The Sun.
London, England, 1835-06-03 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 3, 1835.

has caused, and the only protection is to be found in the

oanot.— ( He ir, . )
Mr. C. RUSSELL would call on the Government oppo-
site now to redeem their own former pledge, and, as the sup-
porters of the Reform Bill, in virtue of the assurance con-
veyed at that time, to resist further change—fundamental and
dangerous change.--( Hear, hear.) All the safeguards of the
institutions of the country were founded on publicity. On the
consciousness of the rectitude of one's own actions, and of
their receiving the approbation of his fellow-men, depended
in a great measure their proper direction. The law of public
opinion was both the great check and spur on men's conduct.
When a man sees that by doing his duty he will receive the
applause of his friends and neighbours, and that their con-
demnation will be his severest punishment, he will be un-
likely to swerve from the line of probity. But once teach
him to act secretly and with impunity, you extinguish his
pride, slacken his sterling independence, and vitiate his inte-
grity ; you teach him dishonesty, and inculcate fraud, and
convert the open independent voter into a sly, dark, faithless
hypocrite.—( Hear, hear.) Why do men obey the laws, but
because they receive the sanction of public opinion, and are
stamped with the authority of Parliament ? Why do we value
Trial by Jury, but because the opinions of the Judge and the
verdict of the Jury are given in the face of day, and are sub-
mitted to the test of the public scrutiny. " The value of the
opinions of the Jury and the Judge all depend on publicity,"
said Lord Hardwicke. What was the reason that Hon. Mem-
bers voted against each other openly in that House, but be-
cause they looked to the sense of their constituents, were
anxious to secure their good opinion, as well as to maintain
their own honour, and proclaim their notions of rectitude and
public duty to the community ?—(Cheers.) They should
then, take care to bind fast around the institutions of the coun-
try the safeguard of publicity, and let them do so by resisting
this furtive project, which was at variance with the Constitu-
tion, as it was subversive of public morality. The Hon. Gen-
tleman was bound to prove the advantages of the Ballot.
Could he maintain that it would put an end to canvassing ?
He surely could not. Canvassing would still go on, in other
and worse channels. The voter would still be the object of
importunity, and still promises would be given, which, if the
voter were an honest man, he would keep, and, keeping,
would not be much disposed to conceal ; secrecy, then, would
be of no use to the honest man, and would only be used as a
cover by the rogue. The Ballot would vitiate moral charac-
ter, under the pretence of securing political independence, and
would debase a man to take a bribe with the additional turpi-
tude of breaking his promise.—( Cheers.) The friends of the
Ballot did not agree either with another, or with themselves.
They were at variance about the principle and its modes of ope-
ration. Under the French Constitution in 1791 the electors were
allowed to vote openly ; under the altered Constitution of 1793
there was a little approach to the Ballot, for the electors were
allowed to vote by scrutiny or openly. Danton and the Re-
publicans of that day contended for open voting—said Danton,
" publicity is the aliment of liberty." But in 1795, as they
made more progress in revolution and its consequent events,
the electors were forced to vote secretly. Which of these
would the Hon. Gentleman patronize ?—( Cheers, and
laughter.) When the question was brought on last year the
Hon. and Learned Member for Dublin, in his honest zeal for
effecting a good object--( A laugh)—the good object of the
Ballot, and his fair wish to disarm the prejudices of its oppo-
nents—the unfounded and misguided prejudice—declared he
would not desire to prevent any one who pleased from voting
openly. So it was said by the Liberals of France.—( Hear,
hear, and laughter.) But an Hon. Baronet beside him
exclaimed, " What I open votingl if there be no secrecy
it is no Ballot." He (Mr. Russell) agreed with the
Honourable Baronet.—( Hear, hear.) But would secrecy
be maintained by the Ballot? He contended it would not.
Allusion was made to the secret voting at the Bank and t...e
India House. But this did not prevent canvassing or expense,
which was often as great as at an election for a member of
that House ; neither did it prevent the exercise of personal
influence. There Was no analogy between the election of a
Member of Parliament by Ballot, and the election of an East
India or Bank Director by Ballot ; neither was there in the
election of members of clubs. The Hon. Member spoke of the
Ballot among the Greeks, but he had not told the House what
good it had effected them, yet any schoolboy might have in-
formed him that it procured the banishment of the justest man
among them.--( Cheers and laughter.) Cicero had, it was
true, in the commencement of his career, been favourable to
the Ballot. In one of his early speeches he called it "prin-
cipium justissimce libertatis." But as his judgment became
more matured, and his experience more enlarged, he atoned
for this error by leaving on record, in one of his finest essays,
his opinion of the system. In it he inveighs against the
Ballot, because he saw its evil tendencies. He says, " The
Ballot destroys the fair balance and harmony between the
several orders of the State. It ranges the populace against
the aristocracy; it makes them insolent and insincere; and
gives all the offices of the State to the mob. I was made
Consul by the people voting viva voce. The public good
requires that voting should be deprived of its secrecy."—
(Loud cheers.) America was quoted as a precedent. America
was the first example of the use of the Ballot in modern
times. But this was not a fair example, considering the dif-
ference of our institutions and theirs, and the discrepancy
between the various classes of society. America was a young
country, and the Ballot was not so unsuited to her institutions
as it was to ours, to which it was so adverse. But if bribery
and intimidation were to be prevented by the Ballot, the Hon.
Gentleman must select some other case as proof than America.
If Hon. Gentlemen imagined that the Ballot worked good in
America, the newspapers of that country would tell them that
at elections there, intimidation and bribery were practised to a
vast extent, notwithstanding the guardianship of the Ballot.
(" No, no," from some Members.) Well, if they did not be-
lieve the American newspapers, would they
,not believe the
Hon. Member for Oldham, who certainly knew more of the

tyranny. What he was most desirous of seeing accomplished
was the establishment of the fairest, freest, and most impartial
system of election that could be procured. The Honourable
Gentleman had merely placed the question before the House,
stating his sentiments in favour of the Ballot ; but not one
word had he uttered as to the machinery by which this system
was to be worked, not one word as to how fraud, or the re-
ception of improper votes, was to be prevented. Many a the
undue and improper returns arose in consequence of the
grossest impartiality in the conduct of the Returning Officer.
This fact must be familiar to all Hon. Gentlemen, who had

attended on Election Committees. He would here state a
case. At a recent election one of the candidates had appa-

rently the majority on the poll of only one vote. A queition
arose whether one voter had been improperly admitted to vote
or not. Now in this case the greatest possible power
was lodged in the hands of the Returning Officer.—
( Hear, hear.) The Honourable Gentleman the Member for
London might have a machinery in store for introducing
when he brought his Bill forward. As to whether he had
or had not he could not pretend to say, but he would now re-

cur to the principle of Of secret voting. The Hon. Member
had divided his subject into two parts. First, as to intimida-
tion, and secondly, as to bribery. Intimidation was no doubt
carried on at present to a great extent, and particularly among
tenants at will. But was it not obvious that if secret voting
were established the landlord would exercise all his remaining
influence to ascertain the way his tenant voted? And land-
lords who had now no scruple in having recourse to intimida-
tion would go subsequently to the election, and ask the tenant
upon his honour, did he, or did he not, vote in such or such a
way. He would put a case where a landlord had fifty tenants,
and, with strong interest in favour of a candidate, was deter-
mined to carry the election. He might give out, and he had
the power, that he would punish all those who would not give
a positive promise in favour of this candidate. He would not
go into the nice metaphysical and casuistical question as to
whether under such circumstances the right existed to violate
the sacred obligations of honour and truth.—(Hear.) The
Noble Lord then proceeded to argue that the name and influ-
ence of an independent farmer was often of great weight in
an election, and to adopt the system of secret voting would be
to deprive him of that weight and influence which were
to him political rights, and as such on his behalf he
the Noble Lord claimed them. With regard to intimida-
tion, he knew something of that. He knew what it was
six years before the Reform Bill, and what it had been the
three years subsequently. He knew that it still existed to
a very considerable extent, but he also knew that public opi-
nion had been busy in proclaiming itself so loudly that it made
each candidate anxious to disclaim any part in such proceed-
ing • and he had no doubt that in a short time public opinion
would obtain sun a strength that the Ballot would be consi-
dered totally unnecessary. The Hon. Member who had just
sat down (Mr. Ward) had alluded to the spies employed over
the country. If an argument were wanted against the Ballot
this would be one, viz., that an organised system of spies
would be established for the purpose of ascertaining how each
individual voted—a course which would produce mutual jea-
lousies and heartburnings, and put an end to all the ameni-
ties of social life. Another argument had been adduced,—
namely, the defeats that had been sustained in the late county
elections. This could not be denied, for it was a melancholy
fact that such defeats had been incurred.—( Laughter.) There
was another argument which he could not pass over without
comment ; namely, that the introduction of the Ballot would
allay political animosities at elections, and prevent those pri-
vate feuds amongst friends and neighbours which resulted from
the present system of voting. Now he very much doubted,
whether, as long as political parties were constituted as they
now were, party feuds and political animosities could be pre-
vented by any arrangement whatever of the kind. Nay, more,
he thought, of the two evils, it was very much preferable that
party feuds should exist than that the freeholders and elec-
tors of the country should not take that zealous
and warm interest in its service, which it was their duty
to display.—( Hear, and cheering.) In America, notwith-
standing the use of the Ballot, it was notorious that party feuds
did exist, and ran higher perhaps at elections than in any other
part of the world. He would not enter further into the discus-
sion on the general merits of this question. In conclusion, he
must say that he rather regretted that the Hon. Member for
Derbyshire had met this motion by moving the previous ques-
tion.—( Hear, hear, hear.) If it had been left to him (]Lord
Howick) to move an amendment, he should have much pre-
ferred one expressive of a direct negative of the principles in-
volved in the resolution.—( Hear, hear.)
Mr. C. BULLER as one of the original supporters of the
Reform Act, begged to dissent from the motion that that great
measure was to be considered a final measure, and a bar to all

further change.—( Hear.) He had been in the House at the
time of the debates upon that interesting question, and he per-
fectly recollected hearing the Noble Lord who moved the
Bill declare that he set aside the consideration of the
Ballot for the time being, and left it for considera-
tion on some future occasion.—( Hear.) It had been said
by the advocates against this resolution that the Reform Act
was a sufficient guarantee for the independence and rights of
the electors of England. It had been asked, what had oc-
curred since the passing of the Reform Act to render necessary
any additional guarantee in the shape of the Ballot? He
(Mr. C. Buller) replied—the experience of two general elec-
tions.—( Hear.) The result of these two elections showed
that the Reform Act was only efficient as a general guarantee
for the people against wholesale tyranny on the part of their
rulers, but that it was totally unavailing against the influence
of intimidation at individual elections.—( Hear, hear.) The
Noble Lord who last spoke said that the result of the last
election had not been obtained by means of intimidation on
the part of the Ministers, but through a species of delusion
which happened to prevail throughout the country. Now, in
his humble opinion, this was purely an old Tory doctrine
which the Noble Lord had advanced.—( Hear, and laughter.)
" It was not because intimidation was used by the candidates
against us that we were beaten," said the Noble Lord, " but
because we were represented as despoilers of the Church, and
the friends of Popery." This was the delusion which was
kept up, according to the Noble Lord's theory ; but, in his
opinion, delusion and intimidation and Conservatism were sy-
nonymous terms.—( Cheers and laughter.) How would the
Noble Lord account for the very partial effect which that
delusion had caused in the county of Norfolk, for instance ?
How did it occur that whilst the eastern division of the county
returned thirty-two Tories, the western division had re-
turned all its old liberal Members ?—Hear, hear.) The
solution of this mystery was simply this, that the landed pro-
prietors of the eastern division were chiefly Tories, and that
the land of the western division was divided between two very

institutions of America and the effect of the Ballot than any
Member in that House.—[Mr. Cobbett said, with a significant
nod and peculiar tone, " I could disclose some secrets about
the Ballot in America."]—( Cheers and laughter.) Were
Hon. Gentlemen enamoured of strange fashions, then let them
deck themselves in the old clothes of the Americans. The
Ballot might be fit for a republic, but not for a monarchy. If
they chose to apply republican practices to monarchical insti-
tutions where could they stop ? Why not make the monarchy
elective, and the peerage elective ?—( Cheers.) [The Hon.
Member next alluded to France, but for a few sentences was
inaudible to us.] He preferred, however much he might ad-
mire the moderation with which that country had reformed its
institutions, that England should be permitted to maintain her
own. Before he could consent to adopt any such measure,
before he could consent to the making so great an inroad upon
the Constitution, he thought it was incumbent upon its ad-
vocates to show that they wished to depart from what was good
to that which was better, and not to call upon them on this
side of the House to defend the excellence of the present
system. But what was proposed was a direct innovation on
the national character to which he believed Englishmen would
not be brought to submit. They never had been, and God
forbid they ever should be, ashamed of voting openly, in the
face of day. He trusted that they would be saved the degra-
dation that must ensue from the introduction of this new
system, which was that of striking in the dark, instead of
openly and manfully, in the broad face of day.--( Loud cheers.)
Mr. WARD admitted that it did appear to be an anomaly,
that just at the time we had been extending the franchise—
which was to give the very essence of publicity to representa-
tion—a measure should be proposed calculated to make the
Noting secret. The strangeness of this, however, disappeared
when it was remembered the danger under which the voter
laboured of suffering from coercion. Voters were in the
same situation as the subjects of an arbitrary Monarch. Did
the Hon. Member mean to tell them that if they were in an-
other country, with the unfriendly region of Siberia in the
background, that the ballot might not give protection to the
voter and to his family, and shield them from the effects of
despotic power ? Just in such a situation was the present con-
stituency of this country. The case in favour of the ballet
was not made out by looking at the working of the present
system. It was said by the Hon. Gontleman that the theory
of free representation was the right of every Englishman to
give his vote fearlessly in the face of God and his coun-
try.—( Hear, hear.) But the question arose, can this he
done ?—( Hear, hear.) In the late elections he was con-
vinced that in half the cases where the elective franchise
was exercised, the voters could not give a conscientious
vote without entailing upon themselves and families conse-
quences the most fearful, the voters being equally under con-
trol with the serfs in Siberia. With regard to the advantages
of open voting he would first take the situation of those who
were tenants at will, created under that clause in the Reform
Bill which bore the name of the Noble Marquis opposite (Mar-
quis of Chandos). Now in the nature of things as they at
present existed, taking into consideration the precarious value
of agricultural produce, was it likely the influence possessed by
the landlord over the tenant would increase ? But as it was,
he would ask any Hon. Gentleman acquainted with this class
of voters whether there could be a set of men more entirely
subservient to their landlords than the tenants at will ? They
were not only dependent, but they were almost the property of
the landlord, and to such an extent did this belief obtain that
it had been considered highly improper for one landlord of a
neighbouring estate to canvass the tenantry of another.
This was reducing the people to the level of the villains
of the Saxon and Norman times, instead of maintaining
them in the sturdy independent state so justly eulogised by'
the Hon. Gentleman opposite. The tenantry were, in fact,
parcelled out between Tory and Whig. To go from the
land, and to look at the effects of the same system in the towns
and boroughs of the empire, it would be found equally prejudi-
cial. What effect had the open voting on the tradesmen and
101. householders of those places? He had seen it in fifty in-
stances. The candidate proceeded from house to house,
generally in the company of some influential gentleman in the
neighbourhood, who, if the voter proved at all refractory,
gently hinted that his custom was worth having, and that if
he (the tradesman) did not vote as he (the gentleman) wished,
he should have no more of his custom, and that there were
other tradesmen more accommodating in the neighbourhood.
It had been objected to the Ballot, by the Hon. Gentleman
opposite, that it was un-English, underhand, clandestine, and
mean. Was there nothing in the present system deserving
these terms of reproach ? What was the system of espionage,
the spy system of organized lawyers, plotting how they should
get hold of any individual to use his influence with a voter
whom that voter notoriously could not refuse ? He had seen
so much of disgusting coercion, of voters losing their bread
even for six months together, that, if the evils of the Ballot
were greater than painted by the Hon. Gentleman opposite,
he considered he could not do wrong in giving the motion bis
hearty and earnest support.
Lord HOWICK, in opposing the motion, assured the Hon.
Gentleman the Member for the city of London that in doing
so he should hear nothing from him either as to the un-En,g-
lish or immoral tendency of the Ballot. He (Lord Howick )
was not one of those who, under the name and influence of
property, wished to maintain a system of coercion and

great Whig proprietors.--(Hear.) How did it happen thii
whilst this county acted in this manner the county of Devon-
shire at the last election—he did not speak of the partial elec-
tion which had just taken place---( A laugh)—but of the last
general election, followed another course, and still returned
four Whig Members? The Noble Lord said that since the
last general election a very great revolution had come upon
the people, and that a powerful inspiration had come over
many of their Representatives upon the subject of the malt
tax • and that the electors of many of the counties would at
a future election never trust any candidate who had the
slightest shadow of a chance of being so inspired upon the
subject. But in reply to the Noble Lord's doctrine of delu-
sion, he would ask, what delusion had been practised in three
counties in which elections had recently taken place, either
upon Popery or the Church, or the malt tax 1—( Hear, hear.)
What was the reason that in those three counties Conserva-
tive candidates had been returned at the recent elections ?
Was it not because the greater number of the higher classes
in the country were opposed to the present Government ?
(Loud cries of " Hear, hear.") This was the fact; and the
only means by which the Government could hope to meet this
powerful influence was through the unshackled support of that
portion of the people who were willing to maintain them in
office.—( Hear.) Upon this subject he begged the at-
tention of the House to a few facts connected with an
analysis of the poll at the last election for South Devon.
Uposti examining this analysis he was bound to declare his
conviction that, so far from any fear of Popery having
operated against the success of Lord John Russell, it was
nothing else than the fear of the landowners and the
parsons which had caused him to be ejected. He recollected
very Well that when the Government of Earl Grey were pro-
posing to enlarge the franchises of the counties, but pro-
posed only to extend the franchise to the owners of land in
the counties—he recollected right well that on that occasion
another great Reformer stepped forward—no less a Reformer
than the Marquis of Chandos stepped forward boldly and man-
fully, as became him, to vindicate the rights of the 501. lease-
holders.-_( Hear, hear.) He vindicated those rights, and he
obtained them ; and since that how had they been exercised ?
In contradistinction to the way in which the independent free
holders had used their votes.—( Hear, hear.) He did not mean
to say that the freeholders of counties were the only indepen-
dent class of electors ; but certainly it could not be denied
that amongst them were the greatest number of the indepen-
dent voters of the counties. If it should appear, upon exa-
mining the analysis of the poll at the last South Devonshire
election that a majority, or at least nearly an equality, of the
old freeholders voted for the Noble Lord (J. Russell), how
was the majority on the poll which appeared against him
made up, if not by the leaseholders dependent in some degree
upon their landlords, and who, from fear of the landowners,
and not of popery, voted against the liberal candidate ?
( Hear, hear.) The majority against the Noble Lord was
627; and in the gross number of votes polled those of the
freeholders were almost precisely equal for either can-
didate, 1,894 being polled for the Noble Lord, and 1,897 for
his successful opponent. But of the leaseholders it appeared
1,237 only voted for Lord John Russell, and 1,840 for Mr.
Parker. But the analysis became still more curious if they
looked to particular districts. There was but one exception
to the general rule, and that was in the case of Tavistock.—
( Hear, hear.) This exception tended in an evident manner
to support his argument, that the influence of the landed gen-
try had carried the election. Nobody was
family connections which the Noble Lord enjoyed in the Ta-
vistock district of the county, and therefore it was not surpris-
ingof the
ignorant
that both of freeholders and of leaseholders ho there
polled a considerable majority of votes above his opponent—
( Hear, hear.) In another district, however (the name of
which we did not hear), where the landowners were chiefly
Conservatives, Lord John Russell only obtained 34 free-
holders' votes, and his opponent 249.—(Hear, hear, hear.)
In the district of Honiton, in a parish where the principal
landowner was an old and known supporter of the Noble
Lord's party, every freeholder except one, and that was the
Clergyman of the parish, voted for the Noble Lord.--(Hear,
bear.) It might, perhaps, be said that Lord John Russell
lost his election because he was supposed to be unfavourable
to the claims of the agriculturists. Now, it was remark-
able that the distresses of the agricultural interests were
never so much as mentioned during the election. Besides,
their distresses and their claims had too recently been dis-
posed of in the House, and by the Conservative Ministry.
Certain it was that the Gentleman who bad so recently been