The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1838-02-23 00:00:00

4

Dortrp.

THE. SONG OF THE BALLOT BOX.

' (From the Morning Chronicle.)
Let tirstory boast or her Romans and Spartans,
And tell hoW they stood againsts tviannv's shocks;
They were all, I confess, in my eye. Betty Ntartins,
Compared to George Grote and his wonderful Bux.
Ask, where liberty now has her seat ?—Oh it is n't •
By Delaware's banks orou Switzerland's rocks;—
Like an impin some conjurer's l.•ottle imprisou'd,
Sire slily shut up in Grote's wonderful Box.
How inn /-2stead of floating through ether's doMinions,
Blown this way and that. 'by the Popsili vox,"
To fold thus it silence her sinecure pinions,
And go, fast asleep in Grote's wonderful Box.

Tithewas, when free speech was the life-breath of freedom,—
So thought once the &Meng, the Hamplens, the Lockes;
But mute he our troops, when to amblictr•we lead 'em,
For " Mum" is the word with us Knights of the Box.

Pu.re,., exquisite Box ! no corruption can soil it ;
There's. Otto of Rose in each breath it unlocks;
While Grote is the " Betty,', that serves at the toilet,
And breathes ail Arabia around from bis Box.*
`Tis a singular fact, that the famed Hugo Grotius,t
• .

. , A
namesake of Grote's; —heing' tiott;- of Dutch stocks—
And, like Grote, too, a genius profound as precocious,
WAS also, like him, much renowned for a Box;—
An immortal old clothes-box, in which, the great Grotius
While suffering, in }raison, for views heterodox,
Was pack'd up incog, spite of jailers ferocious4'.
And: sent to his wife,§ carriage free, in a Box !
But the'fame of oh! lingo now rests on the shelf,
Since a rival bath risen that all parrallel mocks ;
That Grotius ingloriously saved but hiniself,
While ours saves the whole British realm by a Box !

And oh when, at last, even this greatest of Grates
Must bend to the Power that at every door knocks,ll
May he drop in'the urn like his own " silent votes,"
And the tomb of his rest be a large Ballot Box.
While long at his shrine, both from country and city,
Shall pilgrims triennially.gather in flocks,
And slug, while they whiinvr, the appropriate ditty,
" Oh breathe not his name, let it sleep—in the Box."
• A RADICAL RaFORMEB, BUT No FRIF.ND TO THE BALLOT.

* And tilt Arabia breathes from yonder box.—Pope's Pape of
of the Lock.

Groot, or Grote, I'aTini2Pri tel'C'tnt
For the particulars 9f. this escape of Grotiiii from-tli‘ Cas.
tle of Louifetistein, by weans. i,f a box (o;i1Y three feet and a
half long, it is-said), in which hooks used to he occasionally
sent to and Gaul linen returned, see any of the L'iug,rapilt-
cat Dictionaries. .

. §..This is not quite according to the fricts of fte case ; his
tvtte having beep the contriver of the watagena, and remained
in prison herself to give him time for escape.
Pallida Mors wquo pulsat pede,, Sze.— Iforat.

CONTEMPORA 11 F PRESS.

THE BALLOT.
(From the Moiling Herald.) •
The ballot-project is alleged by the whit;-radical jour
nals to be growing, in favour with the. Public. The
ground on which this allegation rests is the gradual in-
crease of the minorities in the House of Commons,
when divisions on the question occur.
•• That the ballot is demanded with greater pertinacity
now than formerly, by the most noisy portion of
present constituencies, is true ; but it is eoeally
that the vast majority of the public regard the ballot
scheme with regularly increasing dislike.
The ballot is one of the instruments with which the
Sect.of " political philosopherS"—the Benthams and gi-
Cardos—bas sought to work out its particular ends; and
what are the ends of the party of whom these men have
been the organs, and by whom are they recognised as
law-givers •
The great end of the party in question is the esta•
lifiStiment of the supremacy of CAptTAL. The desire or
the men who compose. the party is to regolae all tire
movements of society, by a reference to the neer at ions of
the money-power. These men treat a I,eligious esta-
Visliment sfruhly as. an affair ' of money. They iegaid
the crown as a bauble that " costs" a great deal. They
look upon an aristocracy—loaded it may be with the ho-
nours of a thousand years—simply as a congiegation of
men who absorb the rents-of land, and who overshadow
the pretensions of mercantile wealth. They treat the
poor simply as machines, designed by nature to Lie
Worked as hard, and to be sustained upOn as li!tle, as
possible. The champions or the money-power are, in
short, engaged in a deadly war against the prir;leges of
every other class—against all institutions that hare their
"foundation in high moral or religious feeling
every influence which militates against the despotism of
Mtromon. Tire champions of the money-power labour,
night and day, to cheapen religion, CO cheapenn-govern- •
ment,-tri cheapen labour—to render the lioneors of aris-
tocracy and the prerogati:e of majesty "ckeop" in the
eyes of tbe*Mass of mantind.
The champions of the money power—a section of the
middle claSses, limited in'nomber, bit energetic, st)tle,
. LWAtehrnl—these are the only advocates of
"and they advocate the ballot only as the means of en-
abling Chem to give eilect to their conspiracy against the
aristocracy, on the one hand, and against the Nast body
.-141-4.ja'oriorers on the other. - . .
labouring classes regard• the ballot pi.eject tcith
Re abhorrence. They complain, and will) justice, that"-the'
ar"-iiiistocracv of the country hin abandoned them on-many
nceasions--; but they are willing; nevertheless, to sopeort
the aristocracy, at all imaginable 'hazards, against the'
c-41althuslans and Mammonites—the deadly enemies at'
•.(,, once-of aristocracy anti of lantow.

The Malthosian money-worshippers are gi adoally get-
ting the whole power of the country into their hands.
The increasing majorities on the ballot are merply one
. out of,-ten tuousand indications or tite•re!ct. • Nothing, io
truth, cal? arrest the progress of the party, excroing a
14ordrat union betwixt the landed Ilrisincracv and the la-
'botirttig- classes. If the ran' Jed aristocra.cv will consent
"tdAdVe the labourinz poor from new poor law bills, anti,
from 011ie other schemes for beating down the pike of;
la'uour, the labonring poor will, in recptital; pteserve to
ihe.aristocracy their honours and their lands-. .Ti.te bar:
. gain would be a fair one. I; the aristocracy shall re-.
fuse to enter into it, the consequence a the refusal will
recoil upon themselves.

THZ-!,' MI F-0T.17.
c • • (Ftaa theNctreas:!e.duernal.)
"The Melbourne lu;nistrv, like Antwos, the oftener
they are I.nocked down the more vigorous they
'"9V fien tire session or parliament Opened, the redl and
genuine strength or tie case against them on the <cote
;'af.their Irish administration was soct as ought to have
sunk any ministry to perdition. the" ctt'or.eal:
' elite-revolt in Canarla, preipitatnd, as it o:)viouly has

. .
been, by the total want and pc..c.intion oil their
part, would of itßelt have been sufficient to 'to iye any
- ministry from office tinder ordinary circeirstances. Let
...not these occoraences be; lost wion the refleeting peoole
of England. Nov tnlY iae ..een the difference between a
.constitutional and a whig radical opposition—between
a Lichfield-L:01:14e conspiracy and the open mania; bearing
:of drat party which combines, not to
.obstruct., but, to
torward die public business, and to remedy the miserable
-blunders of thos'e who unrightfully hold the, govern.
meat of the country. The conservatives, ;Oval oo
principle, feel tl„;ey must have a good and sofficient
, reason to oppose the ministers of the crown. The so-
- vereign's service is their primary object. Whig-radi-
cals, in opposition, acted on the very reverse principle.
You are the government—therefore to be harrassed,
hut-
lied, opposed, right or wrong, by all means fair or foul,
till You can be worried into surrendering your tit lees.
If tire present ministry were treated as they-acted to-
' wards Sir. Robert Peel's government, where woula they
be ? The answer is obvious Where. they ougirt to be,
and where, in spite of their Provioential escapes, and
unexpected tromp hands, and oil' hand apologies, and in-
genious excuses, and solemn plausibilities, the-people
are.growing-more impatient to see them—Out: No
system, and no men can be popular—to the honour of
human nature be it said—who have not somehear t. some
Sincerity, some moral earnestness of purpose. which mar
inspire confidence at least in their intentions.. 'ft is their
titter want of this honest manliness of phrpOse.that ten-
dera these men loathed, titNi_istai, and feared on all
hands. When it suited their purpose, they proaested
that churobspoliation was indispensable to :oe, public
interests; when their factious ends were no longer to be
.served by adhering to this doctrine, they intros nced a
--ehurch-bill Without an appropriation clause:- -One year
theylmouthed theloftiest common places of justice, ho-
nour, good faith, decency,.ancl so -forth, on the pension
'list.. Wired their party interests seem to require-it, the
list'is thrown cloWn as a prey to the 'radicals.
And so we might go through the whole catalogue of
. ~.of their public acts, proving them the nieane.t;shabbiest,
the Most incapable, and the most unprincipled set, who
'-ever insulted a great nation by pretending to govern it.
And because they happen just now to find' it their inte-
rest to talk big about the honour of the crown, the inte-•
''-grity of the empire, and the guilt of treason, are we to
be reconciled to their continuance in office, and to see
them supported by the Quixotic forbearance of our con-
pervative leaders 'We trust for better things. They
liaYe a hundred times deceived " all parties; it cannot
therefore incur the reproach of faction to mistinst,, de-
. „pounce, and stand aloof. from their fairest 'guises, and
most plausible pretensions. In the words of a
„powerful and eloquent contemporary, practically the cern-
'. cruce,:br:G.reit Britain is this—we Will not hear of
O'Connell as minister, we will not tolerate Joseph Hume
or Giote as minister, but we are content enough to have
, those who cannot remain a day in office without pander-
" Ina, to the:crotchets of Mr: Grote, or to the foul sugges-
tions of Home and O'Connell, and executing their fla•
gi ou s orders; • There must be an end of this. The
;present cabinet are a disgrace to the name of govern-
ment, and a lampoon upon its functions. • The power of
England, her renutation, her influence, her Afetv, tier
eonkilutton, tier religion,, the integrity of her .empire,
have one and all been undermined and endangered by
thetn..,