New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1871-07-27
THE BALLOT IN ENGLAND.

its great champion, the late George
Grote, this great reform has become a
subject of agitation, and is now the lead
ing ministerial measure for the action OF
the representatives of the English peo-
pie, and promises at last to be settled.
Forty years ago, when this matter was
first introduced by Mr.. Grote in the
House of Commons, who presented it in
the form of a motion and supported it in
a speech of remarkable ability and in
terest, replete with ancient, historic par
allels and showing the tyranny of the
great English borough-owners, by which
the masses of the people were deprived of
their right of representation. During
the period Of Mr.. Grote's political life for
eight years, while he was a member of
Parliament, the same motion was annually
renewed, but the time was not favorable
for such a reform in England. The seed
had been sown and was terminating to
its springing up and bringing forth
its fruits in due season. The reformer
dies, but his labor is not in vain, for with
his death the principle of which he was
the originator and promoter becomes a
living reality. The ballot bill is the
great democratic power which, when car
ried, will place in the hands of the Eng
lish people the means to overthrow the
aristocracy, and ~reorganize the govern
ment in consonance with the will of the
people.
This bill was debated in the House
of Commons a day or two after Mr..
Grote's death, and was advocated with
considerable force by Mr.. Stansfield. The
opponents of the measure assert that the
evils which required the passage of such
a law nc longer exist in the same gross
form as when Mr.. Grote made his earnest
plea. They are r~idiculing the idea that
the ballot or secret voting is Of any service
to the English people, but it is manifest
that there is fear and trembling in the
ranks of the aristocracy and their fol-
lowers.
The London Spectator, in abiding to
it, says:
We are going apparently to adopt the
remedy, if it is to be adopted at all, forty
years TOO late to sacrifice the advantages
of open voting when those advantages are
beginning to predominant; to avail our
selves of the advantages of secret voting
when these advantages are far less con-
~spicuous and impressive than they were
then.
And the advantages of open voting are
supposed to be that it prevents men from
swerving from their political convictions
through personal considerations, and
holds them accountable to the commu-
nifty for the proper exercise of the suf-
frage. The evils against which the
present ballot bill are especially aimed are
intimidation and corruption. In the
English elections both are acknowledged
to exist SO as to prevent a fair and honest
expression of the will of the voters, for
the open voting and the showing of
hands is a political servitude to the land
holding power, and a coercing of the po-
litical convictions of the ~tenantry to
their landlords.
The Pail Mall Budget, abiding to
this subject, says
Unquestionably much of the reasoning,
both against the ballot and on its side, has |
not been of a character to command much
respect. The controversy whether a vote
is or is not a trust, is in reality a proftless
dispute as to the correctness or otherwise of
an irrelevant analogy. Mr.. Grote's advo-
cacy OF secret voting may confidently be
traced to his sympathy with a famous ex-
pedient of the classical demOcracies, among
which, however, a vote was just as often
given for judicial as for political purposes,
so that whatever correspondent to the ballot
was in fact a guarantee for the safe per-
of an onerOus and dangerous legal |
duty.
The journals in the interest of the op-
position to this great reform measure
follow the same line of argument, and
assert that the right of voting in England
is full and complete without the aid of
any other legislation. This is not true,
as has been shown by various parliament
airy investigations upon the rotten bur-
rough system as it prevails under the
present fern of conducting English cleo
Nobody who knows English society
will need to be told that ever now there
Ire large classes of voters, tenant farmers,
clerks, salaried employees and others, who
IAN not vote conscientiously, nor even
Ibstain from voting, without the risk of
erious or disastrous loss. Put the ballot
n the hands eff the masses of the English
and there is every reason to believe
hat the privilege would be intelligently
Exercised for the best interests of the
Without doubt, under its influence
nd with the power such a privilege
would give the people, great and import
mt changes must necessarily follow, in
ringing upon the hereditary rights of the
privileged classes. However this may be,
the ballot bill be adopted, there will
to the recipients of its benefits a
leep sense of their responsibility which
t is presumed will not be rashly or
ecklessly exercised.
The people of England are slowly but
urely preparing for the change before
a monarchy to a republic.
after our own-and one of the
marked evidences of it consists in
he passage of the ballot bill and the ex-
rciSe Of the right of free suffrage.
TUT cT.Tr .n,.rrromn. r