The Sun.
London, England, 1832-12-29 00:00:00

i'IRIT OF THE PUBLIC .FOURNA

Were the interest excited by the ballot ques-
tion to be judged from the number and charac-
ter of the communications which we haie re-
ceived upon it, no other subject would seem to
occupy public attention at this moment. The
letters of our correspondents are pro and con.
It is undoubtedly our own fear that by no dex-
terity of contrivance could the ballot he made
aught else than a « cover for insincerity anti de-
ception "ann", I
a destroyer
is
estr:,ei observedylerof,, by ,
confidence
h
J.," that it would be impossible to frame a
clause which should prevent an elector from
showing how he voted ; and if the power of
offering such proof existed in a tenant. voter, it
is pretty clear that the landlord desirous of
coercing him would insist that it should be
given. Again, suppose the apparatus for con-
cealment perfect, and safe from all human in-
quisition, one candidate receives 500 promises,
another but 250, when lo ! on casting up the
numbers, it is found that the parties have just
changed places, the majority of promises being
converted into the minority of votes. Now, let
us ask any honest Englishman is that a result
which he would wish to follow from the ballot ?
Would it not disgust any man of honour or
principle with the whole representative system,
and induce him to withdraw from public life,
if he found a considerable discrepancy be-
tween the amount of assurances given him
and of actual suffrages ? Yet is the effect
inevitable, provided that absolute secrecy can
be insured. The temptation to tell a profitable
falsehood, where detection and punishment were
alike prevented, would be too powerful for the
average virtue of ordinary men. Candidates,
at a loss to fix upon the traitors, would feel
equal suspicion of every individual among their
constituents; all faith in words of honour and
cordial reliance on friendly demonstrations would
be for ever_banished. The first growth and fruit
of such a system would be the mournful excla-
mation—" Alas! whom can we trust?" If, on
the other hand, there should appear to be no
serious lapse of the fulfilment in the pledges re-
gistered by each candidate, but a fair equivalence
on the part of the voters of deed with word, of
vote with promise,—why, then we might say
that such a state of things was not one which
called immediately for any unexampled or violent
alteration, being, in fact, precisely what exists
at the present hour without the instrumentality
of the ballot. It has been alleged, and by
a respectable and able correspondent, that
the proceedings at many of the late elections are
calculated to make proselytes, on behalf of the
ballot, of those who had hitherto opposed it.
Such is not our belief. Great national ques-
tions ought to be determined upon general
grounds. It is not a partial mischief that
would justify the overthrow of our entire course
of election proceeding in Great Britain ; and
can the mischief produced by a tyrannical inter-
ference of landlords, or other powerful agents,
(luring this contest, be regarded as other than
partial—nay, inconsiderable, when compared
with the result of the late elections as a whole ?
—when we see that the list of Conservative
Members whose returns have been more or less
promoted by the coercive means complained of;
does not contain at the highest above one-fifth of
the gross amount of the House of Commons !
To defeat altogether the employment of the in-
fluence derived from property, or indeed the
tbuse of it, in election contests, we conceive to
be nearly impossible. That the power of pro-
perty over the free agency of electors has been
much enhanced by the tenant-franchise in
counties, and far more than in boroughs, is be-
yond dispute ; but the more we reflect upon it,
the more apprehensive we are that the remedy—
if a remedy be called for--cannot be afforded by
the ballot. There is yet a further source of
compulsion, more fierce and unrelenting, and a
thousand times more dangerous, than that of the
most arbitrary landlords.—namely, the truculent
and frightful despotism Wielded over the indus.
rious classes of town voters, by clubs and politi-
cal unions, and such like pestilential confedera-
cies. Landlords are separated from each other
by distance, or by diversity of political or personal
feeling. Each acts but upon a very minute por-
tion of the constituency,---viz., that which oc-
cupies his own estate, and is in no combination
with other proprietors for any wide-spreading
object. But the club, or union tyranny, is a
condensed and wholesale power. It acts through
means which are irresistible by individuals, and in
so small degree formidable to the state. Per-
! sonal violence is not often resorted to by your
clubs, for the breaking in of sturdy elec-
mptoearrkss,eindgebde c
ea
by
yis
set
ea
nni it
et ishe u
snuti
pihepecoe r
tssaabr
moralyl
e,
tbherion ugg
outrageh s uoa-f
multitude of social persecutions. There is no
form of punishment more painful than that
which large bodies of active and overbearing par-
tisans, leagued together for a common purpose,
and backed by a thoughtless and brutal rabble,
have it in their power to inflict upon indivi-
duals of their own class,
ea not
vcd dnu wtnwrityteeh,ar. F
ipnaontndl
esi their
whichort
wother
owntown
vicinage, who have spirit enough to hold out
against their projects. Abuse, and ridicule, the
most malignant slanders, refusals to deal with
them, sending them
inwhich it would be endless
to enumerate,c iap
to
andmodesvexation
on
voters, indeed, among those orders of the com-
munity which furnish the busybodies of clubs
and unions, can muster up strength of mind
enough to withstand them. Here, then, is a
field for the ballot to exhibit in, if the ballot be
really what it pretends—a security to timid and
unprotected voters. Here we should hail its
introduction, if any where, ass mighty consti-
tutional blessing, could it only accomplish one-
tenth of what its advocates promise us, in the
shape of concealment and protection. Look at
the state of Ireland. Plant the ballot there,
and none can doubt the instantaneous dissolu-
tion of that unnatural tyranny, which
exposes
every honest man in Ireland to be massacred, if
he dare to exercise the clearestright,
political or
personal, according to his own free choice. In
Ireland we should be among the loudest in call-
ing for the ballot did we hope that it would be
a protection. But it is chimerical to entertain
such hopes. Although an enemy may not at
first ascertain the intentions of a voter, his
family and friends will be sure to get possession of
them ; and how long in this country is a fact on
its passage from friends to enemies ? Upon the
whole, we cannot divest ourselves of the persua-
sion that the greater part of this noise about the
ballot is tantamount to so much positive hum-
bug. We suspect strongly that
it would leave
things just where it found them,—quoad the
risk from intimidation to voters not entirely in.
dependent. But that if it did execute its own
threats, the secrecy obtained from it would serve
only the unprincipled, while it would be disc