The Sun.
London, England, 1859-02-17 00:00:00

VOTE BY BALLOT.

Yesterday evening the Parliamentary and other
members of the Society for the Promotion of the
Adoption of Vote by Ballot had a public dinner at
the Albion Tavern, Aldersgate-street. The attend-
ance of the Parliamentary members of the society
was by no means so numerous as the public had
been led to anticipate from the advertised announce-
ments of the festival, and not more than 120 gentle-
men in all sat down to the banquet. The Hon. H.
F. Berkeley, M.P., presided, and there were also
present—Mr. Wyld, M.P., Mr. Nicoll, M.P., Sir
I. V. Shelley, M.P., Mr. J. Locke, M.P. Mr.
White, M.P., Gen. Thompson, M.P., Mr. Cox, M.P.,
Admiral Sir C. Napier, M.P.,, Sir J. Lillie' Mr. S.
M. Greer, M.P., Col. Sykes, M.P., Mr. Ayrton,
M.P., Mr. Sergeant Gaselee, Mr. Sergeant *Wool-
rych, with gentlemen from Manchester, Birming-
ham, Glasgow, Nottingham, &c. The dinner was
excellent and most admirabiy served, and, the cus-
tomary musical accessories being dispensed with,
the business of the evening in the way of speaking
commenced immediately grace was said and the
cloth removed.

The usual loyal toasts having been given and
duly responded to the Chairman gave " the Army
and Navy.
Gen. THOMPSON. M.P., returned thanks for the
forme4ranch of the service, and after alluding to
a great variety of general topics, concluded by ex.-
pressing his opinion that the country was in a most
defencless condition, and that there were £12,000,000
in the Bank almost unprotected, and calling atten-
tion to what prize money that sum would give
among the first 100,000 mom who could seize it.
Sir C. NAPIER, in responding for the Navy, took
an almost equally gloomy view of the condition
of the country, asserting that there was nothing
to prevent an invasion of England. The French,
he said, possessed 180 steam vessels in their com-
mercial marine, and at least 150 steamers in their
navy. England, it was true, possessed many more
than this; but what was there to prevent the Em-
peror of the French from laying an embargo on all
the vessels in his ports, using them as transports
for his troops, and in a fortnight from such a time
all his fleet might anchor in the Portland Roads.
It was very well for people to say such things could
not be done, but he was a warrior whose life had
been passed in conflicts, and he knew what could be
done, and he was sure the country was not at pre-
sent secure, as regarded the national defences, from
an invasion. The Emperor of the French had 20
sail of the line which he could man, while England
had only five sail of the line at Cork. This, he
thought, was not a safe state for this country to be in.
Letters of regret that prior engagements pre-
vented their attendance were then read from Lords
Stanley and Durham, while the letters which were
also read from Sir B. Hall, Mr. Villiers, M.P., Mr.
M. Gibson, M.P., and Mr. S. Crawford, not only
expressed their regret at non-attendance, but their
cordial good wishes on behalf of the cause of the
ballot. The following letter was also read from
Mr. Bright amid much applause :

"Rochdale, Feb, 15, 1859.
"My dear am very sorry that I am not able to be
in town this week, and that I cannot be present at your
meeting to-morrow, to show how much I unite with you
and our other friends in opinion in favour of the ballot. Of
the early success of your labours I do not doubt. The great
Reform party in the three kingdoms is unanimous as to the
necessity and justice of the ballot, and without it any ex-
tension of the franchise will be felt by multitudes to be an
evil rather than a privilege to be prized.
" The reform party is a ballot party, and any attempt to
give satisfaction without the ballot must fail.
"Your association has been of great service, and I hope
you will continue your labours until your object is accom-
plished.

6i Believe me, very sincerely yours,
"JOAN BRIGHT.
" Edward C. Whitehurst, Esq., London."

The CHAIRMAN then said, he was about to pro-
pose what was called in general parlance the toast
of the evening. He felt a great deal of diffidence
in proposing that toast, and if it was necessary that
he should stand up and argue for the ballot, or
prove its necessity by a process of logical reason-
ing, he should lose a good deal of time if he were
not able to say something strongly in favour of the
question. But to paraphrase the motto " lueus a
non lucendo," he might say that talking on the
ballot was eloquentia et non loquenda. (Laughter.)
It would be an absolute absurdity for him to enter
into the matter there. They all knew the subject,
and instead of his teaching them there were many
around who could teach him. They wanted no-
thing said as regarded the argument of the ques-
tion ; therefore, in proposing the toast, he wovld
speak, not of the ballot as necessary to be defended,
but as to the actual position in which the ballot
Question stood at present. That was interesting to
diem all, and it was a question on which they
might reasonably confer. As regarded, then, the
position of the question, he thought, not allowing
" hope to tell a flattering tale," that they had
reason for much congratulation. He looked upon
the question as a fast rising one. In the first place
it had the support of some active—and some, per-
haps, more passive-237 members of the House of
Commons. (Cheers.) That was a vast phalanx,
and it had been said by persons who were better
acquainted with such matters than himself, that a
smaller number of united men could carry any
question. (Cheers.) As regarded the union of the
Liberal party the less they said about that the
better—(laughter)—but he did not think that that
reproach attached to those gentlemen who advocated
the ballot, for he was sure they were all united on
that question. (Cheers.) What made him con-
sider the question of the ballot as a rising one was,
that in watching the press, which he did on this
subject very anxiously, he observed that those
faithful recorders of public proceedings, the re-
porters, placed more " cheers," and " reiterated
cheers," and " great sensations," and those well-
known marks of approbation against all mention of
the ballot, in all parts of the United Kingdom, much
more so than to any other question of reform.
(Cheers and laughter.) He had observed, in many of
the constituencies, when various able and experi-
enced members had been addressing them, that when
they perhaps got on to dubious ground, and tread-
ing too much on the subject of peace, or the subject
of war—he observed, when these little accidents
happened, hon. members generally brought them-
selves beautifully up by a happy reference to the
ballot. (Cheers.) However weak their arguments
on all other points had been, people always thought
their arguments strong when they asserted that the
ballot was a necessary shield to place before the
elector. (Cheers.) He did not say too much when
he said that this was universally the case at public
meetings. But there were other signs of the times,
and in saying that he really mentioned the subject
of his thoughts, which was the Times. No man had
more respect for the splendid power of writing
which the Times newspaper possessed, but no man
from one end of the kingdom to the other had a
more hearty contempt for the way in which that
paper used it. (Cheers.) He confessed—and he
stated it as a fact, for he knew it, and had but too
often felt it, and he should, please God, feel it again
—that no man was more nervous in coming before
the public than he was. He never rose to speak
in the House of Commons without the greatest tre-
pidation, but he felt no trepidation when he was
pitted against a man who wrote from the ballot-box
of the Times. It was but a man, and a man making
use of that principle which he denied to others—
(chcers)—and he was about to call their attention
to the fact that, great as was the power of the
Times—magnificent as some of its articles were,
alternately surprising either by the force of their
logic, or carrying away readers by their humour—
yet, on the subject of the ballot, that paper had
been guilty of putting forth articles for which a
schoolboy would be whipped. And yet, with its
command of money and its great command of talent,
it had at last been compelled to take the field
against the ballot, which it had formerly affected
to despise, passing over the question as " coming
in once a year with green peas," and all that style
of writing ; it was now compelled to buckle to the
question and try what it could do with it by
fair argument and fair logic ; and he asked
them honestly where was the Times when fairly
weighed on that question ? (Cheers.) Well, then,
he said, if all the bc.t orators and men skilled in
debate in the House of Commons had failed to thing
any new argument against this question at allyalid,
and if that great leading journal became perfectly
contemptible, and from argument slipped into mere
flap-doodle, was that not a strong reason for saying
that their cause was so powerful that such a paper as
the Times, with all the united ability of old Whigs
and impenitent Tories, was unable to shake it ?
(Cheers.) Seeing, then, that they had got out at
last the real guar of the enemy in the shape of the
Times brought into the field against them, and see-
ing that they could make no more effect than the
vanguard had done before, it was a reason for con-
gratulating themselves that they stood strong both
in argument and right. He thought he had not
slipped into any argument for the ballot, or gone