§ Mr. Harveypresented a Petition to the same effect, but the name of the place from whence it came was inaudible in the Gallery.
§ Mr. Leaderpresented a Petition from 5,000 inhabitants of Bristol to the same effect.
§ Mr. Grotespoke as follows:—I am about to propose to you, Sir, the motion, notice of which stands on your paper, respecting the mode of taking votes at elections for Members of Parliament. I mean to ask for leave to bring in a Bill, providing, that votes shall be henceforward taken in secret, by way of ballot. Sir, on the previous occasion, when I introduced this subject to your notice, I did so by moving a simple resolution of the House, to the effect that secret voting at elections for Members of Parliament was expedient and preferable. On the present occasion I shall move for leave to bring in a Bill to accomplish this object; and I make this slight change in my mode of proceeding, because I imagine that there may be some Gentlemen who, though not un favourable to the system of secret voting, are yet mistrustful as to the possibility of carrying out the principle into detail conveniently and effectually; and, therefore, hesitate to affirm the abstract resolution when simply and nakedly proposed to them. If I am allowed to bring in my Bill I shall show the House that the regulations essential to a system of secret voting may easily be framed with perfect convenience to the voter and entire certainty to the main object; and I may safely promise Gentlemen, that if they are not at variance with me on the ground of principle, they shall have very little reason to complain on the score of deficiency in the details. By assenting to my present motion they will not be called upon to pronounce an irrevocable determination in favour of secret voting until they see the details through which it is to be brought into operation. Sir, it is not my intention to trouble you with any long preface or introduction before I proceed to state the grounds on which I presume to claim your favourable hearing. Gentlemen will not need to be reminded that we sit here as the representatives of the people—chosen by them, and for their benefit—chosen by them generally as the guardians of their persons and 782 properties, and more especially as the guarantees of their public franchises and their political liberty. The preservation of that tie which connects us with the people at large in all its integrity, is a matter of the deepest public concern. It would be superfluous, Sir, at this time of day, to insist upon that which all constitutional writers have unanimously admit ted—that the efficient operation of the elective principle is the primary condition and characteristic requisite of every Government pretending to the honourable title of a representative Government. It has never been yet disputed, and I do not expect to hear it disputed this evening, that pure and free elections are vital wants of the British community in particular; and that any cause which subverts the freedom or impairs the purity of electrons, is fraught with serious and incalculable mischief. In pressing, therefore, upon the House the consideration of the vote by ballot, as an indispensable element of all practical purity and freedom of election, I shall not be accused either of trifling with your time or of aiming at any end which has not been recognised as strictly constitutional and legitimate. I hold that our most solemn obligations to the people will remain undischarged, so long as we permit them to be deprived in practice and reality of these their best political rights, and their only effectual security against public extravagance and misconduct. To justify myself, Sir, in calling for the interposition of this House, I must offer you proof of the existence of some evil requiring remedy, and susceptible of remedy. I must make out to you a case of exigency, such as nothing but the powerful and commanding arm of the Legislature can effectually deal with. Now, Sir, how do the facts stand with reference to your elective system? Have you pure and free elections, or any thing at all like them, as matters stand at present? Put this question to any man of any politics, and I apprehend that the answer which you will obtain will be one and the same. However indisposed men may be to act vigorously in rectifying the evil, there are but few who are bold enough or blind enough to deny its reality; nay, Sir, I believe that on this subject I labour under a difficulty the opposite to that which is commonly experienced by those who submit motions to Parliament; for the evil which I seek to correct is 783 not unknown, not unperceived, not of recent growth, but trite, too familiar, and of too long standing to excite those feelings of repugnance which properly and intrinsically belong to it. Gentlemen talk of election abuses as a matter of course, which it may be decent to punish for the sake of appearances when a flagrant case happened to be detected, but which none but visionaries or enthusiasts will ever pretend to suppress or eradicate. Sir, I shall not now stop to inquire how far this tone of restlessness and levity as to a great political evil is justifiable in a representative of the people; but gentlemen must keep in their recollections that the present times are not quite analogous to the past, and that election abuses cannot be safely blotted out from all serious or deliberate considerations as they were formerly. Practices which might be in full keeping and consonance with the general rotten ness of our system of representation as it stood previous to the Reform Act now stand out in glaring contrast with the principles of that measure, and still more with the promises and declarations of its authors. When the noble Lord who first introduced the Reform Act announced his memorable purpose of guaranteeing to us a House of Commons possessing and deserving the confidence of the people— when Lord Grey proclaimed to the world that nomination of Members of Parliament should cease to exist, and that re presentation should be erected everywhere in its place—I contend that these declarations did, in their fair meaning and spirit, imply a pledge to have none of the known and standing disorders of the elective system without correction and redress. I now call upon the noble Lord for the fulfilment of his beneficent pledge, and I am sure he will not be surprised if the electors whom his own act has created entreat from him that protection which is necessary to the quiet and conscientious exercise of their franchise. But, Sir, there is one other circumstance yet behind, which, even if it stood alone, would render a prolonged indifference on this subject in tolerably disgraceful to our character as a legislature. Sir, the extent and prevalence of these election abuses does not now depend upon mere presumption, however general and however confident; it is not now a matter which every one believes but no one can formally prove; it rests upon something better and stronger 784 than all this—upon positive, authentic, and indisputable testimony, collected and sifted by your own Committees. I should be justified in what I now assert, even if I had nothing else to appeal to than the statements proved in evidence before various special Committees of the House, in reference to particular Parliamentary boroughs. The House will not forget that there have been several special investigations of this kind. They will not forget the disclosures made before the various Parliamentary Committees on Stafford, Warwick, Hertford, Ipswich, York, Yarmouth, and other places, They will not forget the reports made by the Municipal Corporation Commissioners, in reference to the conduct of the freemen in many important Parliamentary boroughs. These multiplied investigations have brought to view a body of dark and infamous details, which cast a melancholy shade over the general picture of election management in England. What description will any future historian give of the real working and interior spring of that which we extol and sanctify under the name of representation when he finds documents such as these—contemporary and unquestionable documents — to guide him in his researches? But, Sir, over and above the testimonies collected by these special Committees, important as they are when singly taken, and still more important in their aggregate effect—there is yet another document, more weighty and conclusive than all of them. I allude to the Report of the Committee of last year on bribery and intimidation at elections. It will be recollected that the House appointed this Committee last year to inquire generally into the ex tent and prevalence of these evils, and to suggest the best means of preventing them. I hold in my hand, Sir, the voluminous series of evidence received and published by that Committee, and I scruple not to assert that proofs more irresistible can hardly be conceived of the depravity and the subjection which now so largely pervade our elective system. No man can read this Report without shame and un easiness, unless he has prepared himself to disregard and laugh to scorn all idea of purity of election. Gentlemen who have looked over the volume will at once perceive that the portion of evidence relating to bribery is the least novel; but even here there is much to arrest our attention. Mr. Cockburn, a barrister, ex- 785 amined before that Committee, who gave evidence distinguished for its ability, stated, that from all the information with which his practice and inquiries furnished him he concluded confidently that bribery prevailed at elections to an extent of which the House and the country had scarcely any idea. The witnesses whom the Committee examined from Bristol, Leicester, Norwich, and Ipswich—Mr. Staff, Mr. Hudson, and Mr. Cowell—go far to corroborate and sustain the conclusion. You see in these places and elsewhere a system of bribery, standing perpetual, incorporated with the habitual proceedings both of agents and electors. You are plainly told, that a candidate who refuses to conform to it conducts his election at the greatest disadvantage. You are apprised that it enters into the calculations of a certain class of electors like the annual return of the fair and the races. The forms of bribery do, indeed, vary from one town to another—the gift or the promise some times assumes a peculiar dress or a local name in one town, which would be foreign and unintelligible in another — but the substance and essential characteristics are just the same throughout. Such, Sir, is the tenor of the evidence which the Committee on bribery and intimidation collected with regard to the first branch of their subject. Now how stands the fact in regard to the second branch? Sir, the testimonies collected by the Committee in proof of intimidation are even more abundant and more decisive than those in proof of bribery. And not only are they more abundant and decisive, but they derive additional value from this circum stance, that they are furnished by persons of opposite political parties. It seems that all parties whatever make loud com plaints of intimidation, some from one quarter, some from another; but all with one accord proclaiming that this mighty evil is of continual occurrence. Such, indeed, was the sense entertained by the Irish Government under the hon. Gentle men opposite, in January and February, 1835, of the violent intimidation alleged to have been practised at the elections which had been just terminated that they directed special inquiries to be made by several of the chief constables, and Re ports to be sent to them on the subject. It is from these Reports that much of the evidence taken before the Committee on this branch of election intimidation is 786 drawn, some of the chief officers in the constabulary force having been personally examined before them. These witnesses depose to popular tumult and violence in many parts of Ireland, for the purpose of overawing electors, and constraining them to vote on the popular side; they depose further that these violences were in many cases inflamed and countenanced by the Catholic priests; and they state several cases of exposure of voters, who were about to vote against the popular candidate, to alarming threats and ill-usage from the mob, as well as to the risk of being ruined by resolutions of exclusive dealing. With regard to other branches of intimidation, we have not the same ad vantage of elaborate inquiry, undertaken by local functionaries, under the special direction of the Government. Yet, not withstanding this disadvantage—notwith standing the absence of official investigation—a body of testimony no less conclusive and authentic was furnished to the Committee by numerous spontaneous witnesses. It has been incontestibly shown that intimidation by the people and the priest, take it at the worst, is only one amongst many varieties and descriptions of intimidation. If the free-will of voters is occasionally borne down by the violence of the mob, it is still more frequently over ruled by the dictation of landlords and agents, and generally of rich purchasers and consumers. If one set of electors are ex posed to injury for voting against popular will, another class are obnoxious to ruinous loss and severe persecution at the hands of their landlords, if their consciences are found stiff and uncomplying on the day of election. Perhaps hon. Gentlemen might imagine that these mischiefs and abuses are peculiar to Ireland. Would, indeed, that the fact were so. But it is in this case as in others, Irish abuses are the same in kind as English abuses, only on a gigantic and exaggerated scale. The testimonies collected from various quarters of England reveal the same mischiefs, the same oppressions, the same sufferings and prostration of the voter on this side the Channel as on the other. If hon. Gentlemen will peruse these evidences in reference to the towns and counties of England, they will see the same active warfare going on against the freedom of election—they will see landlords, magistrates, clergymen, attorneys, creditors, master manufacturers, patrons of every 787 kind, under every name, and, lastly, the assembled crowds of poor electors or of non-electors—they will see all these various parties, each in its separate sphere, engaged in the same work of aggressive interference, against the rectitude and the liberty of their neighbours' political con sciences. It would be easy for me, Sir, to enforce and illustrate everything which I have stated by ample extracts from the volume which I hold in my hand; it would be easy for me to quote sentence after sentence out of the evidence of Mr. James, Mr. Cowell, Mr. Roberts, Mr. Terrell, and others, in reference to the intimidation practised by the wealthier classes; or evidence to the like effect, from the evidence of Mr. Gilbert and Mr. Craven, in reference to the intimidation exercised by the general mass of poorer inhabitants in a large town. You cannot open this book without finding abundant and striking illustrations on the mischiefs on which I have touched; and the only reason why I abstain from reading them to the House is, because it would carry me into a multitude of details too long for their patience and attention. I content myself, therefore, with stating in general language the bearing and tendency of the evidence, and the wide extent of intimidation which that evidence attests; nor do I at all fear that I shall be accused, by any one who has gone through this volume, of having performed the task partially or unfaithfully. Sir, the general facts which I have cited from the Report of the Committee on bribery and intimidation will be in part familiar to the House —in part, perhaps, novel and surprising. The evidence taken before that Committee has been very largely quoted and very emphatically insisted on in this House by Gentlemen opposite; but I must say that they have not dealt fairly either with the evidence or with the subject. To hear their speeches one would have imagined that encroachment on the freedom of electors was an offense committed by no one in this realm except by Catholic mobs and Catholic priests, instead of being, as it is, the regular practice among powerful men in the country, of all professions, creeds, and varieties. Then, again, Sir, with what feelings have they approached this subject, and what are the inferences which they have endeavoured to raise from it? Have they bent their minds to ascertain the real nature and the full extent of the evil, in order that they might be enabled to suggest an 788 adequate remedy? They have manifested nothing of such a disposition; they have magnified even to exaggeration this special branch and fragment of a widespread evil, with no other view, as it should seem, than that of swelling the outcry against Catholics and Irishmen. Sir, I know not how the House may deal with my proposition of to-night, but of this I am most certain, that I approach the subject with feelings very different from those which I have been just describing. I approach it with a sincere desire to understand the evil in its full extent, and to fathom it in all its depths and recesses—I approach it with no purpose of making a part stand for the whole, or the species for the genus; and, above all, I approach it with the deepest anxiety to provide an adequate remedy—a comprehensive and all-sufficient remedy. I stand upon this plain and broad position, that elections ought to be free—free absolutely and universally; I try to put down, without reserve, all intimidation, from whatever quarter it may come; I furnish the elector with a shield against every sort of tyranny over his vote, whether it be a single-headed or many-headed tyranny. I should think it a waste of your time to examine which species of intimidation is the most mischievous, or which the least —which is aggression, and which is retaliation—admitting, as I do, that all are bad, and that all ought to be put down. One thing I shall just remark, in reference to the Catholic priests, because it connects itself with the general question as to the latitude of interference admissible. It seems to be assumed by Gentlemen opposite, that Catholic priests have no right to interfere in elections at all—that they are debarred by the functions which they exercise from doing so. Now, Sir, this is a position to which I can by no means accede. I never can consent to divest any man, be he lay man or ecclesiastic, of his character of citizen; because there is no man of any profession who is not interested in the good ness of the laws, and in the proceedings of this House. But, Sir, though I strenuously uphold the right of the priest to interfere at elections, yet there is a right and a wrong way of interfering; and priests as well as landlords, or any other men, may interfere in the wrong way as well as in the right. If a priest thinks one candidate better than another, he is fully war ranted in urging all such reasons and considerations as he may think relevant to the 789 case, to impress the same persuasion on the minds of his neighbours. So far he is perfectly justified. But if, instead of con fining himself to persuasions, he should proceed to menace or injure those whom he could not persuade—if he should instigate his own friends and partisans never to hold communion or intercourse with this man, never to buy anything at the shop of another man, because the person so denounced chose to vote for the Tory candidate—if the priest does this, he then lends himself to an act of intimidation, and is guilty of wrongful and unwarrantable interference. Sir, if Gentlemen will read the evidence of Mr. James, of Hereford, taken before the Committee on Bribery and Intimidation, they will see that the clergy of the Church of England are not behind-hand in zeal and active industry at the critical moment of an election. And in the evidence of James King, Gentlemen will find a statement still more strikingly illustrating this conclusion; they will find it recorded, that the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge dismissed his gardener from his service, because the man refused to comply with his request, that he would vote against the right hon. Gentleman, the present Member for the town of Cambridge. Now, Sir, do I complain of the Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge for interfering at elections? By no means; he had the clearest right to interfere if he chose: but I say of him, what I should say also of a Catholic priest, that he had no right to interfere in a way utterly subversive of all liberty and sincerity of voting. I do not hesitate to maintain, and I am borne out by the Constitution in saying so, that whoever violates the freedom of election, ought to be regarded as a public enemy, be he priest or landlord, Englishman or Irishman, Catholic or Protestant. The nation, in its collective majesty, has a paramount title to the free and independent suffrage of each separate elector: the elector, on his part, is entitled to the un disturbed exercise of his franchise, according to the lights of his own conscience; and neither the nation nor the individual are to be ousted of these precious rights by any intimidator, be his station ever so dignified, or his property ever so overwhelming. Sir, I repeat again, that it is in the name of freedom, and purity of election generally and impartially, not for the purpose of ensuring a monopoly of intimidation to any one class or party, that I now 790 call upon the House to interpose; and if freedom of election be at all valuable in their eyes, I do not see how they can refuse to interpose. For the evil is now not merely inveterate and notorious—it is formally authenticated—it is proclaimed in the evidence taken before your own Committees —it is proclaimed in a way which you can no longer avoid seeing or noticing. What shall we urge in our defence, Sir, if we neglect to apply any remedial measure, when the distempers in our electoral sys tem have been thus proclaimed as it were by authority, thus blazoned forth in the full daylight of parliamentary recognition? Have Gentlemen made up their minds to see this leprosy cleave to us and to our posterity for ever, or do they fondly expect that it will die of itself, without any active precautions on our part to counterwork or neutralise it? Sir, I am so far from ex. peeling any future abatement in the practice of intimidating at elections, that I see every reason to fear a contrary result; I see strong ground for anticipating that undue power over the liberty of voters will be exercised henceforward more vigorously and audaciously than ever. Men grow bolder and bolder in a pernicious course by the prospect of impunity; and when it it is seen that the House, after having fully laid open the vastness of the evil, de cline even the attempt to apply a remedy, I ask what inference can be drawn, except that we are still inclined to look upon electioneering abuses with indifference at least, if not with secret favour and connivance? Sir, if we wish to escape a suspicion so heavy and so discreditable as this is, and to maintain some reputation as faithful guardians of the freedom of election, I contend that we can no longer defer the application of an adequate remedy. Now what are the remedies which have been suggested to correct it? According to my view of the case, the only remedy is secret voting; but is there any different proposition started by the ingenuity of others for the accomplishment of the same end? Sir, I regret to be obliged to state that this Report, explicit and voluminous as it is in the exposition of existing evil, is miserably poor and unproductive in the suggestion of remedies. All the witnesses to whom the question is put agree in thinking that any direct and formal enactment, imposing specific penalties on intimidation at elections, would be ineffectual and un availing; in point of fact, every witness, 791 who proposes any remedy at all, confines himself to the suggestion of vote by ballot. So much then, Sir, is undeniable, that the evils attending the present system of elections are most extensive and revolting, and that no other remedy has been or can be, propounded for them, except the vote by ballot. On this ground alone I am entitled to ask, that you do not reject my proposition without attentively and deliberately weighing it; for this at least must be admitted, even by the warmest opponents of the ballot—that it is a simple and intelligible change—that it trenches upon no existing rights—that it neither confers new political privileges on any untried fraction of the people, nor cancels any existing privileges which the law at present, sanctions—that it neither unduly aggrandises, nor unlawfully depresses any order of your citizens. Nor can it be said that the adoption of the ballot involves the necessity of any other special changes, or of any costly machinery to be created for the purpose of carrying it into operation. Seeing, then, that you have no other remedy to propose against mischiefs like the present, I might fairly ask you to try the ballot, were it only as a matter of experiment. If it should fail in curing the evils of which we com plain, and disappoint the expectations of its advocates, you can but return to your present system of open voting, and you can do so without being worse off then than you are now. If the trial succeeds, much will be gained; if it fails, nothing will be lost. Sir, I might, without presumption, press for the adoption of the vote by bal lot, as a promising and innocuous experiment, even if the reasonings in its favour were less conclusive than they actually are; but I feel that I am entitled to recommend this measure as something better than an experiment, on grounds much stronger and more decisive. I shall not so far dishonour my proposition as to rank it in the category of mere possibilities. I present it with confidence as a certain protection, in so far as political reasonings admit of certainty, against mischief otherwise irremediable. For what is the specific character of this mischief? It is, that intruders from with out can work upon an elector's fears, by their power of doing him evil, or withdrawing from him advantage, conditionally upon the way in which his vote is given. You cannot, by any stratagem, rob them of this power, so long as they know the way in which the elector votes. But de- 792 prive them of such knowledge, and all the power of disturbing the liberty of the vote is at once extinct. As to secret acts, every man must be his own master; whether he be weak or strong, poor or rich, timid or resolute, he is equally out of the reach of human violence, neither reward nor punishment can attach to him when he has been rendered invisible to those from whom it proceeds. You can no more punish a man for an unseen vote, than you can punish him for his dreams, or for his uncommunicated thoughts. He must be a free and self-determining agent when he votes in solitude, for he can offend nobody by following: his own convictions, he can offend nobody by forsaking them. Voting by ballot is only another name for unfettered and unbiassed voting; and when Cicero, in speaking of the ballot at Rome, calls it Tabella, vindex tacit æ libertatis—the upholder of silent liberty, he says nothing more than what is accurately and emphatically true. Well then, Sir, when the complaint is, that there exists grievous intimidation at elections, which prevents you from getting at the real sense and sincere feeling of voters, am I not warranted in asserting that the ballot is an antidote precisely applicable, and thoroughly adequate to the urgency of the case? It will be said, perhaps, that strangers, though they cannot see an elector vote, may guess or suspect how he has voted; or the elector himself may be compelled to tell them. True; he may tell, but who is to determine whether he tells the truth? You may compel him to tell you. He may tell you what he dreamt last night, or any other personal matter, unknowable except to himself; but can you have the smallest assurance that his statement is an accurate one, if he has any interest in making it otherwise? Whether the elector tells or not, however, I do not in the least doubt that his vote will be in many cases guessed at or suspected. But why is this? Because his political sentiments are guessed or suspected; and it will be assumed, as a matter of course, when he votes secretly, that his vote follows his real sentiments, whatever they may be. Now this very presumption shows that the ballot is perfectly efficacious towards its proposed end; because it shows that no elector voting in secret, can have any motive for voting contrary to his own real feelings. A man may have enemies on many different grounds, private as well as political; but he can make neither enemies nor friends 793 by means of his votes when votes are taken secretly: no persecution, real or pretended, can ever be made to operate in determining the way in which his vote shall be given. Now, Sir, why is it that men persecute or intimidate electors, as matters stand at pre sent? It is for the express purpose of deter mining the votes of these electors; for this single purpose, and for no other. They wish to acquire dominion over votes, and they employ intimidation as an instrument for accomplishing this object. Once show them that no dominion over votes can ever be realised, and all their inducement to resort to intimidation is at an end. Surely, Sir, I am not too sanguine in concluding that intimidation itself will die away when it is thus rendered impotent and unprofitable for the acquisition of political influence. Throughout all the records of penal experience there has never yet been discovered any method of suppressing crime so efficacious as that of removing the motive to the perpetration of it, and rendering it no longer conclusive to the interest or ambition of criminals. Sir, I challenge any one to refute this reasoning—I challenge any one to disprove the alliance—the eternal and indissoluble alliance—between secrecy and freedom. We are seeking for a remedy against intimidation, and for protection to the liberty of the honest voter: I contend that the remedy stares us in the face if we do not wilfully avert our eyes from it. If there be any Gentle man to whom intimidation of voters by the mob is an object of genuine abhorrence, and not a mere theme for declamation against the political capacity of the people, I will call upon him to sup port my present motion. He may assure himself that no mob-united assemblage of people will be able to divert or appropriate to themselves the suffrage of one single unwilling voter when votes are given by ballot. All the price which Gentlemen will have to pay for the accomplishment of this object is, that they must see all other kinds of intimidation banished at the same time. My proposition goes to rescue the political conscience from every species of constraint and tyranny, and to leave to the act of voting what the Constitution promises it shall be—free, indifferent, and spontaneous. I cannot be content with any thing less than the entire emancipation of the voter; and I have this comfort at least, that it is far easier to protect him against all modes of inti- 794 midation at once, than to guard him against some of them partially while you leave him still exposed to the rest. The most impartial and comprehensive remedy is, at the same time, the easiest of discovery and the simplest of application. I well recollect, Sir, that when the Committee on bribery and intimidation was appointed last year, the right honourable and learned Gentleman, now Attorney-General, ob served that he hoped the appointment of such a Committee would render the ballot unnecessary. I, on the contrary, took the liberty of saying, and I repeat it now, that the ballot affords the only sufficient solution of the important problem confided to the Committee. Indeed, I believe that many of my opponents do not at all dispute the sufficiency of the ballot as a guarantee to liberty of suffrage. They object to it on different grounds; and one objection is even founded on this allegation, that it makes the suffrage too free— that it relieves electors too completely from every kind of external responsibility. The elector (we are sometimes told) holds his franchise for the benefit of the community, and ought to exercise it under responsibility; for which purpose publicity of his vote is essentially necessary. To me, Sir, it seems that this much-extolled responsibility of the elector, is either a phantom—a word without meaning—or else it is nothing but a mask for the precise mischief of intimidation, to be let in and legalised under another name. For to whom is the elector to be responsible? I shall be told that he is to be responsible to the public. Rut the public, to each individual elector, can be no other than that fraction of the public with whom he is in immediate dealing or communion — his neighbours, or townsmen, or fellow constituents, who alone take any cognizance of the way in which he votes. Your responsibility therefore comes to this— that an elector is to be rewarded with the good-will of his neighbours if he votes as they approve: he is to be punished with their ill-will if his vote be such as they disapprove. Admit this to be just, and you sanction the principle of intimidation at once. Why, what are the very cases which have been so much complained of in the Irish elections? A Catholic free: holder in an Irish village holds Conservative principles, and wishes to vote for the Conservative candidates; the bulk of his neighbours around him are all Liberals, 795 and it is to them that he is responsible for his vote. The responsibility takes effect against him by the unhappy methods recorded in this Report—by resolutions of exclusive dealing—by a social proscription —a sort of interdiction (if I may be al lowed to translate a Latin phrase) from the communion of fire and water. A few miles off, perhaps, you have the case reversed; you find a great Protestant landlord, of Tory principles, surrounded by tenants, many of whom are Catholics and Liberals. Here the only substitute for your imaginary public, the sole enforcer of responsibility, is the landlord, whose tenants are compelled to endure the bitter consequences of his ill-will, unless they prefer his bidding to the dictates of their own consciences. Now, Sir, these are specimens of the identical evils which every one complains of, and which your Committee were directed to devise means of preventing; yet they are the inevitable results, the outward and visible manifestations, of this principle of responsibility of the voter. It really means nothing except liability to evil at the hands of the stronger power—single-headed power, or many-headed power, as the case may be. Sir, if you consider for one moment either the nature of the elective franchise, or the number and interests of the aggregate electoral body, you will find that responsibility in their case is as needless as it is impracticable. For why is responsibility necessary, and how comes it to be practicable in the case of Ministers, and Members of Parliament, and other special functionaries? It is because the smallness of their number gives them an interest of their own, apart from and often hostile to the community at large; it is because this same smallness of their number and con spicuousness of their position, enables the public to keep a steady watch upon them; lastly, it is because the specialty and continuity of their functions also enables the public to judge whether the duties as signed to them are faithfully or negligently discharged. Now, Sir, every one of these three leading circumstances is reversed in the case of the parliamentary electors. In the first place the numbers of parliamentary electors is so large that their interest is identified with the people. As an aggregate body they can have no separate interest of their own. They are, in point of fact, the people themselves in miniature, and on a reduced scale. Their voice is a 796 compendious expression of the voice of the whole nation. Next, this extension of the numbers of electors, which identifies them in feelings and interest with the entire mass of the people, and thus gives you the best possible security for their choosing well if they are left to themselves—this same circumstance, I say, renders it preposterous to talk of them as a body of intermediate agents, responsible to any extraneous and ultimate superior. How idle would it be to pretend to attach any responsibility to an aggregate body of 700,000 or 800,000 persons, and that, too, a scattered, fluctuating, and untraceable multitude. If goodness of election depends upon the responsibility of electors we can not too soon repeal the Reform Act, and cut down our electors to a select few—for the smaller the constituency the more perfect will responsibility become; nay, the constituency of Old Sarum before the Reform Act presented an example of electoral responsibility exalted to its highest point. Lastly, Sir, I beg to consider what is it that an elector has to do, and then ask yourself how the performance of his task can ever be made the subject of unaccountability to parties without. He has no specific train of duties to perform on which the criticism of the public can fasten; he has only to record his preference, without any reason assigned, between two or more candidates, and the virtue of the process consists in his delivering his judgment genuinely and sincerely—integro et libero animo. Now, Sir, I confidently maintain that this is a process which must spring exclusively from the free will and inward conscience of the elector himself. No human supervision can extort from him a true verdict, because no human eye can discern what the true verdict is. If responsibility to the public has any effect upon him at all it will induce him to abandon his own judgment altogether, and vote for that candidate whom he believed to be the favourite of the public; thus violating the most essential obligation of the franchise. Look at it which way you will, Sir, this idea of the responsibility of the electors is a compound of mischief and illusion. The numbers of the body and the nature of the franchise conspire to render it use less to any good purpose, and effectual only in silencing the free and honest expression of individual conscience. Sir, on the former occasion when I brought forward this motion the noble Lord the Member for 797 Stroud contended that, though the ballot does away with all evil influences over voters, it removes them at the same time out of the reach of all good and improving influences. I may safely challenge the noble Lord, or any one else, to prove that such an effect will flow from it. Surely there can be no good influences except those which operate upon the elector through the medium of his own conscience and conviction — those which he obeys freely and spontaneously, apart from all calculations of future profit or loss to him self. Now, will any portion of such influences as these be enfeebled when the suffrage is rendered secret? Sir, I con tend that they will all be left entire and unimpaired. They will be as powerful under the ballot as they are at present; nay, they will be expanded and fostered to a degree much beyond what it is at present practicable. It is against the evil influences, specially and exclusively, that the ballot makes war—against those compulsory influences which determine the vote of an elector, without any reference to his own feelings and conviction — against those appeals to his hopes and fears which vitiate the integrity of the vote altogether. Sir, I am as anxious as the noble lord can be to multiply good influences over voters as much as possible; and I defy him to point out any mode of accomplishing this object half so effectual as secrecy and freedom of the suffrage. The evil influences at elections are now most formidable and triumphant; it is publicity alone which secures to them this triumph; it is publicity which renders thousands of honest voters traitors to their political convictions and to their inward conscience, though it cannot in any case create a sense of public duty in the bosom of the dishonest. Make the suffrage secret, and you banish all these evil influences at once. You leave uncontrolled scope to the gentle ascendancy of persuasion and advice from those who can engage the elector's esteem; you impose upon every one who wishes to obtain a vote the necessity of appealing to the inward reason or feelings of the voter. This is all which public authority can do, and I may add all that public authority need do, to multiply good influence over voters; and this will be assuredly accomplished by means of the vote by ballot. Hitherto, Sir, I have spoken chiefly of the effects of the ballot in extinguishing intimidation over electors. But, perhaps, 798 I shall be told that it will not be equally effectual in preventing bribery. No doubt, Sir, the specific agency of the ballot is against intimidation; but its effect will be important and powerful in checking bribery. It will entirely suppress bribery according to the modes at present practised; it will greatly hamper and discourage bribery under any conceivable form or process; it will render the attempt to bribe, even under the most favourable circumstances, more uncertain, more costly, more difficult, and more hazardous. When the suffrage becomes secret you cannot buy an elector's vote individually and separately; for he cannot sell the certainty of his vote; he can only sell the probability of it; this is the best which he has to offer. He may certainly offer this contingency for sale, if any one will buy it; but what man in his senses will ever pay down the purchase money for a commodity of which there is to be no assured and ostensible delivery? Surely this is a speculation so unpromising and perilous that very few bribers will be at all inclined to embark in it. A good deal of bribery now goes on through indirect channels, and by the agency of friends and partisans of the candidates, and by the help of admission to charities and other descriptions of patronage, as the House will find detailed and illustrated in the evidence of Mr. Visger and Mr. Hudson before the Committee on Intimidation. An elector entitles himself to a share in these good things by constantly voting as a Blue freeman or a Yellow freeman. But how can this condition be certified, or this corrupt traffic continue to be carried on, when votes are taken secretly? But then it will be said, that a candidate may make his bargain with particular voters, agreeing to pay each of them a sum of money conditionally upon his success. In a large constituency I believe that any such bar gain would be totally out of the question; I believe that it would not answer the purpose of either party. In a small constituency I shall not deny that such a corrupt agreement might probably be made and acted upon; but, Sir, if this be admitted— if it be admitted that small constituencies carry with them an inherent and incorrigible possibility of corruption—what is the proper inference which follows? Not surely that the ballot is faulty and defective, but that small constituencies are faulty and defective, and that large constituencies alone are trustworthy. Still, 799 Sir, though I subscribe to this argument as an objection against narrow constituencies, I am not afraid to contend that in every constituency, small as well as large, the Ballot will render bribery far more hazardous and deceitful, far more clumsy and inconvenient, than it is at present. In fact the Bullot will go nearer to eradicate bribery altogether than any other measure which could be devised while the suffrage remains public. There is this essential distinction between bribery and intimidation, in both you have two conspirators who confederate against the freedom and purity of election; but in the case of intimidation one of the conspirators is an unwilling agent, and therefore the conspiracy is totally broken up the moment he is left to his own free will. Whereas in the case of bribery both parties are willing agents, in so far as they can trust each other, and, therefore, the same precautions are not so omnipotent to their in tended purpose—they serve only, but they do serve most effectually, to disconcert and confound such a conspiracy, by destroying all evidence or certainty of the consummation of the bargain. Whoever thinks that this is doing little let him show me any other plan which will do as much, assuming the publicity of the vote to be preserved. But surely, Sir, my cause would be complete, even if I were to wave all mention of bribery, when it can be shown that the Ballot will effectually extirpate intimidation. Your honest voters cry to you for protection against intimidation—they are men who would spurn the idea of a bribe, or of turning their votes to any corrupt profit—but they do pray to be guarded against wrong, and loss, and oppression in the conscientious exercise of their franchise. A measure is proposed which completely accomplishes this object; and I am really to be told, as a fatal objection to it—" No; we cannot grant you the Ballot; it is true that it does away with intimidation entirely, but there are some distant possibilities of bribery which it leaves not absolutely barred out, and therefore it is not worth our consideration." I must contend, Sir, that this would be the most extraordinary ground of exception ever yet taken to any legislative proposition. Here are two diseases, both of most pernicious working. A remedy lies before you, by which the one may be completely cured, the other greatly abated; yet you cast it contemptuously away because you 800 cannot sweep the country clean of both diseases at once. Let me venture to re mind you, Sir, that if it be difficult, as it certainly is difficult, to prevent dishonest voters from playing you false and betraying their trust, if this be the case, I say the more carefully ought you to watch over and cherish the untainted portion of your constituency. Protect them from being dragged into dishonest voting against their own will, by unrighteous violence and compulsion. If you cannot eradicate corrupt disposition universally, at least keep the path of honesty safe and clear for the willing citizen to walk in. I can hardly persuade myself, Sir, that the Legislature will persist in withholding the precautions necessary for this simple, though solemn, purpose. It is my duty to touch upon one or two other objections which I know to be made against the Ballot, and I shall pro ceed to do so with as much brevity as possible, regretting very much the necessity of troubling the House at so much length. I know that I have to combat a feeling of degradation which some Gentlemen attach to the use of secrecy in any case, or for any purpose. No doubt, Sir, there are numberless cases in which publicity is of unspeakable moment; but reflection will teach us that this rule is far from being universal. What man is there who has not experienced, in the most trying con junctures of his life, the blessing of confidential communication with a friend, enabling him as it does to procure information or advice, which could never be safely proclaimed to the public? What member of a club is there who does not feel that the harmony and kindly fellowship among the general body is essentially maintained by the secrecy with which voting is carried on? Well, then, Sir, the special point of your consideration is, whether voting at Parliamentary elections is one of those occasions on which secrecy is better or worse than publicity. Now, Sir, perhaps I may be considered as unduly presumptuous; but I challenge any gentleman to point out any one good consequence arising from publicity of votes, or any one bad consequence arising from secrecy of votes at Parliamentary elections. One thing is undeniable—such publicity is in no respect conducive, in many respects injurious, to the main purposes of Parliamentary elections, which is to ascertain exactly and faithfully who it is that possess the confidence of the majority of every constituency. 801 What profit is gained beyond the satisfaction of vague curiosity by publishing the poll-book with the names of the majority and minority, a record of names often procured as much by forced levies as by voluntary enlistment? Gentlemen, may, perhaps say, that the vote of the superior person must be proclaimed, in order that it may serve as a guide and index to the inferior. There might be some thing in this reasoning if votes were the only way open to a man of making known his political opinions—but I need not remind you, Sir, that secrecy of voting is perfectly compatible with full publication of opinions by the tongue, or the pen, wherever any man chooses to make his opinions public. If there are, however, as in fact there always are, a certain percentage of voters, who do not choose thus to make proclamation of their political feelings; men, who either from backwardness of temper, or from dependence of position, shrink from open collision with their private friends, neighbours, and patriots—where is the advantage of forcing these men to vote aloud, and thus record themselves as formal partisans, against their own tem per and inclination? Sir, I contend there is every disadvantage in putting this constraint upon them; for, by refusing to take their votes quietly and confidentially, you force them to consider, not which is the right side, but which is the strongest side; you incur the risk of deterring them from giving their votes at all; you incur a still greater risk of obtaining from them a spurious vote, instead of a genuine vote. Sir, I look in vain for any one advantage, private or public, derived from publicity of votes; I find no one disadvantage, still more no dishonour, attached to secrecy. His Majesty, in calling a new Parliament wishes to get together a House of Commons possessing the confidence of the people. In order to be sure that he arrived at the truth, he takes the opinion of every separate elector, confidentially, apart from the hearing of any one else. What dishonour can there be in secrecy, when it is only the handmaid of sincerity, the pledge of free speech, as between the voter and the public? I think, Sir, I have some reason to remark, if not to complain, that persons who object to the vote by ballot, overlook constantly the main and direct purpose of Parliamentary election, and fasten their attention upon certain collateral circumstances, which at best can only be taken into consideration, when we 802 have ensured the accomplishment of the primary end. For example, many Gentle men assail the ballot on the ground, that it enables an elector to promise his vote to one man and give it to another; or to declare that he has voted in one way, when he has really voted in the opposite. Now, Sir, before I examine the real value of this objection, let me first ask what it has to do with the main purpose for which Parliamentary elections take place? That purpose is, to collect faithfully the real sense of the qualified voters as to the choice of representatives. I believe there is no Gentleman of any party who denies that this is the grand aim of Parliamentary elections. Above all things, therefore, it is necessary to insure that this end shall be attained; and if you do not insure it, you may almost as well dispense with elections altogether, involving as they do so much trouble and expense, so much animosity and uneasiness of every kind. Now, such being the acknowledged purpose of elections, I contend that, in discussing the ballot, I am bound to show that secret suffrage is better than open suffrage, as a means of ascertaining the real sense of the voters. My opponents, on the other hand, are bound to disprove it. Bat do they disprove it? Sir, I con tend that not only do they not disprove it, but they do not even approach the question. I have attempted to prove—and I think I have proved—that secret suffrage is absolutely necessary to protect the honest voter in the conscientious discharge of his duty to the public. Do my opponents refute me, and prove the contrary? They do no such thing. They omit altogether the duty of the voter towards the public, and they carry your attention to the private obligation of the voter, as regards some third party; they expatiate on the maintenance of good faith, as between promiser and promisee. I must consider that this is a pure diversion of your attention away from the main point at issue; for the business of the Legislature is, to place an elector on the best and most convenient footing, for discharging the special duty required of him by the public; whether he tells truth, or keeps his promises to third parties, must be left to his own feelings and his own sense of propriety. But, Sir, let us take the objection as it stands, and inquire what it amounts to. The ballot, we are told, will lead to false promises and false declarations on the 803 part of voters. How or why should it pro duce this effect? Does it command any voter to break his promise? Does it hold out to him any new inducement or reward for breaking his promise? No, nothing of the kind; it merely enjoins him to per form the act of voting without a witness, and thus indirectly enables him to vote either according or contrary to any previous promise, without being found out, if he be inclined to do so. Certainly, the same may be said of every private and solitary act of every man's life; but. why are hon. Gentlemen so very much afraid, lest electors who vote by ballot should break their promises the moment they are enabled to do so with impunity? Sir, it is but too well known, that the promise given by a voter is, in a thousand cases, extorted and compulsory; it is a promise neither consonant to his own free will, nor dictated by his own conviction; a promise which he would never have made except, to one who took an ungenerous advantage of him, and who possessed the power of inflicting penalty upon him in case of refusal. Now, Sir, promises like these, the offspring originally of importunity and compulsion, will only be sure of observance through the maintenance of the same compulsion; they may probably be infringed, when the ballot has left every voter to his own free will. But the voluntary promises—those which have been freely given, and which carry the heart and feelings of the voter along with them —promises of this kind will never be bro ken, even though the vote be given in the thickest darkness, and with the fullest sense of impunity. We are told by Milton that
Ease will recantVows made in pain as violent and void.But wherever the vow has not been made in pain—wherever ease has made the vow, ease will keep it also. This, Sir, is the whole amount of the mischief of promise-breaking, and I intreat the attention of the House to it, that none but compulsory promises are in danger of being broken when votes are given secretly. Let me put the question now, what mischief would ensue if these compulsory promises should come to be broken? A voter ought not to make such a promise if it be at variance with his own sentiments and conscience. Granted; but assuming that he has been guilty of the weakness and the wrong of giving such a promise, are we to arrange our system of voting for the express purpose Of compelling him to keep it? To 804 do this would be nothing less than seeking to deprive the voter, by our own act, of the means of faithfully discharging his duty to his country—a duty prior to all private agreements with third parlies—a duty implied in the very possession and exercise of the franchise. Why, Sir, when the choice lies, as it does in this case, between breaking a wrongful promise and violating the duty which the elector owes to his country, can there be a moment's hesitation which of the two we ought to enforce, and which we ought to condemn—we who sit in this House as the chosen guardians of the public rights and franchise—we who derive our sole title to confidence and authority from presumed purity of election? Let me again bring to your recollection, Sir, the object and aim with which the Committee of last year was constituted. We desire to put down intimidation and to uphold the freedom of the vote. But I affirm that we are playing into the hands of the intimidator, and practically annihilating the freedom of the vole, when we countenance and ratify these compulsory promises. The intimidator begins by compelling a voter, to promise; and are we then really to say, "Be cause you have compelled the man to promise against his will, therefore you have acquired good title to compel him to a vote?" Sir, I say, that this would be no less monstrous in principle than inconsistent with our own resolutions and professions. It would be to guarantee the last stage of tyranny out of respect to the first. Depend upon it, Sir, if you wish to put down intimidation effectually you must use a very different language towards the intimidator. You must render the attainment of his final purpose impracticable. You must show him plainly, that whatever be his power of extorting promises he will not be allowed to retain the smallest power of extorting votes; and you will then pre vent these compulsory promises from being ever demanded, when you show that they afford no security for performance. The evil of intimidation, the evil of mendacity, and the evil of promise-breaking, will all disappear at the same time, and before one and the same simple remedy—a free and secret vote. Sir, I am deeply sensible that I have drawn but too largely on the patience of the House; yet, before I sit down, there is one argument which I am obliged briefly to examine, because it is constantly argued as an objection against the vote by ballot. Hon. Gentlemen tell 805 me that the ballot will be fatal to what they call the legitimate influence of property. Now, Sir, I deny this assertion point blank in any defensible meaning which the words "legitimate influence" can be made to bear—in any meaning of the words which a patriot or a freeman can acknowledge. I assert, fearlessly, that under a system of secret voting, the legitimate influence of property will be pre served unimpaired; nay, more, that it will be even exalted beyond what it is at pre sent. There is only one species of influence which the ballot will withdraw from a rich man—it will take away the power of rewarding or punishing electors according to the manner in which they vote. Now, Sir, I would ask, and I hope the question will be plainly answered, whether it be re ally this power of rewarding or punishing electors which Gentlemen mean when they talk of the "legitimate influence of property?" Does the House intend to recognise in any one citizen of this community — Peer or Commoner, titled or untitled—a legitimate authority to reward or punish electors for their votes? If we do, Sir, the sooner in all consistency we repeal our statutes against bribery the better—the sooner we drop the farce of affecting to condemn intimidation the better. For, what is this privilege of giving to an elector a reward for his vote in plain and un varnished English, except bribing him? and what is the privilege of punishing him for his vote except a licence of intimidation? But I, Sir, deny the position entirely. I maintain that this influence which arises from the power of rewarding or punishing voters, is repudiated by the law and by the Constitution. I maintain, that a man is no more warranted in employing his legal powers as a landlord for the purpose of seducing and coercing his tenants' votes, than in employing his funded property to distribute among them bribes in hard cash. It is the ancient doc trine of the Constitution that elections ought to be perfectly free, and the ballot can have no other effect than that of realising this strictly constitutional end. But all legitimate influence of property consists fully with freedom of election, and there fore it consists fully with vote by ballot. There is no doubt that wealth and conspicuous station, unless they are coupled with repulsive or contemptible personal qualities, impart great additional weight to the recommendation of their possessor, 806 " bene nummaturn decorat Suadela;" his authority is quoted and his example imitated, even by many who have no favour to hope, and no injury to fear from him. His wishes are still further likely to be obeyed if he is the object of gratitude for past favours, or of respect for public usefulness. Now, Sir, here is a very powerful body of influence insured to a rich man unless he forfeit it by his personal demerit. I call it a perfectly legitimate influence, and I call it so not less because. it rests partly upon good personal qualities, than because it is gentle and kindly in its working, looking only for open and spontaneous sympathy and graceful obedience, and implying neither violence on the one side nor degradation on the other. It is the triumph and the glory of this legitimate influence of property that the exercise of it. is perfectly compatible with entire freedom and secrecy of suffrage— nay, more, that it is exalted and enhanced by freedom of election, most powerfully felt where the suffrage is the most free, where the voter is best protected against everything like compulsion and tyranny. Sir, I have now exhausted, not indeed all that can be said on this important subject, but at least all that the House will bear to hear from me about it, and I have to thank them for the patience with which they have listened. Before I conclude, permit me in a few words to recall to your attention the point on which you are about to decide. Permit me to remind you that I am aiming at no end which is not in the strictest and highest sense constitutional. I am aiming at nothing except the freedom and integrity of the Parliamentary suffrage; a purpose not merely within the limits of the Constitution, but absolutely essential to its workings and vitality—absolutely essential to the attainment of a House of Commons really possessing the confidence of the people, which the Reform Act so emphatically promised to us. Permit me further to call to your remembrance the humiliating fact, that freedom of election, as things stand at present, is in many places little better than a dream and a fiction. Your election arrangements are traversed on all sides by corruption and intimidation; your electors are, in many cases compelled to vote against their real sentiments—in. many cases deterred from voting at all. This fact, if indeed it were not already notorious enough, has been 807 publicly and incontestibly certified by the evidence taken before your own Committee, and I venture to warn you, that if, after such overwhelming notoriety of the evil, you remain deaf to all suggestions of a remedy, you will implicate yourself in something little short of the guilt of connivance and participation. Now, Sir, for this acknowledged evil I have ventured to suggest a remedy. Let those who object to it provide a better if they can. All I shall say is, that my ingenuity can discover no other remedy either like or second to it. I propose to you the vote by ballot; a measure simple, specific, easy of introduction, and bearing precisely upon the mischiefs under your consideration. I have endeavoured to show you that the ballot is an antidote complete, unfailing, and all-sufficient, as against the master-evil of intimidation, and that it is the most powerful of all correctives as against bribery. I have proved that it is the only expedient for enabling an honest voter to walk in the path of conscience without serious loss and peril; and that the State can have no security for obtaining what is the primary purpose of election — a genuine and sincere expression of sentiment from the elector— except by taking his vote in secrecy and solitude—Nam veræ voces turn demum pectore ab imoEjiciuntur; et eripitur persona, manet res.I press upon you the adoption of the ballot, no less as an effectual protection to the honest voter, which he has the fullest right to demand, than as a certificate to the public of the genuineness of all votes, and of the unimpeachable title of all representatives chosen. I he hon. Member concluded by moving for leave to bring in a Bill providing that the votes at elections for Members of Parliament be taken secretly by way of Ballot.
§ Mr. LeaderAlthough I feel that in seconding the motion of my hon. Friend, the Member for London, I have a very difficult task to perform, yet were the task ten times more difficult I should have undertaken it with pleasure and alacrity, because I am convinced that the success of this measure would confer a more valuable and substantial benefit upon the people of this country, than any measure of reform which is at present in agitation; for without free and unbiassed voting at elections you cannot have fair and full representation; and without such representation you cannot have good government. The poor, that is, the comparatively poor and de- 808 pendent electors (one-half, if not two-thirds of the constituency), complain, and justly do they complain, that the Legislature has given them the shadow instead of the substance—the letter, but not the spirit—the word, but not the deed—the mere resemblance of an elective franchise, and not the elective franchise itself; for it has given to the registered electors the nominal faculty of voting for Members of Parliament, but it has virtually reserved to others the real power, in a majority of cases, of influencing, and compelling and coercing the vote nominally and ostensibly given by the elector himself. Now, there are two kinds of influence; there is, first, the moral influence which a great man, who is also a good man, is certain to obtain over the opinions, the feelings, the very thoughts of his poorer neighbours and dependents; of that influence no man can complain. There is, on the other hand, the immoral influence not gained by goodness; but by strength over weakness, by wealth over poverty, by greatness over dependence, and exercised not with a beneficent desire to advance the welfare of the community, but to augment the power or promote the selfish interests of those who exercise it; such, I regret to say, is the influence too commonly used by the creditor over the debtor—by the rich over the poor—by the great merchant over the small trader—by the landlord over the tenant, by the great and the powerful, in short, over the humble and the weak; to such an extent, indeed, does this system of undue influence prevail in this country, that most landlords appear to think they have as good a right to their tenant's vote as to the rent of their farms. It constantly happens, for instance, that a landlord makes a favour of granting his permission to a candidate, or to a candidate's friend, to canvass his tenants for their votes. As if, forsooth, the candidate would be violating the landlord's property, poaching upon his preserves, if he were to canvass the tenants without the landlord's sanction. Or perhaps the landlord may be opposed in politics (ostensibly, at least) to the candidate, and yet willing from other causes to forward his interest; then we may suppose the candidate, on application for the landlord's vote and interest, to be met with the following answer: "I am sorry that I cannot vote for you myself, that I cannot personally interfere in your behalf, but I will tell you what I can do for you; I give you free permission to canvass all my tenants, I dare say many of them will vote for you." Kind and ge- 809 nerous landlord! he condescends to allow the candidate for the votes of the electors to ask those of the electors who may be his tenants what their opinion really is. And yet it is a common form of expression to talk of taking "the sense of the people," while a candidate cannot even ask the people what their opinion is unless their landlord gives him permission to do so. This is clearly stated in the evidence given last year before the Bribery and Intimidation Committee. A witness was asked, "Is it usual before a party canvasses the tenants to ask the landlord's permission to do so?" Yes, "was the reply," and I never knew a Tory give that permission" (to his adversary is of course meant). What says another witness before the same Committee?— "I have known a landlord correspond with a candidate on the subject of the corn laws, and I have known him send a list of the whole of his tenants, and say that he should come with them and vote one way or the other, according to the explanation he received from the candidate." I have known other remarkable circumstances—I will not mention names—but I know the fact of the resident agent of a considerable property, the agent being of a class of political opinion different from the politics of his non-resident master, promising all the votes of the estate to a candidate. I wrote to London to a high family to influence this steward the other way, and the tenants were in consequence all polled contrary to their original promise, through the above agent." Well and justly may the tenants, after this, complain, "that the Legislature has given to them that which to them is not merely of no value, but an injury; for it compels them to go to the poll and tell a moral he —voting for one man when they feel it a duty to vote for another." Again, Sir, to prove that the votes of tenants are considered to proceed not from their own feelings, or knowledge, or conscience, but from their landlord's mandate, is it not notoriously matter of congratulation among Tories, when a great estate passes by inheritance or purchase, or other means, from a Reformer into the hands of a Tory; and, on the other hand, is it not cause of rejoicing among Reformers when a Tory's estate passes to a Reformer. There is a case in point which occurred only last year. In the western division of Somerset Lord Egremont has a large estate, with a command of, perhaps, 200 or 300 voters. The management of the estate was intrusted 810 to a resident steward; till within a year that steward was a staunch old Whig. I need not inform the House that the tenants always voted for the Whig candidates. Well, last year the good old Whig steward died, and after a short interval another steward was appointed. The new steward is, like his predecessor, a very respectable barrister; but, unlike his predecessor, he is a very decided Tory. He is, indeed, chiefly famous for having been the unsuccessful Tory candidate in several contested elections. His appointment was of course hailed with joy by the Tories of West Somerset. "What a good thing," they exclaimed, "200 or 300 votes taken from those horrid Whigs, and given to us." My hon. Friends, the two Liberal Members for West Somerset, looked rather grave on the subject, even though they had a majority of 1,000 at the last election—these 200 or 300 votes were no trifle. Well, a short time after an old Tory lady, in the same division of Somerset, died, and left her estate to a very decided Reformer. "Good news," said my hon. Friends, the Members for West Somerset, who had looked so grave on the appointment of the Tory steward, "This is some compensation for that unfortunate affair." Now, Sir, these facts clearly prove one thing— that it is looked upon as a matter of course, that whatever the tenant's real opinion may be, his vote should invariably follow the vote of his landlord. I find another instance of this sort of influence in the evidence given before the Bribery and Intimidation Committee. There are, in South Devon, three parishes lying together, called Rattery, Staverton, and Broadhempston. In the parish of Rattery there were twenty-one votes polled at the last election of 1835. Only one was a freeholder, the rest were leaseholders under one and the same landholder, Sir Walter Carew, to whom the whole parish belongs, Now, in the election of 1832, these electors all voted for Mr. Bulteel, the reform candidate. At that election, their landlord, Sir Walter Carew, voted for Mr. Bulteel; hut in 1835 they all voted for Mr. Parker, the Conservative candidate, against Lord John Russell. What could possibly have caused this total change? When I tell the House that their landlord, Sir Walter Carew, voted for Mr. Parker, they will not, I am sure, think it necessary to look further for any other cause; but Members opposite may say, as the landlord of Rattery conscientiously changed 811 his opinion, why should not his tenants of Rattery have also conscientiously changed their opinion? There is, fortunately, in the peculiar circumstances of this case a satisfactory answer to that objection. It seems that the farmers of the three parishes of Rattery, Staverton, and Broadhempston, form one class of persons, are a very intelligent set of men, and are in the habit of associating very much together; they are all of them Reformers on principle; and, in 1832, almost all of them voted for the reform candidate; but, in 1835, the farmers of one of the three parishes, that is of Rattery, voted against the reform candidate, while their friends and neighbours, the farmers of Staverton and Broadhempston, voted, as before, almost unanimously, in favour of the reform candidate. What is the secret of this partial change? Why, simply this—that in Rattery the farmers were all under the influence of one landlord, who had changed his mind, whereas the farmers of Staverton and Broadhempston were under little or no influence, and could vote according to their own conscientious opinions. In the same division of Devon, there is a parish called Broadcast. In 1832, nearly all the electors of Broadclist voted for the reform candidate; in 1835, six only voted for the reform candidate, while fifty two voted for the anti-reform candidate. What could be the reason of this great change? Were the fanners terrified by the rapid progress of reform, or were they alarmed with the Tory outcry of "No Popery." No, Sir, there is a much more plain and simple reason for their change of vote—they were all under the influence of one landlord, Sir Thomas Ackland. Now, in 1832, he supported the reform candidate, but in 1835, he opposed the reform candidate. What can be more proper, or more natural, in the existing state of things, than that his tenants should implicitly fellow his vote, and change their opinions with the changed opinions of their landlord? I will not weary the House by citing any move instances of this undue influence; let the most incredulous Member look into the evidence given last year before the Bribery and Intimidation Committee, and he must be convinced of the almost universal existence of this immoral and degrading influence. Now if this system is to continue, let us at least get rid of the hypocritical practice of registering the tenants of a great man as so many good votes, Let us act in a straight for- 812 ward, if not in a just manner. In South Devon, for instance, instead of registering so many farmers and leaseholders on Lord Rolle's estate, as so many distinct and independent votes, let us at once write down in the register—My Lord Rolle, 500 votes, in right of 500 serfs, or villeins, or farmers, or leaseholders—call them what you will, the name signifies little—who must vote as he commands them. Then, on the other side, put down—the Duke of Bedford, so many votes; and so on with all the great landed proprietors. This method, would, under the existing system, have several very good effects—it would save a great deal of trouble to candidates; instead of canvassing a great number of dependent voters, they would have to ask only for the votes of the great proprietors. It would put a stop to the persecution of voters, and thereby prevent much misery and bad feeling. It would have a good moral effect, as it would prevent most of the tyranny and hypocrisy at present in operation; and it would have the good political effect, that the tenants would become indignant at this open insult, though they now endure the injury with the flimsy veil of registration thrown over it; they would then assert their rights, and dare to say that their votes and their consciences were their own, and not their landlords'. In the feudal times the baron was followed to the wars by his tenants—a glittering train of steel-clad men-at-arms: the system is still the same though neither so war-like nor so imposing: now the landlord is followed to the poll by his tenants—a submissive train of coerced electors; and the results in both cases are nearly the same. In old times, the baron who could raise the greatest number of good fighting men attained for himself by their courage and good service, rank, and power, and consequence; in these times, the landlord who can command the greatest number of good voting men is sure, through their votes, to obtain for himself or his family, place, or pension, or patronage; indeed these things can scarcely be attained in any other way. Now what is the consequence of this pernicious and most iniquitous system? Some Members may think it successful, because the immediate apparent consequence is to give more Members to the benches opposite, than they would otherwise have; but the real consequence which must ultimately appear evident to all the world is this, that the 813 gentry of England will raise up a bad feeling against themselves; for in every coerced elector, in every tenant who has been compelled by them or by their agents to vote against his opinion, they will have a secret but a determined enemy; that the rich merchants and manufacturers will find in every coerced workman, in every intimidated tradesman, a secret but determined enemy. I have myself heard the curses and the threats of men who had been compelled by stern necessity to sacrifice their vote to the interest of their children. I have myself heard the son of a voter who had suffered and been half ruined because he would not give a dishonest vote, cursing the author of their misery, and wishing him in his grave. Are these the feelings which the gentry of England desire to produce in the hearts of their fellow-countrymen? They may sneer at curses, they may laugh at threats; trusting to their wealth, and their station, and their power, they may exclaim with the tyrant of old, "Oderint dum metuant;" but the time must come when the people's hate and the people's indignation will make them tremble. I have spoken at such length, and with such warmth on this part of the subject, because I know that the abuse of influence is the great and glaring evil of the present system; whoever has influence exercises it — whether justly or unjustly he never stops to inquire—and so perverted is the public mind on this subject, that most men actually think that they are committing no offence, either against justice or morality, when they are using their influence to compel a dependent to choose between dishonesty and ruin. I come now, Sir, to the question of what the elective franchise really is. Our opponents are continually comparing the responsibility of electors with the responsibility of Judges, Ministers of the Crown, and Members of Parliament. All these persons, they say, are obliged to act openly, and to be responsible for their actions; why should the elector alone be protected, by secrecy, from responsibility to his fellow-citizens? Now this comparison is not a fair one. The Judge is responsible to the community for a fair administration of justice—the Minister is responsible to the Crown and to the country for the fulfilment of his ministerial functions— the Member of Parliament is responsible to his constituents for the discharge of his Parliamentary duties, They have also 814 each of them a still higher responsibility— namely, a responsibility to their own conscience for an upright discharge of their several duties. Now, this is the only responsibility which the elector shares with them, for the Legislature has determined that every man possessing a certain qualification, shall, on the fulfilment of certain conditions, have a right to be registered as an elector; the only duty demanded of him in return is, that he shall fairly and impartially, to the best of his judgment, exercise his faculty of voting. The elective franchise therefore, is not properly a trust, but a right, for the exercise of which an elector is responsible, not to his landlord—not to his neighbours—not to the non-electors— but to his own conscience alone. If, therefore, it is shown that the electors generally cannot freely and conscientiously exercise their right of voting under the present system of open voting, the Legislature is bound to afford them protection in some way or another. If this could be done without the secrecy of ballot, it would be an admirable thing indeed; but if it cannot be done without, then it must be done by means of the ballot; for until the voter can give his vote as he pleases, all (so called) representation is a farce, and it is a mockery to talk of the "sense of the people." Now, Sir, to examine some of the arguments and assertions usually urged against the ballot, as to its being un-English, and calculated to encourage falsehood and hypocrisy; such charges scarcely deserve an answer. I wish, however, to observe, that it is much worse, much more likely to cause falsehood and hypocrisy, and, therefore, I suppose more un-English, to coerce a voter and to make him tell an open lie, than to give him the protection of secrecy, trusting to his sense and conduct, after having voted conscientiously, to parry as he best can the questions and insinuations of those persons who had sought to influence him. But, say our opponents, the ballot would not put an end to either bribery or intimidation. They say, that in small constituencies bribery would, under the ballot, be carried on wholesale. Now, granting for a moment that this argument is worth anything, it is an argument not against the ballot, but against small constituencies. Let, therefore, no constituency consist of less than 1,500 or 2,000 voters, and the richest man in the country would soon find his purse exhausted, and his seat too 815 dearly purchased, even if he could purchase one at all. Again, in what method do our opponents say that bribery under the ballot, in the case of small constituencies, would be carried on? Why, in this manner — that a candidate should promise, if successful, to distribute a certain sum of money among the electors. Now, under the present system it is notorious, that in many places there is bribery on the part of the unsuccessful as well as on the part of the successful candidate. On the very showing, therefore, of our opponents, half the existing bribery would be stopped. The real fact is, that the ballot would very soon put down bribery altogether. With respect to intimidation, in spite of the denial of our opponents, the ballot must have a very good effect, even though it should not prevent some men from occasionally exercising a tyrannous power over their dependents. Under the present system every vote is known, and a landlord may say to his tenants—" If you do not vote as I wish, you shall suffer for it." Under the ballot, every vote would be secretly given; at any rate every vote would not be known. The landlord could then say only — "If I find you out voting against my wishes, you shall suffer for it." But it would be the tenant's own fault if he made public that which he might, if he chose, keep secret. The secret vote by ballot, therefore, would very materially diminish, if it did not altogether destroy, all undue influence and intimidation. Great horror is expressed by our opponents at the prospect of the influence of property being taken away by the ballot. The bad, the immoral influence of mere property, unsupported by character and moral worth, would undoubtedly be diminished; but the good, the moral, the only proper influence of property, in the hands of a good man enjoying a good character for judgment, honesty, and knowledge, far from being diminished, would be vastly increased by the ballot. Not to weary the House with the many arguments on this point which occur to one's memory, I will refer to a statement made before the Bribery and Intimidation Committee. A witness was asked, "The instant the ballot was established, would there not be on the part of the landlord an entire absence of all canvassing, and of the attempt to make his moral influence felt?—I should say not his moral influence. I say 816 a good landlord, like Sir Thomas Acland, whose moral influence is so good, that, differing with his politics, I should be very much afraid of his moral influence over his tenants; but I do not think it would extend to the extreme it does now. Where the yeomanry are not intelligent, and have no strong political feeling, I think a man would have a great deal of moral influence." "You said just now, a clergyman of mild and amiable character, and exemplary conduct, would have more influence over his parishioners than a clergyman of different habits?" "Certainly." Would not that influence continue with the ballot?"—"Certainly." "So you think that a landlord anxious to exercise political power in his own neighbourhood, would, if his sources and means of (undue) influence were taken away, be more inclined to increase the sources of what you considered his moral influence; that is, that he would take pains to impress his opinions as well as his wishes, upon the minds of his dependants?"—"Certainly." But why pursue this topic further? It must be evident that if you take from men desirous of power the bad means of attaining it, they will sedulously apply themselves to the good means—" a consummation devoutly to be wished." I have quoted the above evidence, partly in support of my position, and partly also as an act of justice to Sir Thomas Acland, whose name I have before mentioned in connexion with influence over tenants. Are there not many laws against bribery? And what is bribery but the undue, the immoral influence of property? And yet in speeches in this House we hear of the horrible injustice that the ballot would bring upon the rich, by depriving property of its influence. Now call the elective franchise a right or a trust, as you please, the duty of an elector is to deliver his genuine and conscientious opinion at the poll, whether it agrees or disagrees with that of other people: any elector, therefore, who, under undue influence, gives a vote against his opinion, is guilty of a breach of public duty; but the man who by undue influence coerces his vote, is doubly guilty; the man that makes another thieve is more guilty than the thief; the man who hires a false witness, is more guilty than the base perjurer; the man who pays an assassin is more guilty than the murderer; and thus the man who makes another vote against his con- 817 science is more guilty than the man who so votes. "What!" exclaim some honourable Members, even on this side of the House, "are the electors insensible to feelings of independence?" Alas, no; they have strong feelings of independence, but they have also a very natural feeling for themselves, for the welfare of their families, for the livelihood of their children. Can we blame them when we see them tempted by gain (call it bribery or head-money as you like) on the one hand, threatened with misery on the other, if they neglect what they may, perhaps, consider in their individual case an unimportant public duty, in order that they may attain, what to them is an all-important, a vital object, that is, the means of securing a livelihood for themselves and their family. "Are you then prepared (say our opponents) to state that the Mouse of Commons is not composed of the real representatives of the people of England?" To that question I answer, that admitting as I do, with gratitude, the great improvement in representation produced by the Reform Bill, I do maintain that this House does not, even now, fairly represent the real feelings of the electors of this country; and that it never will represent them fairly, until the electors generally can, under the protection of the ballot, give an honest and a conscientious vote. Look to the counties especially; are there not many County Members in this House who represent not the great body of the electors according to their honest opinions—but the clergy, the magistracy, and the few great proprietors, whose tenants are compelled to vote against their real opinions. If an example is wanted of undue influence in a populous city, look to the case of Bristol, as stated before the Committee on Bribery and Intimidation; if an example is wanted of undue influence exercised by one great. proprietor over the constituency of a small town, look to the case of Ripon, as stated before the same Committee. The abuse is notorious, and the people believe that there is no remedy for it but the ballot. After our opponents have alleged such and similar arguments against the ballot, they at least assert, in order, I suppose, to annihilate at once the ballot and its supporters, that the ballot has failed in France and in America, and that it will not insure secrecy. As to its having failed in those countries, facts give a clear de- 818 nial to our opponent's assertions. So far from having failed in America, it has admirably answered the end for which it was instituted—that of securing a fair representation of the people. And now that the Americans have clearly established their freedom of choice in elections, the ballot may indeed occasionally be exercised in such a manner as not to enforce secrecy; but the power remains with the electors, and should circumstances ever render such protection necessary to shield them from corruption or intimidation, the secret vote by ballot is in their hands, and to that protection, and to that alone, can can they at all times have recourse. The same thing may be said of France, with the difference—that as in America the ballot is the guarantee to the Americans for all their rights and liberties, so in France the ballot is the last remnant of free representation yet preserved to Frenchmen—the last protection of the French electors against the corruption, the intimidation, and the tyranny of Government. As to secrecy not being insured by the ballot, all that I ask is this—recognise the principle that every man's vote should be his own and not another man's, that every man should be enabled to vote as he pleases, and protected in the exercise of his elective franchise; but so long as open voting continues, this cannot be effected. Allow my hon. Friend, the Member for London, to introduce his Bill, and I will venture to declare that he will so frame the clauses of the Bill, that he will so regulate the machinery of voting, that in spite of threats and of spies—inspite of public intimidation and of domestic treachery —the vote of the elector must perforce remain a secret to every human being but himself. I have now gone through most of the arguments usually urged against the ballot, but it seems to me that in all these arguments and assertions we have only the professed reasons of our opponents for disliking the ballot. It appears to me that their real reason yet remains behind. I should say that their real bona fide reason for opposing the ballot is this, that they know the ballot would take from the wealthy and the powerful their undue influence, and their unjust power, and that it would place the choice of Members (and consequently the chief power in the state) where it ought to be by right, in the hands of the electors. The consequence of this would be, that the rich and the powerful, 819 who wished to administer the affairs of the state, would be compelled to render themselves fit by knowledge, energy, and conduct, to occupy those places which they now habitually hold, not because they are fit to hold them, but because they happen to have inherited a great estate, or to descend from a noble family, or because they have zealously devoted themselves to one or other of the two aristocratic parties. It is acknowledged on all sides that corruption is practised—it is acknowledged that intimidation prevails to an unparalleled extent—it is acknowledged that undue influence is exercised in the most revolting manner—and yet, when we offer you a remedy for all these evils, you reject it. How then can we, how can the people, believe that you are sincere and earnest in your professions, and your declarations against these abuses? In this respect I am more surprised at the opposition offered to us by certain Reformers on this side of the House, than by the Conservative Reformers opposite. The present Ministers know (for they have told us) that they are the representatives of the people, as well as the Ministers of the Crown. They are undoubtedly the most liberal and the most honest, and therefore the most popular Ministers who ever ruled this country. They have generally deserved the confidence of the people, and they have had, and (so long as they go on in the same liberal and honest course) they will continue to have, the support of the popular party in this House. Knowing all this—as they well know it— and being well assured that the great majority of the aristocracy of birth and of wealth—that the bar, the clergy, the magistracy, and the squirearchy are generally against them, and that they are maintained in power by the will of the people alone; why, I say, do they persist in resisting as a Government this measure, which above all others would increase their power—by increasing the people's power and their confidence in Ministers? Why are the friends to ballot now in the Government compelled to oppose us? Why is not this question left rather as an open question, on which each Minister may exercise his own discretion? We know that in the Government there are many friends to the ballot; why, then, are they now prevented from giving their powerful assistance to a measure of which they once were the able supporters? Why are their lips to be closed by the seal of office? I trust that before long the 820 Government, or rather the anti-ballot Members of the Government, will change their course on this question; and if they will not themselves bring it forward as a Government measure, that they will at least leave it as an open question, and allow their colleagues, who are in favour of it, to speak and to vote according to their previously avowed opinions. But whether this or any future Government may assist us or not, it is now a mere question of time. They might, by their assistance, enable us to carry the question rather sooner than we can without them. They may, by their opposition or their indifference, throw some impediment and some delay in our course; but they may rest assured that, before many years have passed, this question must be carried. The people are every year more convinced of its necessity; the people will, at every election, be more urgent in its favour, because they will every year more clearly see the hopelessness of relief without it, and it must ultimately succeed. Public opinion is setting in in favour of the ballot with a steady flow. You may, for a season stop, by your obstacles, the advancing tide; but it must eventually rise above all barriers, and carry you before it with resistless force. I cannot better conclude what I have to say on this subject, than by quoting the words of one of the chief men in the country: although they were not spoken on this question, they are most applicable to it: the words are these —" The great disease of society, the great impediment to quiet government, the great evil of the day, the greatest prevailing abuse at present is, that every one thinks he has a right to employ his influence over another; each practises it, and each exclaims against its practice in a third person. The landlord enforces it on his tenant—the customer over his tradesmen; they force conscience, and they drive persons against their will to the poll, to vote contrary to their own wishes. I say, then, upon whatever side this influence is exercised, it is a cruel tyranny and a gross injustice. I say that it is a great evil; it is one, too, prevailing in a greater degree in this than in any other country, and that in no other country hut this, where there is a popular form of government, does it prevail." These are sentiments which would do honour to any man; they are the honest, the manly, the straightforward sentiments of a truly liberal-minded man: they are words spoken only a few weeks past, by the Prime Mi- 821 nister of this country. He is the most popular—yes, Sir, he is still the most popular, and he is still deservedly the most popular Minister who ever governed this country. And as I believe that the welfare of the people is his only object in retaining power, so is their confidence in him the main support of his Administration. I rejoice, therefore, to hear such words uttered by such a man; for I feel assured, that if acted upon, they will lend to increase and to confirm his well-earned and unshaken popularity. To me these words are as a good omen of our future, and not very distant success in carrying this all important question of the ballot.
§ Lord Dalmeny ,in rising to make a few remarks, begged leave to say, that if any speech could induce him to become an advocate for the ballot and the principle of secret voting, it would be the speech of the hon. Member for London. For three successive years that hon. Member had brought forward this motion in a very entertaining and able manner, but as each successive year had only furnished him with additional reasons for believing that the measure was not only one of an impolitic, but of a pernicious nature, the hon. Member must rather attribute his opposition to the nature of the measure itself, than to any want of talent on the part of those who had urged it on their attention. He was not, at the same time, blind to the evils and mischiefs that arose out of the present system. There was no doubt whatever about the disease; the question, therefore, merely regarded the remedy to be applied, and he candidly confessed that he could discover no such remedy in the nostrum of the hon. Member for London; on the contrary, he thought it would lead to those very evils which it affected to cure. Supposing, as the hon. Member anticipated, that the ballot would have the effect of securing the utmost secrecy, of inducing the voter to observe a silence that no power could break, and that even in the expansion of his heart during convivial moments he could not be influenced to disclose his vote—supposing all these improbabilities to be realised, let it be recollected that the principle the hon. Member advocated would strike at once at the root of all responsibility. The very Gentlemen who had been always shouting and agitating for publicity, who preferred that the Exchequer should be impaired rather than that means should not be given to inform the ignorant of everything that 822 occurred, from the debates in Parliament down to the lowest parish squabble—men who had been in the habit of branding every private meeting with the name of "cabal," were now the very men to call most loudly for secrecy at elections. The hon. Member for the City of London had talked of putting an end to the intimidation of voters by the ballot. Now, most certainly the ballot would not have that effect, for if landlords had the power of compelling their tenantry to vote in a particular way, and against their consciences, pray, would they not to an equal degree have the power of compelling them to sacrifice their votes altogether, which could be done, too, without any breach of conscience? Would the landlords, who were now said to be so active in persecution and laborious in oppression, be charmed into subjection by the sound of the ballot? Would their agents, who were now said to be so active amongst the tenantry, totally lose their influence? Would there be no secret inquiries, no espionnage, no endeavours to entrap, no bullying in order to extort a confession, or no vigilance to take advantage of evasion on the part of the voter? He had known frequent instances in which voters had refused to declare their intention to the landlord, but at the same time the manner in which they conducted themselves rendered their intention as evident as if they had openly avowed it. He would, therefore, never sanction a measure which would only give protection to a system of tyranny and falsehood, for that must be based upon fraud, the very existence of which depended on secrecy; he would never sanction a measure which would sow dissension between landlord and tenant, and poison all the relations between them. He confessed he preferred the course pursued by those opposed to the ballot, conceiving it to be injurious, to that of those who, though sceptical of its efficiency, would notwithstanding admit of a trial by way of experiment. Now, he detested all mere experiments with the institutions of the country. If the ballot be an improvement, let it be adopted; if it be pernicious, let it be rejected; but let them not be called upon to attempt it by way of a frivolous experiment, in order to satisfy the cravings of idle speculation or still more idle curiosity, and in order to pander to the passions of the multitude. If ever the ballot should pass into a law, one of the first speeches he should have to make in opposition to the hon. Member for London 823 would certainly be in opposing some well digested scheme for eradicating bribery by increasing the elective franchise. It was well known that bribery took place amongst the lower classes. He did not think the ballot would prevent it, and he thought that system one of a most pernicious nature which made secrecy the guardian of honesty. With regard to the appeals which had been made to extinguish the fine old English system and all those sentiments of loyalty with which it was connected, and to substitute in its place a mean, low, crafty, pusillanimous, and dissembling spirit, which must be infallibly engendered by the ballot —with regard to those appeals to the feelings on that subject, he should leave them to those who should succeed him in the debate, conscious that he had entered sufficiently into the general merits of the question. He should also leave to others the task of showing that the ballot had entirely failed in America, notwithstanding the assertions of the hon. Member for Bridgewater. He had never conversed with an American, or with an Englishman who had resided in that country, conversant with elections, that had not told him that the ballot had proved most ridiculously ineffective, and had completely defeated its own purposes. Let him, then, implore the House not to waste its time on these abstract speculations — let him implore the House to suffer a reform in our institutions to have fair play, to have a fair trial, and not to disturb it by this meddling spirit of innovation, but to betake themselves to those real grievances which now more than ever summoned their attention. Let them at least deal with experience before they plunged into theories.
§ Dr. Bowringsaid, if the speech of the noble Lord had come from the other side of the House, it would have been more in place than it was, having been delivered on this side. All that was asked by the friends of the ballot was that the experiment should be made, and as an assurance that it would succeed they showed that in the cases in which it had been tried it had never failed. Allusion had been made to America; how had the ballot proceeded there? It was adopted in one of the American States, and found to work so well that it was extended to the others. When he visited the cantons of Switzerland he was told that the ballot had had the effect there of introducing peace into the community, and that it had done more to establish harmony and prevent corruption than any experiment that 824 had been made. It was known generally, and the noble Lord must know, that even amongst his constituents the question of the ballot had made great progress; indeed, he must feel, that if there was any one thing more than another which was calculated to put in peril his situation in that House, it was such a speech as he had made that night, and there never was a question which had made such rapid progress in the public mind as this. It was a question not only of reason but of peace. It tended to remove that tyranny which caused so much misery, and the exercise of that undue influence of wealth which caused so much corruption. Its advocates only desire that the trial should be made, their object being to give the people the opportunity of choosing the representatives they desired to choose. One of the noble Lord's objections to the ballot was that it was un-English. He would maintain, on the contrary, that it was not an un-English principle. The noble Lord knew perfectly well, that in those clubs to which gentlemen belonged, when a question arose as to the admission of a new member the election was conducted on the principle of the ballot, in order that there might be obtained the honest, conscientious, and sincere opinion of those with whom they associated, care being at the same time taken not to put the parties voting in a situation of hostility to those whom they felt conscientiously bound to oppose. What was asked was, that the people of England should be enabled to do what they considered right. If a man was in so independent a situation that he could proclaim his votes to the world without sacrifice, there was no reason why he should not do so; the ballot would not prevent him. But in a country like this, for a few independent to that extent, there were tens of thousands who were not. Let those who wished or who dared to make their votes public proclaim them. There might be some who were high-minded enough to prefer incurring a sacrifice to submitting to vote secretly, and he was disposed to honour the man who was conducted to martyrdom, but he certainly would not help to build up the hill on which the sacrifice was to be made. In his opinion there was no stronger answer to those who objected to the experiment than that it had never been made without success. He wished to avoid the suffering which followed a conscientious discharge of duty, and there was a great 825 deal of such suffering. Much apprehension was entertained of the tyranny of the many; he would guard against the tyranny of the few, for he knew that the tyranny of the few was often exercised to compel the many to do that which they felt to be wrong.
§ Mr. Ewartdeprecated the speech of the noble Lord, which was, in his opinion, more distinguished by eloquence of words than by force of argument. The noble Lord begged the question throughout, that fraud and falsehood must be the necessary result of the ballot, whereas its tendency was to prevent both. The noble Lord who had spoken in the course of the evening had said, "Before I consent to your measure I have a right to ask you to show me your machinery." Now, in reply to this part of the noble Lord's speech, he should say that in France the machinery for the purpose of the ballot was as ample and as perfect as possible. In America also it was found to work well, and here, in our clubs and vestries, whenever it was called into exercise it was found to work well. What occasion, then, for the noble Lord to demand an additional contrivance, when the simple machinery already in existence was found to be successful in its operations? To ask for the mechanism of the ballot before the ballot itself was granted, was only an evasion from the real state of the question. In all the cases in which the ballot had been tried, the mechanism had been sufficient to carry it into effect; we have only to sanction the principle demanded by the hon. Member for London; the machinery of the ballot was all ready for their hands, and he (Mr. Ewart) had not the slightest doubt of its success. The noble Lord had spoken much about the responsibility of the voter; but in order to be responsible he must have the means of expressing his opinions freely and without fear of consequences, which he could not do but by the ballot. The noble Lord had also spoken about the publicity of voting. But in his (Mr. Ewart's) judgment opinions, whether in religion or politics, were matters with which the state had no right to intermeddle. Now the exercise of the franchise was governed by opinion, whether true or false, and therefore the state had no right to interfere with it, nor to compel publicity, when the voter thinks he can exercise his franchise better in secret. The noble Lord had asked what security had we that the ballot would work well? To that question, the 826 only answer that could be given was, (as until we have adopted the experiment it would be impossible to speak from our own experience,) that in those countries in which the ballot had been introduced, we find it has put an end to coercion, and the fair inference is that it would work equally well in this country. In this country, of all others, it had ever appeared to him (Mr. Ewart) that the ballot was necessary; for in no country was there so few, compared with the great number of large proprietors. In France the number of small proprietors was several millions; while in England they were confined to some hundred thousands. In this country, therefore, it appeared that the shield of the ballot was much more necessary as a protection against the interference of wealth and power, in the exercise of the elective franchise, than in France where the wider diffusion of property constituted in some degree a guarantee against such interference. In France, it was the Government which prevented the freedom of election; and that not only in the election of the Chamber of Deputies, but in every municipal election down to the election of the lowest public officer in the kingdom. In England, the influence of property in the hands of the large proprietors, worked perniciously to almost an equal extent. Against that influence we are called upon to protect our fellow countrymen in the exercise of their franchise. There were two ways in which protection might be afforded them, by extending the franchise, and by giving them the power of secretly expressing their opinions: by secretly, he meant freely, for unless they had the power of expressing their opinions secretly, they never would express them freely. There were no means so natural, so obvious, so certain, for giving voters the power of freely expressing their opinions as the ballot. For that reason the House was called upon to grant it; for that reason he had taken this opportunity of expressing his opinions in its favour; for that reason he should as he had hitherto done, support it by his vote, and he should continue to do so to the end.
Colonel Thompsonobserved, it had been stated that voting for Members of Parliament was a public trust, and, therefore, it ought not to be exercised in secrecy; but, admitting that the elector was responsible for the way in which he exercised his right, did it follow that he would perform his duty any better for being exposed to the 827 chance of oppression? It was urged that the constitution did not recognise any such practice as secret voting; now, he could state one very remarkable instance that had been pressed upon him from an early period of his life, in which the law actually imposed the restriction of voting in secrecy, and allowed of no other mode of decision. He alluded to the case of military and naval officers, when sitting in courts-martial, having to decide upon the honour, and often upon the life, of their fellow creatures. Why was that the case? Because it was evidently considered to be the best mode that could be adopted; it was that one of the two plans which would produce the greatest maximum of good, and the least minimum of evil. Every officer was bound not to disclose the way in which he had voted. There was another instance, in the case of medical officers, who, though not bound by an oath, solemnly declared that they would not publish at any time their own opinions. He thought that would be an excellent precedent to be adopted by the friends of the ballot, because it had this effect—no man would ask the officer how he voted, knowing that he would be immediately replied to in this way—" How can you undertake to ask me my opinion, when you know I have solemnly declared that I will not divulge it?" He thought that principle might be copied into legislation upon the question of the ballot. He saw no reason why a voter should not be made to declare, that he would not expose his vote and opinion. That plan, he thought, would have the effect of preventing that intimidation, and those attempts at intimidation, of which so much complaint was now made.
§ Mr. Brodiesaid it was very seldom that he troubled the House, and he hoped, therefore, he might be heard on the important question of the ballot. He had a natural aversion to secrecy of all kinds, and his aversion had not been diminished by the observations of a very sensible writer. He said—
Thus much we may confidently state, that the expedient in question (the ballot) has of late assumed a form, entirely new, as regards its importance. The recent conduct of certain persons has advanced it most rapidly in the good opinion of the country. Those persons alone are answerable for the space which the ballot now fills in the public eye. And if it shall be resorted to, and shall be admitted to be a bad remedy for a worse evil, we have 828 them to thank for making that evil so unbearable that we should have been driven to bear any alternative, rather than endure it longer. To them, assuredly, it is owing, that we are now engaged seriously in discussing what, a year or two ago, we should have deemed hardly worth an argument. The most perfect state of things to give the ballot fair play, but one which it would be absolutely romantic to expect, would be the absolute in-action of all landlords, candidates, canvassers, and committees—the non-existence of all electioneering machinery,—so that not a word should ever be said to any voter, either before, or at, or after the election, upon any one matter relating to it. Under the ballot the probability is, that many who now vote openly would not dare to encounter the suspicion to which they might expose themselves; for that it should become the practice to leave voters to themselves, merely because the elective franchise was exercised in secret, is what no one would expect. Now as to bribery. Bribing to pair off, or to stay away, it is admitted, cannot be reached by the ballot. But for bribing actually to vote, one method is obvious and quite sure of being resorted to. Instead of paying the money for the vote when promised, a bargain will be made to pay it, if the party be elected, and thus every bribed voter will be converted into a zealous partizan. Next, as to the morality of the system. In what way can the ballot protect, or rather, in what way does it profess to protect, the voter, who dreads the displeasure of his landlord, his master, and his customer? Simply by enabling him to promise one way, and vote another, without being found out. Thus the voter's whole life must be so adjusted as to deceive the person, whose vengeance he has reason to dread. Having first deceived him, that he might be allowed to vote, he must go on, keeping up the deception, that he may not be punished for the double offence, the disobedience, and the treachery.He strictly concurred with the writer of those observations. A voter who wished to be screened by the ballot could never dare to state his political sentiments at any time, or in any place. Should he state them at home, in his own house, he might be betrayed —unintentionally, no doubt; yet he might be betrayed, even by the members of his own family. At the tavern and at the public-house—he would have a still greater risk to encounter. At no political meeting—at no political dinner, even, would he dare to show his face: to no petition to Parliament would he dare to put his signature. To this condition, then, would the free-born Englishman be reduced; and after all, probably, he would not be able to keep his secret. These were very strong objections to the ballot, 829 nevertheless, he should not vote against the question. He would not vote at all. He knew that intimidation had taken place and he said shame on those who had been guilty of it, particularly if they belonged to the Liberal party. They at least, ought to respect the feelings of the people; their actions ought to correspond with their thousand-times repeated declarations. Let all parties treat the people with kindness, and then our sacred institutions would last for ever! Treat them with scorn—treat them with contempt—oppress and persecute the people—and it would require no very extraordinary spirit of prophecy to predict, that England would shortly become the abode of misery and desolation. Her sacred institutions would totter, like broken columns in the melancholy waste —an awful, though then useless warning to future generations. He agreed with the noble Lord, the Member for Stroud, as he had expressed himself in an able, eloquent, and argumentative speech, at Honiton, in the month of January, 1835. The noble Lord, speaking on the question of the Ballot, saidMy objection to the ballot is, that secret voting gives to the electors irresponsible power. All other authorities are exercised in the light of day, and subject to public opinion. Our parliamentary discussions are open to the world—the voters alone are to exercise their power unseen and irresponsible. I am sensible (no man more so) of the progress which the question of ballot has made; nor will I deny that, as an ultimate remedy, we may be obliged to adopt it; but let us first exhaust every other. If, by the force of public opinion and public shame—if by rigid investigation and exemplary punishment,—we can find means to check intimidation and corruption, let those means be fully tried. Nay, more, let all hope of a remedy by those means be terminated, before we agree to a change, at variance with our ancient habits, inconsistent with our best institutions, and degrading to our national spirit.These were the sentiments of the noble Lord, in January, 1835, and he had reason to believe that those sentiments remained unaltered. He was aware of the disease under which the country laboured, but he must be fully satisfied that it was quite incurable, before he could consent to vote for so desperate a remedy as the ballot. He could not therefore vote for the motion, but being convinced that the existence of many evils had been proved, he would not vote against the Bill.
§ Mr. VilliersIt is sometimes, Sir, difficult to explain the reasons upon which a vote is founded. The hon. Member who has just sat down seems to be conversant with all the evils for which the ballot is proposed as a remedy: he speaks of them from experience and from observation. But he brings down to this House a letter, containing what he calls such eloquent and powerful arguments against the ballot, that he is determined to vote in opposition to his own experience—in opposition to that which he himself admits must ultimately be the remedy of those evils which he has stated at present exist. The only argument contained in that letter is, that it might be possible if the ballot were granted for a man to promise his vote to a certain party, and afterwards he induced to break his promise and vote another way, a proceeding which he calls disgraceful to a free-born Englishman. And he followed that up by telling us, that he has seen oppression and tyranny exercised against the voters—he has seen them dragged up to vote against their conscientious convictions; and yet he tells us, that lest a man should promise his vote to one party and give it to another, he will vote against the ballot. I tell him, that I believe one of the first and most important advantages of the ballot will be, that it will put an end to all canvassing for votes, because every man will feel it useless to canvass; and therefore that most shocking event, of a man's promising his vote one way and giving it another, will never occur. Considering the great importance of this question, I own I am astonished that Gentlemen opposite, who are about to record their votes against this measure, do not think fit to give us any arguments against it. I am inclined to think, however, that they are wise in not doing so; for of all questions which can be discussed this is the least exposed to objections of any I know. The noble Lord, however, who spoke early in this debate, has not followed this wise example; and, so far from having any thing to advance against the ballot, he seemed rather to confirm all its friends in its favour. I own, that after the high and just eulogium which he passed on the speech of my hon. Friend, the Member for London, I was prepared to hear an answer to that speech. But I was surprised to find that he admitted all the evils which the hon. Member urged against the present system, and only contended that the remedy he proposed was not the one which 831 should be applied. Well, I was then prepared to hear from the noble Lord an explanation of what he did consider a proper remedy. But he left, that question quite untouched; and never attempted to show us, after admitting all the evils which are alleged against the existing system, what is the remedy which ought to be applied. I own, indeed, he said he would vote for a resolution declaring bribery to be a high crime, and that it ought to be prevented. But still, the question remains in this state: the opponents of the ballot admit all the evils which the friends of the ballot urge against the present system, but can devise no remedy by which those evils may be removed. The noble Lord contended, that responsibility should be preserved wherever a trust is granted. Why, Sir, I really thought the noble Lord had been attending to the speech of my hon. Friend, the Member for London. But it seems he expected an able speech, (and it was an able speech,) and therefore, though he passed a deserved eulogy upon it, he took care to leave its arguments untouched. For, had he attended to that speech, he would have heard my hon. Friend expressly allude to the argument of responsibility. Responsibility, to whom? I suppose to the non-electors. But the noble Lord, in his argument against universal suffrage, which he said would be the first result of the establishment of the ballot, contended that by universal suffrage you would extend the franchise to the lowest and most worthless of the population. And yet these are the persons to whom he calls upon us to leave the electors of this country responsible! The fact is, the electors have confidence reposed in them, in having the franchise conferred upon them, because they are believed to be fitted to exercise that franchise, and to justify that confidence. Now, if the non-electors are so fitted, why not give them the franchise? If not, how can they be qualified to judge of those who are? I have taken the liberty of speaking upon this occasion, because I know the great interest which is taken on this question by my constituents—a great number of whom are operatives and mechanics —who call upon me to advocate the ballot, as a question of the enjoyment of the franchise itself. When I first solicited their suffrages, they had had but one opportunity of exercising their franchise. But I found many who refused to repeat the exercise of their right; because, in consequence of the conduct that had been pursued 832 towards them, they were afraid, without some protection, to vote according to their judgment. And I found many who told me, that they could not sacrifice their interest for the sake of their opinions; they would not vote against their conscientious convictions, but they dared not exercise the right which the Constitution of their country recognised in them, and which the Legislature had vainly conferred upon them. I must say, Sir, I think the opponents of the ballot would take a more manly and a more open course, by resisting the ballot on the ground of the unfitness of the people to exercise the electoral franchise, than by assigning reasons which are not the real grounds of their opposition. I cast no reflections upon the Government: I am rather disposed to make an excuse for them. I know there exists a great prejudice against the ballot in some minds; I know that many of their supporters are against it. It may be a question, however, whether a person should take office, if he has to suspend the expression of his real opinion. This, at the same time, I feel to be a question between them and their constituents; and if their constituents are contented to send persons here who do not represent their opinions, it is not for me to complain. I wish the opponents of the ballot would consider, what reason have they for distrusting the people in the exercise of their franchise? I ask, when have they abused their power? when have our constituents instructed their representatives to advocate measures hostile to the peace of society—measures injurious to the institutions of their country—at least, to what is estimable in those institutions? We have for the last twenty years had a party in this House, who are ever ready to oppose any measure having a tendency to extend the power of the people. We have had repeated predictions, that from any extension of the power of the people, something will happen. Those predictions have been ever falsified. Notwithstanding all these gloomy forebodings, this country is still in a state of greater prosperity than history can produce any instance of—we have greater tranquillity and order than at any former period, and as a proof of this, among the most timid of all interests, the commercial, there is a greater sense of security than ever existed before. And yet this is also a period at which the institutions of this country are more under popular control, in which there is a greater freedom of speech, and more unrestricted 833 liberty in the expression of opinions, than at any previous stage of our history. Not only is there in our experience no ground for alarm from the extension of popular principles, but I will say, that in no country is there a more industrious, steady, peace-loving population than the population of this country at the present time. In no country are the people more disposed to confide in those above them, more ready to bow to superior worth and intellect, wherever it is found—in no country in the world is there a more superstitious reverence for their ancient institutions. I say, these are all important considerations, in regard to the measure of confidence which you are justified in reposing in a people, when I call upon you to extend to that people a protection in the exercise of that right which you admit they ought to, but which I say they cannot, exercise freely without that protection. What excuse then can you find for not extending to them that protection? We are not particular in insisting upon the ballot alone, but we ask you to devise a remedy which will accomplish our common object; and is it too much to ask, (unless indeed you are prepared to contend that the people should not exercise their rights freely,) that when you refuse us the ballot you will devise something better? But you say, "the ballot has evil tendencies." Now, first I deny that those evil tendencies do exist, and next, I say that, admitting they do exist, your argument goes for nothing, unless you prove that the evils consequent on the adoption of the ballot are greater than those which at present exist; for it is but to assert a truism to say, that to any human institution evils may or do attach. But I believe there are great moral advantages which will result from the ballot. I believe it will improve the character both of our candidates and our constituency. It will teach the candidate that he must earn the good opinion of the constituency in order to obtain their votes, for he will find, that a very different species of qualification is now required for a Member of Parliament to what used to exist. He will find that the head, rather than the head-money is looked to. And it will improve the constituency, for when they are secure in the discharge of their duty, they will be much more likely to discharge it than at present. I am aware it has been said, that even if the ballot were to be established it would not put an end to, but rather increase, the 834 evils at present existing, because it would only excite a great deal of ingenuity in order to extract from a man, or from his nearest relatives, the manner in which he voted, and that it would in short originate a vast machinery for the collecting of information of this kind. But how does this prove the extent to which the evils which the ballot is intended to prevent are carried now! It shows that these evils exist to such an extent, that man will have recourse to such despicable expedients rather than to vote with them. And this only proves more strongly the necessity of some remedy. After ail, if there is any one not yet convinced in favour of the ballot the process of conversion is easy, for he has only to take all the arguments used from time to time by its opponents, and they so perfectly answer and confute each other that they alone must be sufficient, I think, to convince any person. I myself sat on a Committee to try a petition against a return that had taken place on an election in the city of York, where so much bribery on the one side, and so much intimidation on the other, prevailed, that the Committee were obliged to declare that, under the continuance of such a system, it was impossible to have a free election. I was applied to by some of the electors to bring in a Bill to establish vote by Ballot in the city of York, and I refused to do so, simply lest I should appear to be a party to a conclusion that the ballot applied to the city of York in particular, and was not suited to the country in general. The case of the city of York is only one among the numerous instances in which parties have applied to this House for the protection of the ballot in the exercise of their franchise. And I do say, that, before you refuse it, you are bound to show, that there is a better remedy to be applied to the evils that now exist. I cordially support the motion, because I believe there is no danger in trusting the people in the free exercise of their elective franchise, because the protections at present to free exercise are not adequate, and because I believe the ballot to be the only effectual means for accomplishing that object.
§ Mr. William Rochesaid, that analysed as the subject had been, both during the present and former debates, he rose but to express a few observations in support of the decidedly favourable view he entertained of the motion—that he knew not any measure, more calculated to produce unmixed good to society, or one, more 835 congenial to the spirit, the interests, and calm procedure of our constitutional rights, than vote by ballot—Session after Session we are piling, Sir, statutes upon statutes to repress and punish corruption and intimidation, but without effect, which the reprehensible scenes brought to light on every general election, and on no occasion more conspicuously and painfully than the last, amply demonstrate—when too, the time of the House was so engaged, and its character so affected by the proceedings then exhibited before the Election Committees—and why, Sir, did those statutes and their penal enactments fail of effect, but because we never reached, or extirpated the root of the evil, by adopting a secret system of voting; for where temptation and opportunity are held out to the human mind, the hope of escape from detection overrules the dread of discovery and punishment; but take away the confidence which generates that temptation, and the evil dies a natural death. That he was not, however, so sanguine as to say that every and complete advantage would at once be obtained, because he knew that corruptionists and intimidators would make a struggle to mar its advantages, but that it. would be a dying struggle, for they would soon see that they threw away their money and their threats, and therefore, ere long, fall into (of necessity) the general feelings and wishes of the community. He was, he said, as anxious to put down popular coercion and tyranny, as the tyranny of the landlord, or any other undue influence; and the value of this measure consisted in producing this equal and general freedom from restraint—that he himself during his elections experienced the disadvantage of the present intimidating system, for several persons told him they were unwilling to register their votes, at all, lest they should bring upon themselves the anger of the landlord, or some such master; indeed, he considered that without the protection of ballot, it was, in many instances, quite a cruelty to give the franchise, for many, very many, experience disaster and ruin to themselves, and their families, by voting against the wishes of their superiors, but in accordance with their own feelings and their country's interests—that he was quite sure, that even before we enjoyed the whole and perfect advantages derivable from this measure, we should open our eyes to its benefits and look back with surprise, why we resisted 836 or delayed it so long; and he was confident, that the opponents themselves would soon experience the quiet and happiness which the not interfering with the franchise of their dependants (beyond that of advice and recommendation, a moral influence which must always last) would produce, by removing so ample and worrying a source of discord between themselves and those dependants—that under these views, the motion should have his warmest support.
§ Mr. Robinsondid not agree with the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, that the ballot would be any improvement of the elective franchise, and, therefore, he should oppose it now, as he always had done before. He wished to ask what evidence there was of a desire on the part of the people for vote by ballot? Did it appear in the number of their petit-ions for it? No. And there was another indication of the apathy which prevailed upon this question, in the fact, that on the very first night the hon. Member for the City of London was to have brought forward his motion, there were no hon. Members in the House to support him, nor, indeed, he believed, was the hon. Member present himself. He represented a very large constituency, and although he was free to admit, that among them there were some persons in favour of the ballot, and that they had solicited him to vote for it, he could not possibly avoid stating that an immense majority, including the humbler classes, were not in favour of it, or at least, had not expressed their anxiety about it at all. He doubted that the ballot would put an end to bribery, as the hon. Gentlemen on the opposite benches expected; there might be less temptation for persons to hold out a bribe, where there was a chance of being deceived, but as long as receivers and payers of money existed, bribery could not be entirely prevented. It would be quite as reasonable for the Members of that House to ask to vote by ballot, as it was for their constituents to require it. Was not every hon. Member placed in that situation when they were called upon to vote, either one way or the other, upon a question which made them very naturally wish they could vote by ballot? He was only stating that which could not be denied,—that hon. Members were often called upon to vote contrary to the wish of their constituents, and that they would therefore be glad to vote by ballot. He would therefore say, 837 that they had a right to ask their constituencies, if they wished for ballot, to allow them to vote in the House by ballot. He recollected that a deputation from some of his constituents once waited upon him and declared, that they could not support him unless he would promise to vote for the ballot. He told them, he was not disposed to give such a promise, and would rather lose his seat. What was the consequence? Every one of them voted for him. There was something revolting in the idea of exercising a public trust, in a secret manner. He had never asked one of his independent constituents to give a vote contrary to his conscience; for he believed the best security for both candidate and constituent, was in public opinion. He denied that the poor only desired the ballot; there was another class of persons who were much more anxious for it—those who wished for it in order to have an opportunity of deceiving both parties, when they pleased. Considering, then, that corruption at elections, would not be removed by the ballot, he should oppose the motion.
§ The House divided, Ayes 88; Noes 139;—Majority 51.
| List of the AYES. | |
| Aglionby, H. A. | Hardy, J. |
| Ainsworth, P. | Hawes, B. |
| Attwood, T. | Hawkins, J. H. |
| Bainbridge, E. T. | Hector, C. J. |
| Baines, E. | Hindley, C. |
| Baldwin, Dr. | Hodges, T. L. |
| Ball, N. | Horsman, E. |
| Barnard, E. G. | Hume, J. |
| Bewes, T. | Humphrey, J. |
| Biddulph, R. | Lister, E. C. |
| Blake, M. J. | Mangles, J. |
| Blunt, Sir C. | Marshall, W. |
| Bodkin, J. J. | Marsland, H. |
| Bowring, Dr. | Molesworth, Sir W. |
| Brady, D. C. | Mullins, F. W. |
| Brocklehurst, J. | Musgrave, Sir R. |
| Brotherton, J. | O'Brien, C. |
| Buller, C. | O'Connell, D. |
| Butler, Hon. P. | O'Connell, J. |
| Codrington, Admiral | O'Connell, M. J. |
| Crawford, W. S. | O'Connell, M. |
| Crawley, S. | O'Conor Don |
| D'Eyncourt, rt. hon. | Palmer, Gen. |
| C. T. | Parrot, J. |
| Duncombe, T. | Pattison, J. |
| Dundas, hon. J. C. | Pease, J. |
| Dundas, J. Deans | Phillips, M. |
| Ewart, W. | Power, J. |
| Finn, W. F. | Roche, W. |
| Fitzsimon, N, | Roche, D. |
| Fort, J. | Rundle, J. |
| Gaskell, D. | Russell, Lord C. |
| Guest, J,J. | Sheil, R. L. |
| Smith, B. | Warburton, H. |
| Strutt, E. | Ward, Henry George |
| Talfourd, Mr. Serg. | Wason, Rigby |
| Tancred, H. W. | Whalley, Sir S. |
| Thompson, Col. | Wigney, Isaac N. |
| Thorneley, T. | Wilde, Mr. Sergeant |
| Trelawny, Sir W. | Williams, Wm. |
| Tulk, C. A. | Williams, W. A. |
| Turner, W. | Wood, Mr. Alderman |
| Villiers, C. P, | Woulfe, Mr. Sergeant |
| Wakley, T. | TELLERS. |
| Walker, C. A. | Mr. Grote |
| Walker, R. | Mr. Leader. |
| List of the NOES. | |
| Adam, Sir C. | Follett, Sir W. |
| Alsager, Captain | Forbes, William |
| Angerstein, J. | Forster, C. S. |
| Arbuthnot, hon. H. | French, F. |
| Archdall, M. | Gaskell, J. Milnes |
| Ashley, Lord | Gladstone, Wm. E. |
| Attwood, M. | Gordon, hon. W. |
| Bailey, J. | Goring, H. D. |
| Baillie, H. D. | Goulburn, rt. hon. H. |
| Barclay, D. | Greene, Thomas |
| Barclay, C. | Grimston, Viscount |
| Bateson, Sir R. | Grimston, bon. E. H. |
| Beckett, rt. hon. Sir J. | Halford, H. |
| Benet, J. | Halse, James |
| Bethell, R. | Hamilton, G. A. |
| Blackstone, W. S. | Hay, Sir J,, bart. |
| Blamire, W. | Hayes, Sir E. S., bt. |
| Bolling, Wm. | Hobhouse, rt. hon. Sir J. |
| Bonham, R. Francis | Hogg, James Weir |
| Bramston, T. W. | Holland, E. |
| Brudenell, Lord | Hope, J. |
| Bruen, F. | Howick, Lord Vis. |
| Burrell, Sir C. | Ingham, R. |
| Campbell, Sir J. | Irton, Samuel |
| Cayley, E. S. | Jackson, Sergeant |
| Chichester, A. | Jephson, C. D. O. |
| Clerk, Sir G. | Johnstone, J. J. H. |
| Cole, Viscount | Jones, W. |
| Cooper, Hon. W. F. | Knatchbull, rt. hon. |
| Crawford, W. | Sir E. |
| Cripps, J. | Knight, H. G. |
| Damer, G. L. D. | Law, hon. C. E. |
| Davenport, J. | Lawson, Andrew |
| Denison, W. L. | Lefroy, Anthony |
| Dick, Q. | Lefroy, right hon. T. |
| Dillwyn, L. W. | Lennox, Lord G. |
| Donkin, Sir R. | Lewis, D. |
| Duffield, Thomas | Longfield, R. |
| Dunbar, George | Marjoribanks, S. |
| Duncombe, hon. W. | Moreton, hon. A. H. |
| Dundas, hon. T. | Nicholl, Dr. |
| East, James Buller | North, Frederick |
| Eastnor, Viscount | Owen, Hugh O. |
| Eaton, Richard J. | Palmerston, Lord |
| Egerton, Wm. Tatton | Penruddock, J. H. |
| Egerton, Sir P. | Perceval, Colonel |
| Egerton, Lord Fran. | Phillipps, Charles M. |
| Elley, Sir J. | Plumptre, J. P. |
| Elwes, J. P. | Pollen, Sir J., W. |
| Entwisle, John | Poulter, John S |
| Feilden, W. | Praed, James B. |
| Ferguson, Sir R. A. | Praed, W. M. |
| Price, S, G. |
| Pringle, A. | Surrey, Earl of |
| Pusey, P. | Trevor, hon. Arthur |
| Rue, rt. hon. Sir W. | Twiss, H. |
| Richards, J. | Tyrrell, Sir J. |
| Rickford, W. | Vere, Sir C. B., bart. |
| Robinson, G. R. | Vernon, Granville H. |
| Ross, Charles | Vesey, hon. Thomas |
| Rushbrook, Colonel | Vyvyan, Sir R. |
| Russell, C. | Walpole, Lord |
| Russell, Lord John | Walter, John |
| Scott, Sir E. D. | West, J. B. |
| Scourfield, W. H. | Weyland, Major |
| Shaw, rt. hon. F. | Wortley, hon. J. S. |
| Sheppard, T. | Wyndham, W. |
| Sibthorp, Colonel | Young, G. F. |
| Somerset, Lord E. | Young, J. |
| Spry, Sir S. T. | TELLERS. |
| Stanley, Edward | Dalmeney, Lord |
| Sturt, Henry Chas. | Maule, Mr. F. |
| Paired off. | |
| FOR. | AGAINST. |
| C. J. K. Tynte | P. M. Stewart |
| Sir R. Nagle | Hon. R. Clive |
| H. Bridgman | Thomas A. Smith |
| Sir R. Musgrave | Lord Clive |
| E. S. Ruthven | Lord Darlington |
| M. L. Chapman | Sir H. Williamson |
| A. H. Lynch | Thomas Gladstone |
| Henry Grattan | J. E. Denison |
| W. Clay | Charles W. Wynn |
| J. H. Talbot | E. B. Clive |
| W. D. Gillon | Robert Palmer |
| Sir R. Ferguson | Sir H. Hardinge |
| Colonel G. Langton | W. Long |
| G. Evans | R. Howard |
| Hedworth Lambton | R. Alston |
| J. Blackburne | W. C. Harland |
| General Sharpe | Charles Wood |
| Charles Lushington | G. J. Heathcote |
| Daniel Callaghan | Sergeant Goulburn |
| William Tooke | Sir M. S. Stewart |
| R. Otway Cave | N. Fazakerley |
| Sir W. Brabazon | Arthur Cole |
| J. Bagshaw | Sir John Wrottesley |
| Howard Elphinstone | J. F. Fector |
| Thomas Bish | Sir R. Peel |
| H. L. Bulwer | F. Baring |