The Sun.
London, England, 1832-08-18 00:00:00

he must have doffed the regal purple, and in the
retirement of the cloister have preferred the
glory of the Saint to the honours of the King,
by embroidering petticoats fiat. the Virgin.—
The Duke,- however, did not raise his voice
against the "military means," most treacherously
and basely used by the Bourbons to over-
turn the constitutional system in Spain, con-
trary to the repeated professions of peaceful
intentions made by Louis XVIII., while he was
collecting the invading army on the Spanish
frontier, under the pretence of establishing a
cordon sanitaire against the yellow fever. Nor
are the despots of the Holy Alliance at. the
present day; whom the Duke so much admires,
and to whom our Whig Government have so
meanly truckled, less lavish of pacific profes-
sions, or less ready to take advantage of our cre-
dulity in silently arranging all the terrible ele-
ments of war. When we speak of the Spanish
estates of the Duke, we should mention that
his Grace has a grant of land in the neighbour-
hood of Xeres, which is expected in course of
time to make him one of the greatest growers of
sherry wine in Spain. He is therefore not al-
together a disinterested spectator of the political
events of the Spanish peninsula, though we
think his love of despotic rule is sufficient of it-
self to account for his predilections in favour of
Don Miguel, just as it led him to become the
vindicator, and almost the panegyrist, of the fe-
rocious tyrant Nicholas, in his violation of the
treaty of Vienna, and his infamous conduct to-
wards Poland. The Russian-Dutch loan job
met his approbation, because it served the in-
terests of a despot ; but even " military means "
are reprobated when they are on the side of con-
stitutional liberty.—Morning Herald.
Much has been said about the indifference of
electors to the franchise, from their supposed
unwillingness to pay the trifling sum of one
shilling for registration. A miracle very often
ceases to be a miracle when closely inquired into.
It did certainly appear miraculous that the same
Englishmen who had made up their minds to
strange things during the ten days, should, on
obtaining the object of their desires, become in-
stantly indifferent to its value. Some said, Eng-
lishmen had become so base and sordid that
they exclaimed, why should we pay a shilling to
be allowed to vote ?—what shall we get by it ?
Mr. Cobbett, on the other hand, supposes that
the hatred of opposition inherent in English-
men leads them to show their sense of this im-
position of a shilling in a way not very compli-
mentary to their understandings.
" This shilling (he says in the Register of this day),

whatever Lord Althorp may think of the matter, will be
a complete block-up in nine cases out of ten. He s•iys
'that men can set very little value on their franchise,
if they will not give a shilling for it.' That is not the
thing, my Honest Lord. Men think a great deal of the
franchise; but men also think a great deal of an imposi-
tion ; and they regard this as one of the most impudent
impositions that ever was thought of; one of the most
barefaced, one of the most villanous impositions ever prac-
tised upon a people. The freeholders have to pay this shil-
ling as well as others; and they regard it as a downright
robbery, and ask, ' Who is to pocket the money ?' Ido
not say that the Ministers intended this as an obstacle ;
but I know that it is one, and a most effectual one, too;
and that it was their duty to remove it as soon as it was
discovered."
According to this last supposition, the dee-
' tors will subject themselves to the monstrous
imposition of Tory representatives, rather than
submit to the imposition' of a shil-
ling. This would be straining at gnats and
swallowing camels with a vengeance. An able
and intelligent correspondent, who has excellent
opportunities of knowing what passes in the
minds of the middle classes throughout the
country, has, we believe, furnished us with the
true solution of the difficulty. The electors, he
says, are not indifferent—it is not the shilling
they regard ; but they gladly avail themselves of
the pretext of indifference, to avoid the necessity
of giving a vote which may prove injurious to
their interests. The man who cultivates the land
of another man, has, from the beginning of the
world, been, and always will be, a slave. The
farmers are afraid of their landlords; they do
not want to be obliged to choose between voting
conscientiously, at the hazard of incurring their
landlord's displeasure, and voting for their land-
lords against their consciences. The freeholders,
though more independent, imitate this example.
The voters in towns know that whichever way
they vote they will displease, and consequently
lose some customers, and they also, in many
cases, would gladly avoid being qualified.
Our correspondent says, that he was himself
upon a wrong scent, as well as the London
newspapers, and inveighed loudly against the
indifference of the electors ; but that he
quickly discovered his mistake, The interest of
the members of a community is the interest of
the community, It is by no means a recommen-
dation of any plan that it calls upon individuals
to sacrifice their own interests to the good of
the public—that is, to an abstraction—the public
being merely the individuals called on to make

the sacrifice. Why must the duty of individuals
be placed at variance with their interests ? Why
must a man be taught that he can only save his
country by sacrificing the interests of his wife
and children, for whose sake principally that
country is dear to him ? The ballot is no longer
a problem to be solved. The man who pretends
that all these eleetorz ought to subject themselves
to dread and uneasiness, or offer violence to their
consciences, because it flatters the importance of
certain rich men to control the suffrages of the
people, is not to be reasoned with. We agree
with our intelligent Correspondent, that the
ballot must be made a condition sine qua non.
It is monstrous to think. that the men best qua-
lified, from their intelligence and habits ie.
- -r
t~~us~ stiffer
in their triterests from the conscien-
tious exercise of their right, The ballot is the
easy and obvious way of solving the difficulty.
Without the ballot, society must be kept in a
constant state of feud, The tenantry and free-
holders in the country, and the tradesmen
in town, must band themselves in self-de-

fence, to punish all who seek to annoy them
on account of their votes. This, however, is a
clumsy mode of proceeding ; for the bad passions,
when caile4 into play, tend strongly to perpetuate
themselves. A Ccotch Paper ( The Caledonian
Mercury) stated, the othlzr day, that intimida-
tion had been carried so far in Scotland, that

electors must resort to strong measures of reta-
liation. The Ballot puts at once an end to all
this strife. When a candidate knows that he
must remain in ignorance of those who vote

both for and against him, he resigns himself
quietly to 'the result. But it is ano-
ther affair when he knows who voted

for and who voted against him. He buoys him-
self up with the hope that such and such per-
sons will vote for him, and entertaining this ex-
pectation, to say that he will feel no irritation
against those who disappointed him, is to sup-
pose him more than human, We never doubted
that the necessity of the Ballot would soon force
itself on the electors called to the suffrage under
the Refbrm Bill, They are of the very class