The Sun.
London, England, 1859-03-10 00:00:00

Mr. BERKELEY, on the committal of Mr. CROSS'S
bill to-night fOr amending the proceedings in
regard to municipal elections, will move that the
votes in such elections be taken in future by the
Ballot. Mr. CRoss proposes to make the punish-
ment for personation severe, though not at all more
severe than it ought to be, namely, imprisonment
for three months. For bribery and treating he
proposes to inflict a penalty of forty shillings,
coupled with the disgrace of municipal disfranchise-
ment for the two', next elections—that is, for the
space of six years. • For the new Parliamentary
crime of " undue influence" he proposes HO punish-
ment whatever; and he is wise. With the failure
of the Corrupt. Practices at Elections Act before
him, it were, useless -to attempt to create a
similar crime in regard to municipal elections. The
crime exists indeed, and abounds. lArehave seen
ourselves the workmen of some large iron works
driven to the municipal poll, just as tenants-at-
will are driven to the county poll. But who can
define or prove the crime ? "Cne case was attempted
under the Elections' Act referred to, nor could there
be the slightest doubt that very " undue influence"
was used, butit was found impossible to obtain
legal evidence of it. Thus Mr. CROSS resorts only
to modifications of the old punishments for two
classes of offenders at municipal elections, both of
them not easy to convict. But the worst—the
most cruel—class he leaves luxuriating in
their unfeeling tyranny, probably because
he knows that no law can touch them. Bribery
is bad enough, but there is a touch of good
fellowship frequently in • it. The perverted voter
gets something for selling his soul, or his vote at
least, to hie corrupter; generally speaking, how-
ever, he has not sense of honour and duty enough
to care whether he votes for A or for B. It is just
the intimidated class which deserves, and which
ought to have the protection of secrecy; while the
bribe-taker would, by the same agency, have his
sentiments gradually refined and elevated.

We hope, therefore, Mr. Cross will accept Mr.
BERKELEY'S. amendment. If he really cares for
honesty, economy, and quiet in municipal elections,
he will .do so Mr. BERKELEY will he at no loss
to show that the Ballot would greatly improve the
character of municipal elections, and would pre_
vent a great deal of canvassing, bribery, intimida-
tion, disturbance, heartburning, drunkenness, and

expense. He can point to our kinsmen—our
recent countrymen, so many of them—at the
antipodes, and show that so successful was the
Ballot in all these respects, when applied to
,Par-
liamentary elections there, that it was applied with
hardly any opposition to the municipal elections
also. The lower the franchise, confessedly the
greater the need for the Ballot ; the more the
natural honesty and intelligence of the dependent
classes are appealed to, the more important is it
that their independence, as electors, should be se-
cured. Better by far not expose them to
the cruelty of the intimidator, or the
corruption of the briber, than bestow on
them the nominal privilege, but the real
hardship or temptation, of an unprotected vote.
We thoroughly approve the principle of giving all
who directly or indirectly pay rates in a borough
a voice in the civic management ; but because we
do so, we ask that it may be a real voice. The
education of municipal self-government is an ad-
mirable thing, but it must not be perverted into the
means of education in crime ; it is so now to a large
extent, and it will be so until an effective Ballot is
provided. Happily this is especially easy in the
case of municipal elections. The law requires that
the votes be given on voting papers. Nothing
seems to be needed but provision for marking off
the rejected names secretly at the polling booth,
and placing them, when folded, or put into an en-
velope (the plan we prefer) in the ballot box. We
shall rejoice if the House of Commons has the fair-
ness and good sense not to take fright at their
obvious duty.

Meeting after meeting is now attesting the fact
that the country does care about a substantial
reform. When a speaker with the powers of Mr.
BRIGHT for interesting any audience is. present,
it is always easy to represent the people as
gathered together solely to hear the man, and as
indifferent to the object. Crowds flock they say to
hearthe man who commands attention in the House
of Commons, because we all like a brilliant speech,
as we do a well-acted play. But the excitement is
getting now far beyond this. At the large,
crowded, and enthusiastic meeting at Norwich,
which we reported yesterday, there were only the
borough members and local speakers present; yet
here was one of our largest old cathedral cities all
on fire, and all classes of Liberals unitedly loud
and earnest in the announcement that they would
have a thoroughgoing Reform Bill, Mr. TILLETT,
a well-known local gentleman, moved—" That the
great anomaly exhibtcd in the present representa-
tive system is the almost entire exclusion of the
industrial population from electoral power, and
that no measure will be acceptable to the people
which does not to a large extent remedy that
grievance and injustice; and this meeting declares
that, inasmuch as large numbers of electors are
dependent upon others, the real sentiments of the
community cannot be ascertained without the Ballot ;
and further, that to realise the true theOry of
representation constituents should have voices in
Parliament corresponding with their population
and importance ;" and added, he" Mr. Chairman, I
humbly conceive that that is the sum and sub-
stance of the whole matter," a remark which
was loudly cheered. And this resolution of the
great Norwich meeting is the one which, in one
form or another, is passed at every meeting,
whether it be a preparatory meeting or a large
public one. The only variation seems to be,
as at Newcastle, Lancaster, and elsewhere, a
demand for what used to be called univer-
sal suffrage, but is now a little uncouthly,
and not at all more clearly, designated by the odd
epithet, Manhood Suffrage.
At this meeting, too, the most active and influ-
ential persons present were, what Mr. HATTER
would politely term more advanced Reformers ;
gentlemen who, like us, were so heartily sick of
Old Whiggism, that they preferred to support, as
far as their measures made it consistent to do so, a
Conservative Government against any merely party
movement of the Opposition. Neither they, nor
we, however, can stand by a Ministry in bringing
forward a Bill which all Liberals must reject.
Never had men a fairer chance. PALMERSTON, as
a Reformer, is spurned by the House and the
country. Lord JOHN had annoyed his natural
supporters, almost beyond endurance, by his course
on Church-rates and the Ballot—two points which
have become, whatever may be thought of their
intrinsic merits, the test of popular Reformers—
and had Lord DERBY but had the ordinary saga-
city to have accepted these—to have accepted
them, as he did a Jew' Bill—on the ground that ,
they must be ultimately conceded, and, therefore,
better conceded at once—he might have secured a
second reading for his Reform Bill, though he had
given but little besides. He and Mr. DISRAELI
have lost an opportunity which may not again
recur for a long time to come, if ever. They have
failed to show confidence in any class but
landlords. Had they but said, by the one
magic word, to the tenants of these land-
lords—" gentlemen, vote as you please," nothing
could have prevented the old enthusiastic
demand of 1832, "The bill, the whole bill, and nothing
but the bill." We want, in fact, no -Reform Bill
compared with a bill for the entire enfranchisement
of the present electors. Lord DERBY has raised by
his omissions, the opposite cry—" Anything but the
Bill."

The two members for the old city, Mr. SCHNEIDER
and Lord BURY were, as our readers htive seen,
confident, one, that the bill would be thrown out by
a union of all Liberals—Russellites, Palmerstonians,
and Brightites—by a majority of 150; the latter,
that it would not come to a second reading, but
that the Cabinet would crumble away of itself be-
fore the 21st of March ! 'That all Liberals who
wish to keep their seats must refuse such a
bill is certain. Lord DERBY ought never to
have put his numerous Liberal friends to such
a test. A bill which disfranchises as many
county voters, probably, as it proposes to create,
which only dishes up afresh Lord JOHN'S old
fancy franchises, and which entirely omits a
Schedule A and the Ballot—how can any Liberal
accept it even as an instalment P

.d 0

Lori iverstone has
Augustus Longhurst, 31. A.
Northamptonshire.
Lord Braybrooke has
of Cuddesdo
Sturges, M.A., incumbent of Knowle-hill, presented the Rev. Alfred
prethseenvticaearatgheeoßf Fevot.hserinamguaeyl,
e of
Wargravo,
Berkshire,
Maiden-
oviacparapogintment of the R. . Swinny,
Maiden-
head, "to the
vacant il:r,l rendered
ed the
M.A., to the Principalship
n Theological
College.
The Lords of the Treasury have appoint
Judge Advocate (the Right Hon. Mr. Mowbray) and Mr
Robert Bayley Follett to be the Commissioners under the
Probate Acts for deciding the claims for compensation made
by clerical surrogates.
The marriage of Major Thellusson, Coldstream
Guards, with Miss Henrietta Wentworth, daughter of Mr.
and Lady Augusta Wentworth; was solemnised yesterday,
at St. George's Church, Hanover-square, in the presence of
the following relatives and friends :—Mr. and Lady Augusta
Wentworth, Miss Wentworth, the Misses Thellussen,
Marquis of Ailesbury, Marquis and Marchioness of Clan-
ricarde, Maria Marchioness of Ailesbury, Countess of Ash-
burnham and Lady Katherine Ashbtunham Lord Ernest
Bruce, Sir Wiliam and Lady Georgians Codrington, Lady
Margaret Beaumont, lion. Miss Blake, Mr. and Hon. Mrs.

,ose, Hon. Colonel i3yng, &c.
Yesterday (Wednesday) Captain Pollard, a g9n-
?inan well known in the mercantile marine service at

Liverpool, was appointed commander and superintendent
of the training-ship Conway, recently presented by the
-Government to the Liverpool Marine Service Association,
and now stationed in the Mersey.

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THE SUN.
THURSDAY. MARCH 10, 1859.