The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1839-06-18 00:00:00

entered into alliance against it. The very petitions
presented in its behalf afford (as Lord Stanley acutely
and forcibly demonstrated) the strongest grounds for
its rejection. In Redcross-street, in Downing-street,
and at the Reform Club, it has friends, for it is an
engine of evil. All the world despises and abhors it.
The Liberals will not cling to it the less closely for
that, So much for the influence of public opinion
upon liberal counsels !
But the crowning impertinence and absurdity of all,
" THAT THE TALENT AND MERIT OF THIS EN-
LIGHTENED AGE (we thank thee, John, for teaching
us this phrase) IS TO BE EXPANDED AND CON-
TRACTED AT THE MERE WILL AND PLEASURE OF
FOUR WHIG COUNSELLORS," absolutely defies the
limits which time and space impose upon our present
comments. To state such a proposition is more forci-
ble than the keenest satire. Its enunciation is its
aptest epitaph.
* In our Leading Article of the 31st May.

The Committee appointed by the House of Com-
mons to investigate the question of privilege, arising
out of the well-known case of Stockdale v. Hansard,
have agreed upon a resolution recommending the
House to issue an attachment against the Sheriffs when
they proceed to levy the damages assessed by the jury.
The report was to be presented to the House last night,
and, if the press of business permitted, to be taken
into consideration.

We really hope the good sense of the Conservative
party in Parliament will put a stop to this foolish pro-
cedure. The House of Commons has no constitutional
claim whatever to what Mr. Justice Coleridge appositely
termed a " monopoly of slander." Every argument
which goes to establish the omnipotence of any single
branch of the Legislature as such, applies equally to
every other, and, by consequence, to the Crown. If,
therefore, this stretch of authority be permitted to the
Commons, who shall say anything for the future
against the wildest assumption of Prerogative, the es-
tablishment of a Star-chamber, or a Court of High
Commission ? There is no one in the House more
competent to do justice to this great question than our
distinguished representative, Mr. Cresswell ; and we
trust he will expose the Attorney-General as that self-
seeking man so well deserves.
Possibly a Dissolution of Parliament may extricate
the country from this dilemma, as was formerly the
case in the similar instance of Ashby v. -White. It
should, at all events, be borne in mind that the House,
and not the Queen's Bench, has provoked the quarrel.
Mr. Hansard had a defence upon the merits, and the
question of privilege need not have arisen.

Mr. Cresswell's motion on the Danish Claims has
precedence of Mr. Grote's on the Ballot for Tuesday.
His exertions in this cause reflect credit upon himself
and upon the constituency which has secured to Par-
liament the presence of so able and so experienced an
advocate. It is characteristic of Whiggery to concede
a principle, and refuse to carry it out into its right and
reasonable consequences. We hope Mr. Cresswell's
energy and ability will be successful in extracting from
the reluctant Mr. Rice the remaining instalments of
this debt, so justly due, and so long withheld.

To-night, if the crowded state of the notices permit,
will the House of Commons have to endure its annual
infliction of a Ballot debate. Mr. Grote, in his own
person, parodies the character of Themistocles, and
" strike, but hear me," is his periodical appeal to the
candour and patience of his auditory. Cudgel him
with argument, demolish him with facts, lay him bare
with the sharp scalpel of ridicule—it matters not. If
he can only ride into the lists as the champion of this
question—if he can only be the author of a debate, if
debate it can be called,
" Si rixa est übi to pulsas, ego vapulo tantum,"
this deluded and. Utopian gentleman is content. Let
the ponderous artillery of the Edinburgh Review, in an
article from the hand of no mean practitioner, have
discharged its thunder in a " demonstration against
the Ballot" :—let the walls of Parliament have wit-
nessed defeat after defeat by the Commons of England,
whose Saxon blood chafes against a system of Treachery
and Fraud ;—let the keen and cutting Wit of the most
brilliant pamphleteers in Britain (verily Sydney we can
forgive thee many of thy political sins for the sake of
this thy last excellent brochure) have smitten to the
earth the advocates of Ballot,—still the weak and the
wicked doggedly persist, and insult the common sense
of Englishmen, by a proposal the most stupid, the
most mischievous. and at the same time the most
absurd, to which the strange times we live in have yet
given birth.
The difficulty we feel in arguing the question of the
Ballot is twofold—first,- in that we can hardly bring
ourselves to believe that our opponents are sincere in
their professions ; and secondly, because the feeling of
the ludicrous in the matter is constantly uppermost
to our minds. That ridicule in itself is no argument
we admit, but there are some propositions whose folly
precludes controversy, and which are best exhibited
when dressed in the garb of Harlequin. A nation is to
be regenerated by kidney-beans—a mouse-trap box is
to renovate the morals of a corrupted people. Here
is the great arcanum of modern science—the grand
discovery in politics—the wondrous elixir of the 1 gth
century. Hear this, ye philosophers of Laputa, and
blush ! One invention, worth all you have attempted,
has emanated from the brain of our modern Grotius ;
Alas ! Pythagoras, how is the advice you gave some
3,000 years ago despised! " Abstain from beans,"
was one of the golden rules of the philosopher of
Magna Grecia; and here a nation is called upon to
be perpetually meddling with them. This is a very
different kind of Fabian policy from that which we
have been lately recommending.
But we will try to be serious, and deal courteously
with those who are weak enough to put faith in this
marvellous absurdity. We undertake to demonstrate
first that the Ballot is wholly inefficient to remedy the
evils it professes to cure ; and secondly, that if it were
not, the remedy would be worse than the disease. But
first let us dispose of the argument from history. The
Athenians have used the Ballot—the Romans have used
the Ballot, and the Americans still use the Ballot;
ergo, say our Radical logicians, Britons should use the
Ballot. But the use of secret suffrage in Athens was
wholly different from anything like the system sought
to be established in this country. The Judges in their
dicasteria or law courts, voted indeed in this way, and
so did the populace when they ostracised their best and
noblest fellow-citizens. But the political bodies at
Athens were the Ecclesia and Senate, and in these
votes were taken by show of hands. The Greek word,
in fact, for " voting," means " show of hands." In
Rome, indeed, the system was in the later ages of the
republic carried further; but, so far was it from being
successful there, that the severest laws—the leges de
ambitu, were passed to put a stop to the shameless sys-
tem of bribery that prevailed there. Let us hear the
opinion of Cicero on the matter : " Populo grata est
tabella, qua frontes aperit hominum, mentes tegit : datque
eam libertatem, ut, quod, velint, faciant : promittant
autem, quod rogentur"—which freely rendered means,
" The rabble like the ballot, for it enables them to act
the part of double-faced rogues, to promise one thing
and to do another, and tell lies ad libitum." Here then
is a testimony to the effect of secret voting, after an
experience of centuries, and this effect, independently
of experience, might have been predicted from the
nature of the thing. But the fact is, that secret
suffrage at Athens and Rome was widely different in
principle and practice from that sought to be estab-
lished among ourselves. We need not multiply quo-
tations to prove that it failed even in those old and re-
publican states.
America, however, has the ballot. True. And
America has also Lynch law and Kentucky slave-
drivers ; but who advocates their importation here ?
But in America, so far as politics are concerned,
secresy is scattered to the winds, and scenes take
place at every annual election which are a disgrace to
a civilized community. The intelligent author of
" Men and Manners in America" tells us, that " the
world affords no parallel to the scenes of political de-
pravity exhibited periodically in this free country."
Now what are the evils against which the mouse-
trap box is to provide ? Bribery, corruption, and in-
timidation. We confess we dislike all .these three
things, not being quite prepared to agree with Mr.
Babington , Macaulay, who told the electors of alin.