The Sun.
London, England, 1835-06-04 00:00:00

possibly work to their disadvantage. What we do con--
ceive of the H,on. Gentleman is, that he labours under a
grave monomania upon the subject—the error of an
amiable, perhaps an enthusiastic—but assuredly on
this point, an unsound and wrong reasoning intellect,
habituated to consider one set of opinions only, and
incapable of changing the point of view from which he
has long been used to meditate our representative
system. There is yet another circumstance in favour
of the proceedings of Tuesday, as compared with those
of Monday evening, namely, that the proposition of
the Ballot was handled with much acuteness and ability
by some of those who defended it. The speech of the
Hon. Mover was as good a one as we think the case
admitted : yet he has utterly failed to prove that the
substitution of Ballot for open voting would cure even
that especial evil which he aims at remedying by a change
in this country so unexampled, viz., intimidation from
the vindictive employment of power, or in showing that
the Ballot would not produce other evils still more exten-
sive and profound, to which the Hon. Gentleman has not once
adverted. When Mr. Grote sets out with confessing that
suffrage is a " trust," he implies that it has been created
for a definite use, viz., for the political well-being of so-
ciety. Is it not then a strange contradiction to remove
the only practicable check on the perversion of a trust so
important, by enabling the trustee to abuse it at his plea-
sure, and rendering him wholly irresponsible ? Recollect,
that if intimidation be now brought to operate upon de-
pendent voters, it is still practised under the severe moral
check of public reproach and obloquy. If the landlord
extorts a vote for his friend, he' suffers for it, not
merely by the loss of reputation, but by the ill-will
and alienation of his tenantry : and the proof that such
checks are not imaginary, may be drawn from the well-
known fact that a great proportion of landlords and em-
ployers do not interfere with those over whom their in-
fluence might be considerable. But while the offence of
intimidation is subjected to this moral control, does not
the proposed remedy exempt the other party (supposing
it to be effectual) from all control whatever ? A thousand
corrupt, factious, criminal, or personally disgraceful motives
may work upon an elector, secure from observation, to give
his vote, as he would be ashamed to give it if exposed to
the censure of even one honourable mind, and in such a
course the Ballot is meant to protect him. The parties
thus are not evenly or equitably dealt with. But there is
another circumstance which goes to prove how incomplete
and one-sided is this great corrective of the Ballot. It
proposes to relieve a single class of electors, and to
cure a particular disease. Grant (which we do not)
that it would protect the weak-hearted from molesta-
tion in the discharge of their trust ; but how does it
operate upon the far more numerous and more estima-
ble body of constituents, who deem the free and open
exercise of their power of voting, a right of which none
can without gross injustice deprive them ? When in
the heat of party, or of individual jealousy, in the play and
conflict of passion, political or private, an honest man's
character is made the object of attack—when he is sneered
at, calumniated, distrusted, accused of having taken a course
which he condemns, or of having secretly leagued himself
with men whom he despises—what reply can he make while
under the miscalled safeguard of the ballot ? He can
merely rebut accusations which he knows to be false, by
denials of which others may equally suspect the falsehood.
He can bring no evidence of the part which he has really
performed ; he cannot vindicate by any satisfactory means,
the truth of his declarations, the sincerity of his principles,
or the consistency of his words and deeds ; whereas, under
the system of operi election, every man can turn to the
poll-books of a given year, and' tell the world and his
enemies, here is my voucher ; thus and thus I voted.
But it is answered sometimes to those, who, jealous of
their own rights and reputations, cry out against the im-
position of such a yoke as the ballot upon themselves,
that the ballot may be established for those who seek
its protection, while those who like may still avail them-
selves of the privilege of open voting. This is very absurd,
because it is manifest that in such a case every man who at
present exercises any coercion over his neighbours, might
continue the same practice, by merely insisting that 11l who
had anything to fear from his resentment must give their
suffrages openly, as they do at this moment, and be liable
to the same consequences. Again, while the solitary mis-
chief of intimidation is got rid of, es the country lose no-
thing by the extinction of whatever good has arisen from
the resolute and wise example of virtuous men capable of
thinking right, and of acting upon their convictions ? Is
there nothing lost by leaving every man in the dark as to
those with whom he really co-operates, and those to whom
in politics he is opposed ? We ought to know our friends
and our enemies, and to have the benefit of being encou-
raged in a useful and just course of action by knowing
that we have good men for our allies, as well as that of
being induced to change our course on finding that we
have none for our associates in it but discreditable and unsafe
companions. A Member of Parliament, under the Ballot
system, can never understand by what order or description
of constituents he has been elected, or who it is that he
really represents ; all is dark, all distrustful. Electors who
fear the consequences of their votes, either hold commu-
nion with none, and brood over the public affairs, in the
solitude of their own secluded and uninstructed ignorance,
never acquiring that wholesome acquaintance with daily
politics which comes from intercourse with friends and
neighbours ; or they enter upon a system of mysterious
and plotting consultation, of which the bond is common
terror, and of course a common and festering hatred
of those whom they fear ; thus acquiring the habits and
propensities of criminal conspirators, rather than free,
mutual, and cordial advisers, engaged in any public cause.
The demoralizing, and especially the degrading effects of
such an innovation upon the erect character of English-
men, would be enough to fill the mind of the Hon. Member
for London with disgust and horror, could he see his own
scheme with eyes less infatuated by that fixed and stupify-
ing gaze which we are all apt to bestow upon our favonrite
projects. It is impossible, within the short space at our
disposal, to touch even upon the argumentative speeches of
the Hon. Members who resisted and defeated the motion of
the Member for London. Among the good, those of Lord
Stanley, Lord Howick, and Sir Robert Peel, struck us as
the most convincing. Lord John Russell's was valuable,
for the light which it threw upon the repugnance of the
Whig Ministers to adopt this crotchet of the combined
Doctrinaire and Destructive parties ; although the Noble
Lord and his colleagues were severely chastised by the noble
Member for Lancashire, for their apparent dread of
certain persons, in not imitating the example of Lord
Althorp two years ago, and meeting the mover of the
Ballot by a direct negative vote. His Lordship's quotation
from his Washington correspondent's letter, descriptive of
the operation of the Ballot system in that " favoured land,"
where every man's vote is practically as well known as it is
hero, and infinitely "more jobbed for," and where, there-
fore, "neither secrecy nor freedom" results from the adop-
tion of the Ballot, wrought edifying effects upon the House.
—" For God's sake take care what you are doing in Eng-
land." Every eminent man in the United States is " a
Conservative so far as England is concereed." These are
solemn and precious exhortations. They shall not be lost
upon our minds ; nor, if life and opportunity be spared to
us, upon those of our readers.—Times.
The debate on Tuesday evening, on Mr. Grote's motion
1 to amend the Reform Bill by the introduction of .the bal-
lot, or of secret voting at elections, deserves the most se-
rious consideration of the country. During the debates on
"the Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill," it was
held out as a lure to catch the Radicals, and particularly
by Lord John Russell and Mr. O'Connell, that the ques-
tion of the Ballot and of short Parliaments would easily be
disposed of, after the great measure, as they called it, had
been secured. Last year when the Whigs had been fairly
driven from office, from the conviction of their utter inca-
pacity and insincerity, it was charged upon them, in no
measured terms, that they had deceived their Radical
allies, and particularly on the question of the Ballot.
And in answer to this fair and direct charge the Whig-
Radical press had only one apology to offer, viz.
" that every pledge, or implied pledge, would have
been fulfilled at the proper opportunity, had the
Whigs been permitted to remain in, office." We are
opposed upon principle to the system of secret voting, but
we feel at full liberty to comment without the least reserve
on this renewed attempt of the Whigs to delude their Ra-
dical friends and supporters. Mr. Grote introduced his
motion in a very respectable manner, and the fair anticipa-
tion of the Radicals, doubtless, was, that, after the outcry
which has been repeated for the Ballot in consequence of
the Whig defeats in Devonshire, in Essex, in Inverness-
shire, and in Staffordshire, they were quite sure of ob-
taining what had been withheld in 1832, and that the
Whigs had fully seen their error in evading the promises.
they had formerly put forth. But how stands the fact ? It
is evident that Mr. Grote's motion was to be evaded by some
means, and of all men in the Honourable House surely
the last man that could have been expected to come
forward on such an occasion to oppose the Member for the
City of London -was Mr. Gisborne, the very man who had
not long ago proclaimed in the House of Commons that
this same Mr. Grote was " one of the fittest men to be in-
troduced into -the councils of his Majesty." Lord Stanley,
however, pressed the question so thoroughly home to his
Majesty's Ministers, that Lord John Russell was compelled
to come forward and disown all concert or connivance
with the Member for Derbyshire ; and then Mr. Gisborne
withdrew " the previous 'question," and absolutely voted
with Mr. Grote, for the purpose, doubtless, of saving
his very slender reputation among his own Radical sup-
porters. This is not the first time that Mr. Gisborne has
been made a " cat's-paw" by the Whigs. There was some
manliness in the conduct of Lord Althorp on a former
occasion, when he met the question with a direct negative.
[ But the present conduct of Ministers is a mere specimen of