneralCommand-
ing-in-Chief, to acquaint you that his Royal Highness has
been much gratified at the perusal of this report, which
reflects great credit on Captain Steel; and I am directed to
request that you will communicate to him and the officers
and men on board his Royal Highness's entire approval of
their conduct under the trying circumstances in which they
were placed.
" ALEXANDER GORDON, Deputy Quartermaster-
General, for the Quartermaster-General."
The prejudice in the minds of the troops against
a resumption of their passage to the East Indies
in the Bombay still continues, and until Friday
they hoped that another ship would be substituted
for her. On that day furlough came down for a 33d
man, an instructor in musketry, permitting him to
go to Dublin, with a view to his joining the Bom-
bay at Cork. This fact is said to have excited the
rank and file, four of whom are already absent
without leave. -To justify their forebodings the
troops aver that, from inquiries made on board and
by their own observation, they are enabled to sus
tam their case. The railway iron, part of cargo,
variously estimated at from 500 to 700 tons, is said
to have been thrown loosely into the bottom of the
ship, instead of being stowed systematically. When
off Margate, on the first or second night after de-
p irture, large quantities of fresh water, which must
iv some defective arr_ingement have escaped from
the ship's tanks or casks, were pumped up from the
hold. The main and fore mast were peon spars, the
mizen was of teak. The rigging was so old and
worn that, previous to the fall of the masts, the
main and fore yards worked to such a degree as to
bring down four shrouds each• side • and the top-
sail sheets (chain) were so weak that they gave way
seven or eight times, with a consequent loss of sails
and gear. The cooking galley for the troops went
with the mainmast in consequence of the deck bolts
being only about four inches long. Capt. Steel, 17th
Lancers, who was in command, foresaw the proba-
bility of the accident, and had his troops between
decks to receive their after dinner porter. It is
alleged that when the masts fell the ship rolled so
violently that several of the soldiers,-with the officer
of day, were thrown from side to side right
across the open hatchway, some of them three times.
When the wash of the sea leaked through the decks
and topsides it was discovered that the pump hose
was not adequate to the discharge of the water from
the main pumps, it being large enough only for the
hand pumps. This serious defect was only over-
come by the strenuous exertions of the military.
On Nov. 17th a screw steamer hove in sight,
and if the captain of the Bombay had used signals
she would have assisted her ; his disinclination
to do so has been attributed to the terms of the
charter-party, which involves payment of 2-3ds of
the passage money after being 14 days out ; the
Bombay had been absent 10 days only. She lost
her foremast on the 23d, and lay unmanageable in
the trough of the sea from 11 p.m. to 7 30 a.m. on
the 24th ; she was then struck in the bow by a
heavy sea, and went before the wind until noon,
when Capt. Flamank refused to hoist a flag of dis-
tress to an American barque ; but Capt. Steel, with
the concurrence of all the military officers on board,
insisted on his doing so, and he reluctantly con-
sented. The American was lost sight of during the
night. It is also stated that when H.M.'s steam
frigate Argus hove in sight, on the 3d inst., and
asked, " Are you in want of any assistance P" he
was answered, " Not under present circumstances."
The Bombay was at that time jury-rigged. Dur-
ing the storm two of the beams on the gun deck
were broken. In consequence of a deficiency of
listing round the port tills the fore part of the gun
deck was flooded several inches deep, and the water
ran to the orlop deck, whence it had to be pumped.
Many of the dead lights are so much less than their
frames that water gained admission there as well.
The officers complain also that from the first there
was no bread baked for their use, and that the
provisions were inferior and scanty.