The Sun.
London, England, 1859-12-09 00:00:00

WE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 9, 1859,

terms, or ine of our opponents ? The country
replied—yours. It seems, therefore, but fair to
support them, if they give the country what the
country accepted lay the majority it gave them.
It cannot be denied that this reasoning is plausi-
ble. To a considerable extent it is just: The cowl-
! try could have demanded more at the election, and
if it has not done so; it seems unfair to ask more
than was offered and accepted. So reasoned Mr.
I3nimrr, and so apparently the meeting generally
reasoned with him. The resolutions, however, went
much further. They fully maintained the old prin-
ciples of the society, and affirmed that any of these
half-hearted compromises could never be regarded
as a settlement by the country. In a great part of
the speaking it was also strenuously asserted that
the Ballot was an essential of any Reform Bill worth
having, and that suffrage extension without it was
but extension of temptations to corruption, and of
electoral bondage rather than of electoral freedom.
What we gathered from the meeting was, that those
most likely to know the counsels of Government ex-
pected no more than the extension of suffrage above
mentioned—that they thought such an extension
would give them a better footing for the advocacy
of the Ballot and other reforms ; that Ministers
must be confessed to be honest if they per-
formed what they had promised; and, that if they
did so, all Liberals ought to give their support to
the confessedly very defective Reform Bill, regard-
ing it as the instrument of obtaining something
better. As we have decidedly advocated not ac-
cepting less than this at the hands of Lord DERBY,
although we certainly think Whigs ought to do
much more, we shall not be amongst the opponents
of any instalment of Reform.
But we have, nevertheless, reason for heavy com-
plaint. For £2 we shall have turned out a Govern-
ment which would have carried its bill through the
House of Lords. The Tories, when pronounced
unworthy of confidence, offered us an £B-franchise
in boroughs; Lord JOHN and the Whigs say £6.
Very likely the Tories—Mr. HENLEY and Mr. WAL-
' POLE almost certainly—would have accepted the £6
too. At best, however, we have changed a Govern-
ment, with so many advantages for carrying a bill,
for one at the mercy of the Lords, for £2 per vote.
Was this worth while ? But the meeting at the
Whittington Club was the supplement of the day's
work. That meeting declared plainly and broadly
that the Whigs were bound to give us something
for which it was worth while to change Admini-
strations. The Whigs, it was justly held, were
bound to do something better than make a higgling
advance of 40s. on a Tory offer, to which advance
Tories were probably willing enough to come up—
and what should that advance be ? What, when
three-fourths, or two-thirds at least, of the Liberal
party are pledged to the Ballot P What, when the
want of the Ballot has deprived the counties :of
their liberal element almost entirely, and converted
our yeomanry into political serfs of the landlords ?
There was not, nor could there be, more than one
answer to that question. The Ballot is the grand
point with every sincere Reformer. And Colonel
THOMPSON, in a speech worthy of his best days, and
Mr. WHITEHURST, and Mr. GEORGE THOMPSON, in
eloquent and earnest speeches, demanded from the
Whigs this first element of electoral independence.
The Whig leaders, we think, are wrong, politi-
cally as well as morally wrong. They must rule
by the help of the Tories, or by the strength of the
people. They are now seeking to maintain their posi-
tion by the aid of both Whig and Tory combinations.
We hope they will find themselves mistaken. We
should like a Reform Bill this year, but we should
much better like to see a liberal Ministry which re-
fused the Ballot kicked out of office. Theywould richly
deserve it. 'Wakefield, Gloucester, Norwich, are sam-
ples of some hundred more boroughs like them,
which, though not indicted, imperatively demand
the Ballot. The political Zahara of the coun-
ties imperatively demands it, to call forth some-
thing like life—where the Ballot would be like
an irrigation of liberty on arid plains; and the
majority of Liberal representatives in Parlia-
ment equally demand it. The Corrupt Praetices
Prevention Act—declared by Sir A. HATTER him-
self to be a dead letter, expires this year, and if
the Ballot be not offered in its place, we heartily
wish the Whig Ministry an ignominious exit from
office: We are therefore pleased to see that the
Ballot Society, having laboured long and actively
in the country towns, has resolved to open a cam-
paign of public meetings in the metropolis. We
have, it is true, but one anti-Ballot member, Lord
JOHN RUSSELL ; but we ought to give our moral
support to the most important of all reforms, and
we ought especially to make the City too hot for
Lord JOHN RUSSELL if he persevere in refusing the
universal demand for the Ballot.