The Sun.
London, England, 1861-12-26 00:00:00

VOTE BY BALLOT.

A meeting has been held by the committee of the Ballot
Society, to hear from the Hon. S. L. Tilley, Chief Secre-
tary of New Brunswick, the reason why the practice of
voting by ballot was introduced into that colony, and an
account of its working.
Mr. TILLEY said that under the election law of New
Brunswick every man was entitled to a vote who was as-
sessed upon an income of £lOO a year, or who possessed
£lOO personal property, or £25 real property, and the MOSE-
ment roll constituted the list of voters. The register was
subject to revision every year. The arrangement in this
respect resulted in economy and accuracy. The committee
had put to him certain questions, before answering
which he thought it fair to say that some who voted
for the ballot originally were now opposed to it, though he
was not one of that number. He had been asked first why
the ballot was adopted in New Brunswick. His reply was
that it was adopted in order to procure to the voter greater
independence and a more general vote. With open voting
many persons abstained from voting from the desire not to
offend, or other causes. The next question put to him was
would the ballot prevent bribery and corruption, and secure
peace and order. His reply was that it would. Another
question was whether the ballot prevented a man's vote
being known. That would depend upon the man him-
self. Of course he could keep it a secret if he pleased.
Again, ho was asked if the ballot, according to his
experience of its working in New Brunswick, protected
the voter from persecution, violence, and oppression. It
did not necessarily do so. The law in New Brunswick was
in some respects imperfect as regarded the mode for casting
the ballot—that was, it was not a close or sealed ballot, as
in Australia. Next, as to whether it put a stop to bribery,
drinking, and treating? His answer to this was that it did not
do so entirely, and for the same reason that it was not a
secret ballot, but it diminished those evils to a great extent,
and it also put a stop in a great degree to noise, disturbance,
and disorder. The sixth question was, had it diminished
the expense of elections ? It certainly had. Seventh, was
the ballot a failure in the northern States of America ? He
thought not. Eighth, had it tended in any way to the
.present unfortunate state of affairs in the United States, or
conduced in any way to the breaking up of the Union
He should certainly say not in the remotest degree.
Ninth, he was asked, comparing his experience of open
voting with that of voting by ballot, did he recommend its
adoption by this country ? Certainly he did, and that
was after the experience they had had in New Bruns-
wick of one general election, and three or four years of
single elections since the act had come into operation.
Tenth, did more voters record their votes under it that
under the system of open voting ? Yes, undoubtedly; when
the ballot had failed to realise all that was expected of it, as
in some cases he admitted it had, it was attributable to the
fact that the voter had not been left alone by himself when
he went up to give his vote. To make the system perfect,
the elector should be alone when he went up to deposit his
voting paper.
In the course of a conversation, in which Mr. Elt, Mr.
Marsden, the Chairman, and Mr. Tilley, took part, the last
named gentleman added that another reason in favour of the
ballot was that it avoided the expense and inconvenience of

a scrutiny in the event of a disputed return. At first, when
it was adopted in New Brunswick, there were some instances
of personation ; but some five or six prosecutions, and the
placing of persons having local knowledge and who were
acquainted with the persons of the electors at the polling
booths, effectually guarded against this objection.
On the motion of Mr. E. Marsden, seconded by Mr. Elt,
a resoluqou was passed to the effect that " This committee
desires to express its conviction that the fact of our colonies
successively incorporating vote by ballot with their repre-
sentative institutions, and its successful working wherever
adopted, cannot fail to promote that growth and maturity
of public opinion by which, according to one of the leading
opponents of the measure, its adoption in this country must
be settled. The committee therefore congratulates the
friends of the ballot on the adoption and successful opera-
tion of that protection to the voter in the colony of Now
Brunswick; that this committee begs leave to tender its
hearty thanks to the Hon. S. L. Tilley for his attendance
here this evening, and for his clear and satisfactory account
of the working of the ballot in the colony of whose Legis-
lature and Government he is a distinguished member ;' '
-and, after a brief acknowledgment from Mr. Tilley, the
proceedings terminated.

THE suN.
LONDON, THURSDAY, DEC. 26, 1861.

American Cabinets are curiosities, or contain
them, beyond anything to be found on this side of
the water, and in our tame old Europe. Think of Mr.
GLADSTONE 'wishing to put his own views on some
most weighty point before the country, though he
knew them to be in direct opposition to those of
the Prime Minister and of a majority of the Cabinet
—think of his sending a copy of the speech he
intended to deliver in Parliament to all the news-
papers of England, to be set up ready for publish-
ing- the morning after he had made it—and this
with the knowledge that his Chief, and the rest of
his colleagues would compel him to omit the para-
graphs on which he laid m)st stress—think of our
Chancellor of the Exchequer thus contriving to put
both what he would like to propose, and what the
Cabinet compelled him to omit, before the whole
country, and it will be the exact counterpart of
what has just been done by Mr. CAMERON in re-
gard to the President and the rest of his Cabinet.
Mr. CAMERON is strongly in favour of vigorous
action, almost amounting to emancipation, in regard
to the slaves. He quotes the threats of the Southern
leaders against Northern property with which they
entered on the war, and which they wanted not the
will but the power to carry into effect. He argues
that they had, by making war on the Government,
justly forfeited all right to protection of their pro-
perty by the constitution against which they had
rebelled. He then adverts to the peculiarity of the
property of the South in the labour of Africans
and their descendants, and contends that, as the
Government cannot confiscate slave property by
selling it into fresh slavery, it must do so by using
the slaves liberated by war, in whatever way will
be most for the advantage of the war on their side.
What shall be done with the slave property after the
war he would leave time and circumstances to de-
cide—but regards it as plain that once liberated by
the rebellious act of their masters they could never
again be restored to bondage—the rights of loyal
slaveholders must unquestionably be secured—
we presume he means that they must be remunerated
for the loss of their slaves. He maintains that it is
idle to think of carrying on the war without avail-
ing themselves of all the resources at their command.
Ahis longatue argumentative demand the PRE-
v,
struck
out before to Congress the report was reported
, substituting a short paragraph on

what can best be done with the slaves whom the
army finds in the neighbourhood of Port Royal.
So the country has now before it the full views
of the Secretary for War, and of the Secretary's
master, to endorse which it pleases. Yet we hear
of no dismissal, or resignation, or anything of the
kind; master and servant agree to differ in the
face of the whole country—it being per-
haps understood that Mr. CAMERON writes what
he knows Mr. LINCOLN would prefer to write, and
Mr. LINCOLN, what he thinks his post requires
him to say. On the whole, things look rather
favourably towards abolition. The PRESIDENT
retains the services of the Minister who writes so
strongly—he permits a kind of Cabinet rebellion,
and an appeal from one of his servants to the sove-
reign people. Surely the probability is that he
thinks it in some way useful that such language
should go abroad from his Cabinet, though not
exactly from him. It is proclaiming to the South
the course which opinion is taking, and which,
therefore, he must soon follow. He may expect
that the language of Mr. CAMERON may be of
service in terrorem, and help to avert the necessity
of its being acted on. One thing is certain—the
fight on Abolition now pervades the Cabinet, the
Senate, the Representatives, and the whole country
—and that military necessity,if the war goes on,may
very soon compel opponents of emancipation to
yield to the demand.

The longer the case of the Trent is under discus-
sion the more completely does the English view of
it gain support. The French letter is evidence
enough of what, on looking at broad features,
an impartial judge must think; and precedents of
more or less perfect application have continued to
be dug up by the learned in such lore. Most of
these have been imperfect in some minor point,
though no candid person could doubt of their
general relevance. But one sent to a contemporary
by a correspondent who signs himself "D. C. L.,"
appears to " run on all fours so completely with
the case of the Trent that it is not easy to see what
an American can reply to it.
It should be observed that the Americans can
make out no case at all if they abide by their own
demands and precedents. At any time they would
have resented any outrage to their flag identical
with that offered by them in the case of the Trent,
and perhaps have gone to war for satisfaction. The
only plausible part of their case has been that we
should be inconsistent in claiming them after the
precedents set by our own Courts. In fact, the con-
tention has been of the singular character, that
each party might be answered from its own pre-
cedents ; we could show the Americans to be in-
consistent, and they could at least produce cases
which primafacie would make us appear inconsistent
in demanding restitution. We do not indeed allow for
a moment that any case yet has applied to what has
always seemed to us, as it does to the French
Government, the strong part of our case—the sail-
ing of the Trent between neutral ports—still they
made out a case plausible enough, if we should con-
descend to arbitration, to make a long affair of it.
But the case of the Hendric and Alinda, cited by
" D. C. L.," seems to be perfectly conclusive—and
conclusive a fortiori. It is a case which occasioned
so much discussion at the time that the wonder is
our civil lawyers did not remember it before, and it
is a case in which an English judge decided in
favour of the Americans, then at war with us. The
Dutch were at amity with us ; the Americans
at war with us ; the Dutch vessel, the Hendric
and Alinda, had on board not only warlike stores,
but five military officers who frankly confessed to
Lord MULGRAITE, that they held commissions in
the rebel army, issued by FRANKLIN and DEANE,

the Commissioners of the rebel provinces at Paris,
and that on their arrival at St. Eustatia, a Dutch
West point, they were to address themselves to cer-
tain agents of the American Congress, who wore to
forward them onwards to the rebel army. The
military character of the passengers was thus placed
beyond dispute, and their ultimate hostile destina-
tion was avowed by them, yet when this case was

taken before our Admiralty Court, the judge over-
ruled? all the pleas founded on the undoubted
destination of the ship's cargo and passengers,
on the broad ground that the ship was only
sailing between neutral ports, and that he could
not take cognisance of intentions. The proxi-
mate destination of the passengers was an innocent
destination, and they were set at liberty.

We are surely now entitled to tell the Americans
not only that the informality of taking contraband
of war out of a vessel prior to condemnation is an
intolerable outrage on the code indispensable to the
security of neutrals, but that the act itself was
illegal—that they could not be allowed to take
any thing whatever from, or to condemn before any
court, a vessel sailing from a neutral port to a neutral
port. We have now not only the judgment of
France, but we have the judgment of the very courts
to 'which the Americans rely against us—
our own Admiralty Courts. Americana have

"appealed unto C/ESAR, and to CiESAR they
shall go, " and CiRSAR'S clear judgment
is, we do not allow our own ships to seize vessels
notoriously and confessedly carrying arms and mi-
litary officers for a hostile power, but sailing proxi-
mately from one neutral port to another. We beg to
offer Messrs. EVERETT and SUMNER, Capt. WILKES
and the American Navy Board, with the House of
Representatives, the case of the Hendrio and the
Alinda with the compliments of the season.

Mr. THWAITES has thrown out certain sugges-
tions of his own in regard to the supplementary
scheme of constructing a Southern as well as a
Northern Embankment on the river Thames. He
entitles these notions of his, simply " Points for the
Consideration of the Thames Embankment Com-
mission in reference to the Embankment of the
South Side, by J. THWAITES, Chairman of the
Metropolitan Board of Works." He ranges these
" Points" under Four Heads, and expresses his
opinion upon each with perfect lucidity and dis-
tinctness. Anything that Mr. THWAITES might
think it reasonable to suggest upon a matter of
such vital importance to the well-being of one half
of the metropolis would at all times be attentively
listened to. When, however, it is already borne in
mind that—as matters now stand—we are defini-
tively committed to the project of a Northern Em-
bankment, it may be readily understood that Mr.
TIIWAITES' views as to the advisability of a Southern
Embankment are secure, indeed, of an attentive
audience, of an audience not only willing but eager
to hear what a man in his position and with kis
experience can possibly suggest under the circum-
stances.

Taking for granted as proven the necessity
s agu
ef for r
ata
Southern Embankment, Mr. THWAITE
the outset of his remarks that it might still be ad-
vantageous to consider at starting the principal
reasons capable of being adduced in behalf of such
an undertaking.. And foremost among these reasons
he very naturally considers thG increased need there
will quite obviously be for such an embankment,
in consequence of the transformation of the whole
existing state of things along the entire length of
the river where it bisects the metropolis, because
simply of the construction of the embankment
upon the north side. In particularising this
paramount reason, however, for a Southern

' embankment, Mr." TUWAITES only specifies, so
to speak, one view of it. As thus :—" The
plan already reported on," he writes, " for the
northern side demands the removal of very large
quantities of deposit from the shoals in the river,
/many of which immediately adjoin the southern
shore ; this operation will have a great tendency to
cause a constant settlement towards the deepened
portion of the river's bed, and consequent injury to
the piling, wharf walling, and other defences on
that side; some of these are already old and decayed,
or were originally but imperfectly adapted to their
situation, and hence we may conclude that it will
be necessary to provide a solid wharf wall along all
that part of the southern shore which fronts the
embankment previously recommended." In arguing
thus, Mr. THWAITES only maintains the need there
will be for something or other in the way of a
southern embankment for simple safety's sake,
A great deal might, however, besides this,
be appended to his remarks just quoted,
insisting upon the necessity for a southern em-
bankment, by reason of the mere look of things,
along the Silent Highway of the Metropolis, sup-
posing the Thames were to be embanked upon the
north, and to be left in its present squalid
and dilapidated, and disgraceful condition along
the south, In such a contingency, the mere con-
trast of this side and that would be something
frightful to think of. The river in its present pligLt
is bad enough. It is, to all intents and purposes,
the back entrance to the capital. It is almost the
last rcute by which a Londoner would dream of
introducing a foreigner to the world-famous twin
cities of London and Westminster. In effecthe would
only dream of doing anything of the kind upon one
supposition namely, that the old ramshackle
wharves and filthy mud banks and loathsome
sewer entrances were hidden from view by a dense
London fog. He might be proud enough, this loyal
Londoner, to direct the stranger's attention to our
magnificent bridges, to the noble river front of
Somerset House, to the gloriously beautiful façade
of the new Palace at Westminster, and previously—
oia coming up the river from among the shipping
in the Pool—to the ancient Towers of Julius and
the noble dome of St. Paul's Cathedral looming
over the housetops among the clustering
steeples and church towers of the metro-
polis. But the intermediate portion of the
river bank between the Castom House and Somerset
House, between Somerset House and the New
Palace at Westminster—well, all that the loyal
Londoner would naturally enough like to have care-
fully veiled from the sight of the observant
foreigner ! The Adelphi Terrace, in point of fact,
being the only range of dwelling-houses along the
whole line of the north bank really in any way at
all worth looking at. The entire of the southern
side of the river, from opposite the Tower of London
up to the Archbishop of CANTERBURY'S Palace at
Lambeth,beinguninterruptedlyhideons—with every
kind and form of river side hideousness. Embank
the Thames upon the north side exclusively, there-
fore, beautify the northern bank alone, leaving the
southern bank exactly as it is, and you will not only
render it unsafe in the manner explained by Mr.
TUWAITES, but you would effectually bring out to
view, with more than ever painful vividness, all
the squalor, filth, and ugliness, for which it is already
quite lamentably enough remarkable.
But Mr. THWAITES has not by any means done
yet with the necessity he recognises there will be
for a Southern Embankment of the river by reason
of the construction of the projected northern embank-
ment. " There is another urgent reason," he says,
"for a southern embankment, which must exercise a
considerable influence on the framing of any
scheme for that side, viz., its liability to con-
stant injury from flooding. The extent of this
evil ; its heavy pressure on the large labouring
population of the parishes adjoining the river ;
the misery, sickness, and death produced by its
periodical occurrence, with the consequent heavy
charges on the rates, can only be thoroughly
appreciated by those who have themselves wit-
nessed its effects." He then considers, in a few
suggestive words, how this inevitable increase of
the already existing liability of the inhabitants
of London along the southern bank of the river
to endure the miseries of this uncertain
and destructive flooding may be the most
effectually obviated. " Obviously," he writes, "to
carry out thoroughly any effective remedy the
future embankment must be of sufficient height to
be above the reach of the highest tide, viz., 16
feet above Ordnance datum, and it should be, at
least, conterminous with the thickly-inhabited
portion of London beyond the Thames. Its pre-
cise limits will depend upon the evidence here-
after to be laid before the commission, but the ter-
mination of the embankment already carried out
by her MAJESTY'S office of works in connection
with Battersea-park and bridge might form a con-
venient commencement on the western side. Some
difference of opinion will probably exist as to
its extent eastwards, but it must be remem-
bered that London-bridge forms neither a moral
nor material limit of the metropolitan area; the
inhabitants of Bermondsey and Rotherhithe suffer
equally from floods with those of Lambeth and St.
Saviour's, and are equally contributory to metro-
politan burdens." Having considered these two
conspieuous Points—first of all, the weakening of
the southern banks by the exclusive construction of
a Northern Embankment; and secondly, the cer-
tainty there would be through an obdu-
rate persistence in that one-sided course
of improvement (?) of multiplying for the
Surrey side population the dangers of flooding—
Mr. TUWAITES throws out his suggestions upon two
other points, points these, in effect, of the
most vital importance to the wellbeing
of the whole scheme of any embank-
ment at all. The former of these two points
relates to a matter we ourselves have very fre-
quently before now taken into consideration—
namely, the improvement of the means of communi-
cation between the east and west of the metropolis,
between London and Westminster, or in other
words between Bermondsey and Lambeth. Enough,
however, for our present purpose if we subjoin ono

pithy suggestion of Mr. TEIWAITES, thrown out at

;be close of his examination in reference to the last

and, in one sense, no doubt, the first of all the vari-
ous details of the subject, i.e., the financial branch
of it. Beyond any question, it is a matter
surrounded at the present moment upon all sides
with very considerable difficulties. "It is clear,"
writes Mr. TUWAITES, with unwelcome but whole-

some distinctness, " that the revenues ascribed by

Parliament to the construction of a northern em-

bankment will fall short of what will be required
for the project shadowed forth in the preceding re-
marks, even should the present coal dues be ex-

tended from ten to twenty years. It is equally
clear," he adds, " that no local source of income can
be looked for to supply the deficiency, and fore-
gone experience would point to the inevitable con-
clusion that imperial as may be the character of any
scheme for improving the great highway of our
commercial capital, no help is to be expected from
the Imperial Exchequer." Yet, argues Mr.
TIIWAITES forthwith very seriously, and, we must
add, perforce,very reasonably—"To propound a com-
plete plan for the amelioration of both banks of our