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

returned to the House for the southern division of the
county of Devon never appeared under the engaging and
amiable character of the " farmer's friend."—( Hear, hear,
hear, and a laugh.) A very curious case appeared of two
parishes in South Devon, which perfectly illustrated the po-
sition he had taken in reference to this point. Both these pa-
rishes were chiefly inhabited by farmers, who had always been
of the same political opinion ; and had, consequently, al-
ways voted for the same candidate at elections. One of these
parishes was the property of a landlord, and the voters were
his tenants ; and the other was occupied by yeomen, living on
their own property, by right of which they voted. Now, in
the first of these parishes at the election of 1832, every elec-
tor voted for the Liberal candidate ; but at the late election,

the landowner having turned round to Conservatism, all his
tenants very obligingly turned with him, and voted for the
Tory candidate. In the second parish, on the contrary, all
the yeomen voted, as they had been accustomed to do, for the
Liberal candidate. Now, after these statements, he thought
it was not too much to say that the voters were not sufficiently
free according to the present state of the law ; for it appeared
that when the landlord was a Liberal they generally supported
the Liberal candidate, but when the Landlord was a Tory,
they also voted for the Tory, and if the landlord were to
change to-morrow, they would, doubtless, change with him.
He must confess that he thought the principle of the Ballot
had exceedingly good prospects at the present moment. He
did not mean to say that the majority of the House was yet
in its favour ; though it had met with some recruits amongst
its Members. The Hon. Member for St. Alban's, for one,
had that night given the question his support. He could only
say that they were proud of such support.—( Hear, hear.)
The Noble Lord opposite was not yet a convert, it was true,
but he hoped that the day of his conversion was not far dis-
tant.—( Hear, hear.) Now, with respect to bribery, he ad-
mitted that the Ballot would not entirely do away with this
evil ; but he believed that, except in cases where candidates
were enormously rich or powerful, the Ballot would go a great
way towards it. The Hon. Member for Reading had referred
to the experience of France against the Ballot. Now he
(Mr. C. Buller) thought the experience of France was en-
tirely in favour of the Ballot. For his own part he could state
to show the necessity which existed for the Ballot, that at one
time he had been obliged to canvass during half an hour with a
voter in order to induce him to vote against himself ( Mr. C.
Buller), fearing the man might vote for him, in consequence
of any influence he might have over him.—(lronical cheers
and laughter.) He did not understand that laugh. He sup-
posed the Hon. Gentlemen who uttered it thought it to be an
impossibility that a man should be so conscientious. He begged
to explain, however, the occasion on which he did this. The
fact was, he was already assured of a majority of 200, and,
therefore, the House would not over-rate his magnanimity.—
( Loud laughter.) Intimidation before and persecution after
had been practised by the vanquished party ; and had not his
friends forborne to exercise retaliation, in consequence of the
good humour natural to victory, that town would have been in
a state which it would be terribl9 to think of. The same was,
he was convinced, the condition of all the other towns simi-
larly circumstanced in England. There was one other great
recommendation of the Vote by Ballot. If it were adopted,
elections would be less under the influence of popular excite-
ment and public indignation than at present. He was not fa-
vourable to agitation when carried beyond the necessary limits.
—(Laughter.) The liberal party in that House, and in the
Government, knew that a great majority of the property and
station of the country was against them—( Hear)—and that
they had an active and zealous Clergy to contend with also.
To counteract this double influence, they were obliged to
have recourse to agitation, and to excite the people to the
highest pitch for the purpose of inducing them to preserve
their political rights.—( Hear, hear.) If Ballot existed,
there would be nothing of this. No man who hated perse-
cution, who felt disgusted with the profligacy daily witnessed
at elections, who wished well to the institutions of the country,
and who desired their improvement rather than their destruc-
tion, could do otherwise than wish well to this question, and
give his every effort to free this popular arm of freedom from
the chains with which it was now shackled. He believed the
people desired nothing more than this protection, and he
trusted that the House would grant it to them.
Mr. B. HO Y (as we understood) rose to explain, amidst
cries of spoke. In reference to some expressions which had
fallen from an Hon. Member respecting the power which the
Government would acquire by the Ballot, he begged to state
that so long as individuals could return thirty or forty Mem-
bers to that House, and as long as the 101. franchise existed
in towns, there was nothing to dread from the power of the
Government.—( Cries of " Spoke " and " Question.")
Mr. J. G A SKILL said the substitution of secret for open
voting would be immediately attended with the moral degra-
dation of the electors, because a system of fraud would be en-
couraged by it which would inevitably lead to the worst social
consequences. He was as much opposed as any man to the
retaliation occasionally exercised by landlords against refrac-
tory tenants in periods of contested elections ; but the Ballot
would not put an end to a practice so reprehensible. This
infernal system of secret voting—for infernal he felt compelled
to call it--would have the effect of destroying all confidence
between man and man, even in those relations in the social
state where it was most required.—(Hear, hear.) The Hon.
Member then referred to the opinion of -Mr. Canning and
(we believe) Mr. Burke, to prove that the former regarded
the Ballot as conferring the possession of irresponsible power
upon one portion of the community ; while the latter had
expressed it as his belief that the integrity of private ho-
nour was the surest safeguard for any public trust.—( Cries
of " Hear.") The downfall of Rome, as the Hon. Member
for Reading, had remarked with much truth and learning, was
stated by Cicero to be coeval in date with the introduction of
the mode of secret voting. With such an historical fact be-
fore them would that House ever consent to risk the conse-
quences to this country ?—( Hear.) The United States had
been introduced to exemplify the operation of the Ballot, and
the wonders it worked there had no doubt not been extenuated.
But he ( Mr. G.) would remind the House that it was not
legislating for a Republic—( Hear)—consequently, that the
example was of no effect as a guide.
Mr. RICHARDS congratulated the Hon. Member who
had sat down on the eloquence of his observations, and stated
that he had never heard such a promising speech from so young
a Member during his experience of that House.—(Laughter.)
He ( Mr. Richards) should explain briefly why he meant to
give his vote against, instead of for, the motion of the Hon.
Member for London. At the election for Knaresborough—
(Laughter)—he was himself a severe sufferer from the want of
the protection which the Ballot would afford against intimida-
tion and persecution of all kinds. Letters had been sent from
London to the Whig Nobility and Gentry in the neighbour-
hood to vote and influence the votes of their tradespeople and
dependants in favour of the Whig Candidate and against him.
—( Laughter.) Their servants were in consequence sent out
in all directions, and many electors of the town were from that
reason prevented from giving him their votes. The tradesmen
were especially obnoxious to that influence. All which he
could have verified upon oath, if necessary. Smarting under
the effects of this course of conduct on the part of his oppo-
nents, he confessed that, in the moment of soreness and irri-
tation, he had leaned to the opinion that a protection was ne-
cessary ; and he had therefore promised his friends to give
the subject his best consideration.—(Laughter.) He had,
however, given them no promise ; because, as he then alleged,
he was afraid he might commit himself rashly, while his bet-
ter judgment was under the influence of a natural feeling of re-
sentment.—( Hear, and laughter.) So much he felt bound to
say in explanation of the vete he was about to give on this
question. He should next offer his reasons for that vote. It
was quite impossible not to give the utmost credit for good
intentions to His Hon. Friend the Member for London in
bringing forward the question before the House ; and to be-
lieve otherwise than that he did it from a most pure and philo-
sophic conviction of its probable utility.—(Laughter.) The
motion before the House, however, divested of all its extra-
neous matter, appeared to him (Mr. R.) to resolve itself into
the simple question—was it right or safe to take away the po-
litical influence possessed and exercised by property, and con-
fer it on the democracy ?—( Hear.) He thought answering it
in the affirmative would be dangerous in the last degree to
property—to the social institutions of the country—and
even to the democracy itself.—( Hear, hear.) Scenes
would be enacted in the country such as men shuddered
to read of elsewhere.—(Cries of " Oh, and laughter.)
These consequences had been overlooked by the Hon. Member
for London. There was one argument which might be strongly
urged against the question, the absence of all necessity for it.
Twenty years since lie ( Mr. R.) might have willingly adopted
the Utopian notions of his Hon. Friend the Member for Lon-
don ; but the experience of that period of time had made him
desirous of leaving well alone. The effect of innovation in
established institutions was dreadful. In France—( Cries of
" Question ")—the first act of the Convention was extending
the franchise to all who paid taxes. What was the conse-
quence ? Why, that the highest promise and most reckless
daring obtained the representation of the country, and that
ultimately the poissardes of Paris came to be the dictators of
all constituencies within their influence or reach.—( Cries of
" Question.)
Lord J. RUSSELL would now avow that he did not con-
ceive that by voting for the Reform Bill, or by bringing for-
ward that measure, he was obliged to refrain from voting
for the Ballot at any future time should he be of opinion that
the Ballot was really necessary to the good of the country.
He could only add, that when lie had brought forward the Re
form Bill he had then stated that he considered-the questions
of the Vote by Ballot, and that of the Duration of Parliament,
to be separate questions, upon which those who brought for-
ward the measure of Reform, or who supported that measure,
were at liberty to take subsequently any view that circum-
stances might render necessary. He had, however, at the
same time added, that, with respect to the Ballot, he hoped
that Parliament would for a long time pause before it ven-
tured to give to persons the right of exercising an irresponsible
power; for if it should ever introduce a system of secret
voting, in preventing the influence of the bad over the good,
it would likewise prevent the influence of the good over the
bad. His sentiments now were very little different from those
which he bad entertained then, and he could assure the House
that they had been very little shaken by anything that had
fallen from his Hon. and Learned Friend the Member for
Liskeard. His Hon. and Learned Friend had pointed out
his ideas of the method of carrying into effect the vote b:,
Ballot, but his Noble Friend the Member for Northumber-
land, in reply, had shown that secret voting would by no
means be secured by such machinery. The Noble Lord
had shown that after all such contrivances, still would land-
lords, and all who now exercised an influence at elections,
be able to find out how their tenants and dependants had
voted, and consequently they would be able to exert as
great an influence at all contested elections as they had
done under the previously-existing system of open voting.
His Hon. and Learned Friend had not, in his opinion, shows:
any sufficient grounds to induce the House to abandon the
old method of voting, and to adopt a system so new to the
Constitution of the country, and so contrary to all its long-