THE BALLOT.

HC Deb 15 February 1838 vol 40 cc1131-221

Mr. Grote

I rise, Mr. Speaker, pursuant to my notice, to move for leave to bring in a bill, enacting that votes at elections for Members of Parliament shall be taken by way of Ballot. I trust, Sir, that I shall stand acquitted of any undue pertinacity or presumption on my own part in now renewing this motion, which has already been more than once submitted to the House. I undertook originally to introduce the proposition of a secret suffrage, from a strong conviction that it was the only mode of voting compatible with freedom or purity of election. I have not had the good fortune to find myself supported by a majority of the Legislature, and the open mode of voting still continues to be the law of the land. It still continues the law of the land, with all its tendencies, such as they are to good as well as to evil—it has manifested these tendencies, even since the last discussion on the ballot, in a manner the most flagrant, and unequivocal, and the lessons of the last few months have so forcibly impressed, even upon unwilling converts, the indispensable necessity of protecting voters in the exercise of their franchise, that I feel animated by fresh encouragements, and impelled by additional strength of motive, to urge the subject again upon the new House of Commons now assembled, I scarcely venture to imagine, Sir, that I can bring much new argument to the discussion of this subject, in addition to that which has been advanced on former occasions. But experience, though a severe preceptress, is full of instruction and efficacy in her teaching, and fresh as we now are from the recollections of the late election, I hope we shall approach the examination of the ballot, with minds more candid and unprejudiced than heretofore. The necessity of the case imperatively calls upon us to do so. I propose the ballot not merely as a fanciful scheme for making that which is now good still better—not merely as a measure of insurance against evils remote and contingent —but as a remedy against mischiefs, present, acknowledged, and full of baneful working —an efficient remedy against intimidation and bribery. No one can deny that bribery and intimidation are serious evils: as little can any one deny, that bribery and intimidation infect at this moment almost every vein and artery of our elective system, and that the securities which we possess against them are impotent and contemptible. That a remedy against such mischiefs is urgently needed, stands confessed and obvious to every one; and what second remedy, what other measure of any promise or efficiency, has ever been, proposed even by those whose aversion to the ballot is most unconquerable? Admitting, even, that my reasonings carry with them nothing stronger than a considerable probability—admitting that my proposition presents only a fair chance of success, yet what is the alternative? Why, the alternative is, that bribery and intimidation must remain as they are now, epidemic evils permanently entailed upon us beyond all reach of cure. And I submit, that this is a conclusion far too discouraging to be admitted by any reasonable man, or by any sincere patriot while the expedient of the ballot remains untried. It has become common of late, Sir, since the example set by the noble Lord, the Member for Stroud, in his memorable declaration on the first night of this Session, to couple the ballot with other reforms more frequently than even it was coupled before. But the motion which I am now about to submit to you is, for the adoption of vote by ballot singly and simply, unaccompanied by any additional measure whatever. I have made this proposition separately before, and I now make it separately again; not because I think that the ballot when applied to an imperfect representative system, will render that system perfect and faultless, not because I am insensible to the importance of householder suffrage, and triennial Parliaments, for to both these questions I am a warm friend, but because I know that the ballot will of itself rectify the grossest and most acknowledged abuses which elections now exhibit, and because I am prepared to advocate it on reasons belonging to itself separately and especially. To fix the extent of the franchise, the duration of Parliaments, and the distribution of the constituency in the way most conducive to good government, are doubtless most important problems; but it is a problem distinct from all these, and not at all less essential to appoint such a mode of voting as will prevent abuse and wrong in the actual exercise of the franchise. Let us make what other arrangements we please, still we cannot evade the consideration of this last question, on its own peculiar grounds and merits; and whether we determine to enlarge the constituency or to keep it unaltered, whether we adopt triennial or retain septennial Parliaments, in either case it is our imperative duty to take the surest precautions for enabling the existing electors to give their votes both with probity in regard to the public, and with safety in regard to themselves. This is the question which I now present to the House when I call upon them to decide affirmatively or negatively upon the ballot; and I shall think it a material improvement if I can abate the nuisances of bribery and intimi- dation, and rescue voters from temptation and constraint, even though I may still leave the constituency less numerous, and worse distributed than I could desire. Besides, Sir, I am prepared to show, that the ballot is a proposition which not only may be consistently supported, but which ought to be equally supported, both by those who advocate and by those who resist a farther extension of the suffrage. Not merely because under open voting the existing electors are exposed to wrongful interference, to severe personal hardship and vexation, and to factitious allurements, from which it is but common justice and common prudence to relieve them, even, although no farther measures of improvement were to be combined with that relief; but also for another reason of no less importance. We have at this moment in round numbers nearly 700,000 qualified electors in the United Kingdom. There are some who think that this number is sufficiently large, there are others, and I am amongst them, who think that it ought to be extended. But if any proposition were made to diminish the present constituency—if it were proposed to cut down the number of electors from 700,000 to 400,000—most assuredly such an attempt would be resisted both by those who desired to adhere to the present franchise, and by those who sought to enlarge it. Now, Sir, look for one moment at the state of the facts, and you will see, that election by open voting is tantamount to a very great curtailment of the existing legal franchise; you will see that it is nothing less than a sentence of practical disfranchisement to hundreds and thousands of electors. It is well known that there is in every constituency a considerable fraction of electors who decline to exercise their political franchise at all, because they cannot exercise it without giving serious offence to those whose goodwill they dread to forfeit. And, with regard to many of those who do vote, give me leave to ask, what is the difference between taking away a man's vote altogether and taking away from him the liberty of voting as he himself inwardly prefers? What is the difference between depriving a man of his franchise and depriving him of that free agency which is essential to the very idea and meaning of the franchise? Is not the number of genuine and bona fide electors just as much lessened by the one act as the other? Sir, it is but too plain that by condemning electors to vote openly, you practically extinguish free will and free choice in a very large proportion of them—perhaps not less than one-third of the whole; and you thus reduce the legal franchise, for all practical and public purposes, to only two-thirds of its legal extent. It is upon this special ground then, Sir, that I appeal both to those who desire extension of the suffrage and to those who oppose it, and call upon both of them to support my present proposition. It must be alike the study of both, that the present franchise shall not be abridged nor the present voters practically disfranchised. And, though they may differ on the point of further extension, at least let them join with me in procuring for voters that measure of protection which is essential to preserve the present extent of the franchise, without restriction or curtailment—at least let them guard the votes of the poorer electors from being sucked up into the patrimony of the richer. We are accustomed to boast, Sir, that we possess a representative government—that the people of this country dwell under laws made by their own representatives in Parliament. Now, as to the main purpose of a representative Government, I believe there is little difference of opinion. The object is to get a House of Commons possessing the confidence of the people, chosen by the free and deliberate preference of their various constituencies, and recommended to the esteem of the nation at large by the public certainly that they have been thus preferred. This is the grand object for the attainment of which the people are called upon to go through the harassing and costly business of a general election. If your election does not bring out the genuine, unbought, unconstrained sentiments of the voters—if it is not publicly known to bring out this result and no other—-you might as well have no election at all; the institution is a deceit and a failure. Such is the object and intention of a representative system. And now I ask the House whether this object is really attained? Does the practical working of English elections produce that result for which alone representation exists? Does it afford to the nation at large legitimate ground for confidence in the Members assembled within these walls? I affirm that it does not, and that it cannot. Sufficient evidence exists of the practices by which election returns are now effected to deprive the existing system of all title to national esteem and attachment. It is not, in truth and in fact, and in the faithful use of the words, a representative system. The characteristic properties of a representative system are subdued and paralyzed by a vicious mode of working. It is a system which still preserves the baneful principle of nomination, varied indeed in the manner of its application, but unaltered in substance—the principle whereby the choice is dictated by one person and the vote given by another, which the Reform Act professed to have expelled for ever. I do not mean, of course, to deny that many votes are given, and that too of all shades of political party, which are perfectly unexceptionable in every point of view, and which express nothing but the fair and genuine sentiments of the electors. But I do mean to assert, that, with respect to a large proportion of electors, and a large proportion of votes, this is the very reverse of the truth. Both corruption of voters and dependence of voters defile the electoral atmosphere to a lamentable extent—the hopes of one class, the fears of another are called in, to the entire suppression of honest and unbiassed political preference. Large numbers of voters are so placed with regard to other men that their vote at an open poll can be considered as nothing better than the delivery of a message from, a superior—the voice of servility or fear, instead of the genuine judgment of a self-determining citizen. The prevalence of these practices is almost as notorious as the most acknowledged facts in English history. I believe, that the difficulty would be to find a single constituency exempt from these overruling influences; but thus much at least is unquestionable, that they prevail to such an extent as to vitiate altogether the fidelity of the total result, and to deprive the House of Commons of all solid evidence that its Members really emanate from the bonâ fide suffrages of the people. I should have imagined that the general accuracy of what I have just related would have been sufficiently made out by proofs which are now of long standing—especially by the evidence taken before the Committee on bribery and intimidation, appointed during the last Parliament—a body of evidence fraught with melancholy instruction concerning the actual working of our representative system. To that I have often referred, and shall often refer again; and I am sorry to say, that it has now been suffered to remain near three years on the table of the House without the smallest attempt made by authority to provide a remedy for the enormous abuses which it discloses. But this important testimony is not left to stand alone. The last elections hare been no less replete with proofs of the same most unwarrantable mischiefs, attested by the concurrent and unanimous complaints of all political parties without exception. This, in fact, seems to be the only one point in which all parties concur, that bribery and intimidation have been widely diffused and pre-eminently effective. The innumerable discourses of candidates on the hustings during the election of last August—the daily criminations and recriminations of all the newspapers—Whig, Tory, and Radical—all certify the virulence of the evil, however much they may dispute about the admissibility of particular remedies. Indeed, it seems to me that, in most cases, parties are less anxious to repel the charge from themselves than to fix the like charge upon their opponents. You have heard it constantly said, "We knew that our opponents were intimidating on their side, therefore we were forced to do the same on ours; but we have not done so to anything like the same extent as they have." Nulla innocentiœ cura, sed vices impunitatis. I can produce, from the declarations even of gentlemen who are strenuously opposed to the ballot, the strongest testimonies to the efficacy and to the prevalence of intimidation at elections. Read, for example, the resolutions promulgated on the 30th of August last, by those gentlemen who originally commenced the Spottiswoode election subscription. They proclaim, in the plainest and broadest terms, that freedom of election in Ireland is altogether subverted by the system of intimidation there established. Again, Mr. Taylor, of Birmingham, who proposed the Tory candidate, Mr. Stapleton, at that place, stated publicly, on the hustings, that he fully believed if votes had been taken by the ballot, that Mr. Stapleton would have been returned Member for Birmingham. Here is the further testimony of a gentleman, to whom, I am sure, hon. Members opposite will not refuse to pay attention. At the nomination at Edinburgh, on Monday, July 31, 1837, Sir George Clerk said— I will venture to appeal to the experience of every elector in the county, whether there has not been infinitely more liberality and fairness on the part of the Conservatives than on that of those who arrogate to themselves the exclusive name of Liberals? and I am perfectly certain, if I could get their votes on the subject, I should have a large majority in my favour. I maintain that intimidation is more used against my friends, than by any of my supporters; and I firmly believe that, looking only at the personal consideration, or what was to be the effect in this Mid-Lothian election, I ought to be an advocate for the ballot; and that a much greater majority would be found in favour of the Conservative candidates, both here and in other places, if the ballot was adopted. It is not, therefore, on personal grounds, that I oppose the ballot. And now, Sir, let me add the words of a nobleman, who will be peculiarly listened to on this side of the House, and who agrees with Sir George Clerk in opposing the ballot. At the nomination at Tiverton, on Tuesday, July 25, 1837, Lord Palmerston expressed himself in this manner:— My belief is founded not merely on what I have heard from others, but my own observations. My belief is, that a system has been extensively pursued to deter the electors, by fear of injury to themselves and their families, from doing that which we heard read this morning, to elect freely and indifferently the persons whom they may think fit to represent them in Parliament. Now, Gentlemen, this is not a solitary case, it is the regular Tory practice; and you will hear, when you see the proceedings of the different elections, that the same thing has been practised whenever a Tory candidate has opposed men of liberal and reforming principles. Let me now cite another Tory witness. In reference to the late severe contested election in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the Tory Leeds newspaper, The Leeds Intelligencer, says that the Whig Lords forced their tenants to vote for Lord Morpeth and Sir George Strickland. The Duke of Norfolk's agents put on the screw with unusual severity! Lord Fitzwilliam's did the same; Lord Thanet's agents made the election a matter of life and death; the Duke of Devonshire's were not a whit behind; and Lord Burlington's insisted that promises given to Mr. Wortley should be violated under penalties which the poor tenants understood too well. Having heard the Tory version of the election in the West Riding of York, let us see what is the Whig account of this same contest and of another important county election in August last. At a public dinner on Friday, October 13,1837, to celebrate the re-election of Lord Morpeth and Sir George Strickland for the West Riding of Yorkshire, and given by the Liberals of Doncaster, Lord Milton spoke of the causes of his defeat in North Northamptonshire:— My opponents came against me with all the power of the Tory landlords, and all the power of the parsons; and, gentlemen, they beat me. But in the West Riding it was different. Here you come against them with the irresistible power of popular intelligence—intelligence resulting from the wealth which you have industriously accumulated. And what has been the end of this intelligence? Why, that you have returned, for the West Biding, two Liberal Members to serve in the House of Commons. On the contrary, North Northamptonshire has sent two Tories, not to represent the constituency of that county, for they will, most certainly, misrepresent the great majority of its inhabitants. I know full well, for I witnessed it on my own canvass, what was the real feeling of that county. I saw that the number of my colours was, at least, one hundred to one to the colours of my opponent; but, notwithstanding that strong manifestation of the opinion of the people in my favour, the influence of the Tory landlords, as I have said before, consigned me to defeat, and left me in possession of the borough which I have now the honour to represent, I could easily multiply testimonies of this kind, if I were not afraid of fatiguing the House; but I think I have produced enough for the purpose of my argument. Be it remembered, that these are not the declarations of Radicals—not the declarations even of gentlemen friendly to the ballot—they come from Whigs and Tories, both strongly opposing the ballot, and both involuntarily testifying the crying necessity that exists for some remedy equivalent to the ballot. I shall not surely be suspected of exaggeration when I say no more than has been said before me by Lord Palmerston and Sir George Clerk. You may tell me that I quote defeated candidates. What if I do? Defeated candidates are not for that reason deprived of their wits. They may, perhaps, exaggerate the comparative effect of causes in real operation; but they do not conjure up fictitious and imaginary causes for their defeat. Do we ever hear suitors who are defeated in a court of justice, though they may suffer the greatest anguish and mortification—do we hear them ascribing the loss of their cause to the fact that the judge was bribed or the jury intimidated? Why, then, do defeated candidates at an election make perpetual reference to bribery or intimidation? It is because every man concerned in elections, whether on the winning or the losing side, knows well that these causes are of constant and powerful and notorious efficacy. It is immaterial to my argument which of the various parties in the state employs intimidation with the most unsparing hand, or which may be the prime fabricator of this poisoned weapon. I desire to repress election abuses equally and impartially, let them be committed by whom they may. But who can believe, while such complaints resound on all sides, and while the evils complained of remain not only unredressed, but even unheeded, that this House really represents the free sentiments of the electoral body of this kingdom? If there be any one still credulous enough to suppose that the representative system, as it now stands, is pure from coercion and intimidation, we may be very sure that this is a delusion which cannot be very widely extended, when we find both Whigs and Tories uniting to proclaim the contrary. No ingenuity can longer uphold such an imposture in the national mind. It is but too plainly seen —it is but too painfully felt—by what weapons a contested election is now conducted or helped forward. Watch the proceedings of a landlord with his tenants, of customers with their tradesmen, of employers with their labourers, and you will see the miserable motives by which men of power seek to press the electors into their service, and to extinguish in them all sense of public obligation. They have the means of making the condition of an elector better or worse, and this is the source of their empire over his will, —an empire which I once heard described in language of emphatic insolence by an English Dives, "Where I give custom, I expect allegiance." It seems to be the standing belief among landlords, that the vote belonging to the occupier of their farm is as much their property as the buildings erected on the farm. Some landlords are generous enough to content themselves with one of the tenant's votes at their bidding, leaving him the other to dispose of as he chooses. The few landlords who treat the tenant as if he had a political judgment and conscience of his own, are rare and honourable exceptions, and are deservedly chronicled as such in the public prints. I wish that it were possible to lay before Parliament a return of the number of ejectments, notices to quit, changes of dealing, and dismissals from employment, which have taken place in consequence of the late election. Most assuredly the total number would be large and remarkable, considering that in the town of Grantham alone Lord Huntingtower sent thirty-seven notices to quit to his various tenants. And be it observed, that the number of hardships of this sort actually inflicted, forms but an infinitely small proportion of the cases of undue interference; for they are the instances of persons open to injury who have the courage to disobey threats and brave the consequences: and if these be numerous, how much more numerous are the instances of those who submit. We know well that where the law forbids any act on penalty of a moderate fine, for one person who is made to pay the fine, a thousand are deterred from committing the forbidden act, and it is upon this fundamental supposition that the advantage of prohibitory laws is calculated. But if this is true when the law threatens only a small fine, how much more true is it when self-appointed dictators are enabled to threaten serious loss, and often absolute ruin? You disfranchise altogether men who have employments in the Customs or in the Excise, because the law presumes that they cannot vote independently of the Government which appoints and removes them. Follow out this presumption, and calculate the thousands and ten thousands of voters who are no less dependent on private patrons than officers of Excise are on the Government. You will then be able to appreciate the fearful extent to which constrained and insincere voting pervades your representative system. The vote of an elector thus under control is no way beneficial to the country, because it carries no new substantive choice into the national aggregate, and amounts to nothing better than a duplication of the vote of the patron. And to the voter, himself, assuming the absence of sinister purposes, what is the value of the privilege? In numberless cases the franchise is felt and hated as a burden; and if any man doubts this, the bitter experience and the humiliating answers of a canvass, will be quite sufficient to teach it him. Why, indeed, should we doubt it? What value can a man set upon a privilege which conveys to his mind nothing but a galling sense of degradation—a feeling that he has a preference to which he dares not give effect? I believe most firmly, that over and above the defective public working and unfaithfully national result, of the present representative system, if we measure the extent of private evil which elections now occa- sion—if we regard the disastrous twilight which they shed over all the relations of social life—the tyranny on the part of the great, the struggle to be tyrannical on the part of the middling, and the reluctant submission on the part of the humble—the fatal examples of loss and ruin entailed upon conscientious behaviour, and of success purchased by unprincipled compliance—the discord and suspension of intercourse between equals and neighbours, and the factious riot and disorder which now periodically recurs in our boroughs and counties,—if we contemplate this deplorable catalogue of social evil, the inevitable consequence of a sharp contest by open voting, we shall find that on this ground alone, even if there were no other, our elective system cries loudly for amendment and regeneration. Dicere vix possis, quam multi talia plorent! I predict with confidence, that the present elective system, if the liberty of the franchise still continues to be left without protection, must, in a short time, fall into the same state of degeneracy and disgrace as the old system prior to 1831. To rescue it from this fate, it is a matter of urgent necessity to adopt the best remedies in our power against the evils with which it is infested. Tentanda via est; I call upon the prudence as well as the patriotism of those who supported the Reform Act when it was first proposed, and who hailed with warm enthusiasm the generous purposes which it promised to accomplish—I call upon them to assist me in subduing those abuses which they both acknowledge and lament. Let me remind them, that in proposing the ballot I do not contravene any one of the provisions, I do not reverse any one of the principles, of the Reform Act. The noble Lord, the Member for Stroud, in the opening speech with which he introduced the Reform Bill, in March, 1831, expressly stated, that the question respecting the best mode of taking votes was one which he did not intend to enter upon or determine. And by the subsequent speech of the noble Lord, made last August at Stroud, and confirmed by the recent speech of Sir James Graham at Carlisle, we learn that the ballot formed part of the original scheme of the Reform Bill submitted to the Cabinet of Lord Grey, by those Members of that Ministry upon whom the task was devolved. Let it be remembered, too, that this original scheme was based upon a constituency of 20l. householders, and not of 10l, house- holders; and if the ballot be required to protect voters of a higher qualification, it becomes doubly necessary to protect those of a lower. Besides, the alterations made in the Reform Bill in its progress through Parliament were all of such a nature as to strengthen the argument in favour of the ballot; the strongest observations to this effect were made by Lord Althorp and others at the moment when the clause giving votes to the 50l. tenants-at-will in counties was carried by the House of Commons. So that the Reform Act, as it ultimately passed, stood far more in need of the safeguard of the ballot than the Reform Bill as it was originally projected. I am quite sure, that neither the proposer nor the supporters of the Reform Act could have intended to commit a deliberate fraud, by conferring votes on persons whom they knew to be dependent, and with the premeditated intention of debarring them from any free will of their own. And with regard to the noble Lord, the Member for Stroud, in particular, there are declarations of his on record expressing the strong repugnance which he felt to the extensive intimidation which forced itself upon his notice, and intimating, that if this system should continue, the adoption of the ballot as a remedial measure would become inevitable. One extract I will quote from a speech made by the noble Lord, at Torquay, in September, 1832. In that speech the noble Lord, after having expressed his strong sense of the "terrible position" (as he terms it) of the landlords, and of the great power which they had the means of exercising over their tenants, expresses also his anxious hope, that landlords would not avail themselves of that power fully and extensively. The noble Lord then states his own strong objections against the ballot, and proceeds thus:—"Great as I apprehend the inconvenience of the ballot would be, yet if it come to this, that I must either adopt such a measure, or that I must see the tenantry of England ranged at elections contrary to the feelings and wishes of themselves, I should have no hesitation —I should have no doubt—I should renounce my previous opinions, and I should at once adopt the vote by ballot" Five years and a half have elapsed since the noble Lord made the memorable speech to which I have just referred. There have been two general elections since that period, and a great many separate and individual elections: a large body of experience has been acquired, extensive means of judgment have been brought within our reach, respecting the causes on which success and defeat at an election now turns. I ask what the result of that experience has been? Has it tended to show, that the "terrible position and power" which the noble Lord recognised as lodged in the hands of landlords over their tenants has remained unused—a sheathed weapon, rendered harmless by the generosity of the wearer? Or has experience proved, that the landlords of England have not been content with simply possessing that power, but have used it abundantly and unsparingly, and that too for the very purposes which the noble Lord here so unequivocally reprobates—for the purpose of compelling and coercing the votes of their tenantry? On which side has been the verdict of experience? I might answer in the words of Lord Dinorben, spoken at the public dinner in Flintshire; of Sir James Gisbon Craig, at Edinburgh; of Sir Colman Rashleigh, in Cornwall, of my hon. Friend, the Member for West Surrey, at Guildford; and of several other Gentlemen of strictly Whig politics, who have been induced by that very experience to abandon their objections against the ballot —objections originally quite as strong as those entertained by the noble Lord, the Member for Stroud, himself. I might answer in the words of the numerous petitions in favour of the ballot which have been laid upon your table, many of them signed by persons who were not in favour of the ballot five years ago; and amongst those petitions the noble Lord will not forget the petition from the inhabitants of Stroud, his own constituents, signed by 2,100 persons, including more than 500 electors of that borough, and a large proportion of his own friends and supporters. Sure I am that for all those who, at the passing of the Reform Act, held their minds open to be convinced by experience whether the protection of the ballot was or was not required, the subsequent experience has spoken with a voice too plain to be mistaken, too loud to be unheard. I have said that the ballot in no way contradicts either the scope or the enactments of the Reform Act. But I go farther: I contend that the supporters of the Reform Act, if they wish to insure the efficacious and creditable working of their own measure—if they wish to reap the good which they have themselves sown, must inevitably strengthen the Act with new defences against the briber and intimidator; they must adopt the inexpugnable safeguard of the secret vote. It is their only chance for preserving the Reform Act from contempt and rottenness; and, indeed, when I look at the preamble of the Reform Act, I find the words not only consistent with the proposition of the ballot, but absolutely such as it is impossible to satisfy and comply with, under the open mode of voting. For what are the words of the preamble? "Whereas it is expedient to check abuses in elections, and to diminish the expenses of elections." These are the principal items; and let me ask, have election abuses been checked? The universal voice of England, confirmed by the evidence taken before your own Parliamentary Committee, attests that they have not. Have the expenses of elections been diminished? Alas! for human foresight. I believe most firmly, and I think I should find myself borne out by the authority of the best informed election agents, that as much money in the aggregate has been spent in the last two elections, as ever was known on similar occasions before. I confidently assert that the effects of the Reform Act have not been correspondent to its preamble, and that, if it is intended that they should ever become so correspondent, this can only happen by the aid of the ballot. In fact, to say that the ballot is a proposition inconsistent with the principles of the Reform Act, is merely to affirm in other words that bribery and intimidation are part and parcel of the Reform Act. I am sure that its sincere partisans will be slow to stamp it with such indelible ignominy. Why do I say that the ballot will achieve the mighty work specified in the preamble of the Reform Act, and which the Reform Act itself has failed to achieve—the work of checking abuses and diminishing expense at elections? I say so, because all this outlay and all these abuses assume the publicity of individual votes as an essential condition. There are two leading varieties of election abuse—intimidation and bribery; intimidation, be it recollected, by far the most extensively practised of the two, because it costs nothing to the intimidator, while bribery necessarily involves a sacrifice to the briber. Now, I maintain, that it is a manifest absurdity either to threaten a man with evil or to tempt him with a gift, conditionally upon his performing any given act, when the act is of such a nature that you can never know whether he does it or not. The secrecy of the act places it out of the reach both of reward and punishment. When an elector votes in secret, it is absolutely impossible that he can be made either to incur loss or to gain profit, in consequence of the way in which his vote is given. It is perfectly well known, that in all human enactments the clearest prohibitions and the sharpest penalties are a nullity when you can obtain no evidence to enable you to distinguish between obedience and evasion; nor has despotism, in its wildest freaks, ever gone so far as to believe that it could effectually interdict, or effectually command, any acts which were in their nature secret. Here stands-the impassable limit to human authority in its efforts to restrain the liberty of mankind: it must have evidence to proceed upon, arising out of the modes of conduct which it condemns and desires to suppress. I think that the proposition which I have just stated is too obvious to need farther illustration. It is a trite aphorism of Lord Bacon, that knowledge is power; and the assertion analogous to this is still more true, that absence of knowledge is absence of power. Now, my purpose is to deprive the intimidator of all his power over votes —and I do so by excluding him from all knowledge of the way in which votes are given. This is a method at once simple and infallible: and there is no other method which can advance you one step towards the result. You may try what other schemes you please—you may reason with the intimidator—you may try to sooth or cajole him—you may raise the cry of indignant shame against him—you may hold out to him the prospect of legal penalties. Believe me, intimidation is a practice far too gentlemanlike and fashionable to be subdued by such leaden weapons as these. It is the inmate of courts and manor houses—the cherished companion of lordly bosoms—all the pride of wealth and rank, and all the fierceness of political bigotry conspire to uphold it; the clergyman who discourses eloquently in the pulpit on charity and forgiveness of enemies, neither enjoins nor manifests any such dispositions during a contested election—even ladies of high fashion are not ashamed to direct with their own delicate hands the instant discontinuance of a tradesman who has dared to vote for the shocking Radical. Against intimidators, sustained by the sympathy and example of all that is great and powerful you can do nothing, except by rendering intimidation mechanically impossible. You cannot deprive them of their weapons of offence, but you may withdraw the voter out of their reach, and thus smite them with blindness. I assert, without reserve, that the ballot will accomplish this object—that it will render intimidation altogether impracticable, and that no ingenuity can disappoint its working. Those who now dictate votes by means of the servile and selfish fears of electors, must be content to resort to methods of guidance more consistent with the free will of a reasonable man and the dignity of a fellow-citizen. There are many of them who can employ these gentler methods with perfect success, and who well know how to find their way to an elector's understanding, when the instruments for forcing his will are snatched from their grasp. And those who disdain to substitute persuasion for control, when the ballot shall have banished the angry and tyrannical passions from the field of election, will be left, as they ought to be, to impotent and unavailing complaints. Some persons, not altogether averse to the ballot, maintain, nevertheless, that secret voting will be inoperative to any good purpose, unless you can at the same time prohibit and prevent canvassing; they say further, that canvassing will still be practised, even when votes are taken in secret. To this I have to reply, that the word "canvassing" is of very equivocal import; it includes something which is harmless and even indispensable,—much that is revolting and odious. It is certain that active exertion must be used by some one to make known the name and pretensions of a candidate, and to ascertain how they are received throughout the constituency. This is a task which must be undertaken by some persons who are known in the locality; and thus, in a certain sense, you have a Committee and a canvass, even though voting should be carried on by ballot. The canvasser would go forth to consult the prevailing sentiment, to communicate the necessary information, to rectify mistakes, and to convince as well as he could those who were adverse. But the odious part of the practice begins beyond these limits; it is peculiar to the present system of open voting, and can have no existence under the ballot. It is when your canvassers are not content with trying to convince an elector's understanding, but seek to work upon his will; when they try to importune him into a pledge which his conscience will not allow him to give; when they assail his imagination by motives of worldly interest, by the fear of losing the favours of one man, by the hope of gaining the patronage of another. It is when the customer or the landlord appears in person or by his deputy—concealing the stringency of command under the modest form of a polite request. Te semper anteit sæva necessitas, Clavos trabales et cuneos manu Gestans ahenâ. There is no scene on the face of the earth in which the harassing and ungenerous arts of enforcing constrained compliance are more skilfully practised than an English election. There are some men who abhor these acts as they deserve; there are still more who profess to abhor them; and I maintain that both one and the other ought to join with me in introducing the vote by ballot. For of what use is it to forge all these snares when the vote after all must be the expression of the voter's free will—when you cannot by any force or any artifice subvert his ultimate independence? In order to prevail upon him to vote with you, you must induce him to feel and think with you; and for this purpose the importunity and screwing of the present canvass, the solicitations of the customer, or the threats of the landlord will not be only unavailing but injurious. Even now, when canvassers approach a man of independent position, upon whom they cannot in any way bring the screw to bear, the application becomes divested of all its most objectionable elements; it would be equally unobjectionable with regard to every voter, without exception, if votes were taken by ballot; for secrecy makes all voters poor as well as rich, equally and completely independent. When I am asked, Sir, whether the ballot will put down canvassing, I reply, that it will put down the bad part of canvassing; it will abolish the imperative and the seductive canvassing, which addresses itself to the hopes and fears of electors; it will still leave the persuasive canvassing, which addresses itself to their reason and affections. But, then, I am told that the protection imparted by the ballot supposes that the voter violates his promise. "We do not inquire, (say the objectors who use this argument) into the circumstances which have preceded the promise; but after a voter has once made it he ought to keep it at all prices; and any scheme which implies that he breaks his promise includes a degree of moral mischief which in our view overbalances all the benefits of independent voting." This is the argument chiefly insisted upon by those who oppose the ballot; and I engage to shew that it is altogether nugatory as an objection against me. But let me first ask, how stands the fact in regard to broken promises at present? Are election promises under open voting universally kept by the voters who make them? Are no attempts now made to induce voters to break promises once given? Are voters safe from all hazard if they faithfully perform their promises? Sir, when we come to answer these questions accurately, we shall find, that, as the case stands now, election promises are not constantly kept, but very frequently broken; that the reason why they are so broken is, because bribers and intimidators do all they can to induce the voters to break them; that voters are not in the least protected from hazard by the known fact, that they have already bound themselves by a distinct promise. Suppose an elector dependent in his position, a tenant or a tradesman, under the present system of open voting, to promise his vote to that candidate whose principles he approves and prefers, is he for that reason one whit the less importuned and menaced by those upon whom he is dependent? Do they regard the promise as inviolably binding, and the vote as a step already foreclosed and predetermined, so that it would be criminal in them to attempt to disturb it? Doubtless there are some Gentlemen who entertain this feeling, and act upon it; but I do not scruple to assert, that, for one man who feels thus, there are fifty who feel the contrary. A gentleman says to his servant when the Westminster election is coming on, "John, go round to my tradesmen, and let them know, that I am very anxious for the success of Sir George Murray, and that I hope they will give him their votes at this election." "Yes, sir; but what shall I say, if any of them tell me, that they have already promised their votes to Leader and Evans?" "Oh! I can't help that: you must tell them they must oblige me this once, and that if they vote for these Radicals I won't deal with them any longer." Again, what is the behaviour of a country gentleman when the Tory canvassers come and tell him, "Sir, we have been canvassing in your neighbourhood, and Farmer So and So, your tenant, tells us, that he has already promised his vote to the Radical candidate." "Promised his vote to the Radical Candidate! why, what right had he to promise it at all—without waiting to know whom I support? Oh you need not be afraid that his vote will be given against you; I will go and talk to him; the promise is all stuff and nonsense." Sir, this is a faithful picture, however disagreeable and humiliating, of that which now occurs at a contested election. ["No, no!"] I say again, Sir, in spite of the denial of the hon. Gentlemen opposite, that this is a faithful specimen of what now occurs. [Renewed cries of "No, no!" and "Name, Name!"] Their name is Legion. To hear the arguments urged against the ballot, one would think, that an election by open voting was a school of probity and veracity; and that a voter who had once given his word performed it as a matter of course, without let or hindrance from any one. Instead of which, what is the fact? Why, the promise of a dependent voter is respected just so far as it coincides with the will and the dictates of his superior. In every other case it is trampled in the dust; it is treated as null and void, as if made by a man who is not sui juris; the very same motives are held out to him to vote in spite of his promise as would have been held out if he had never made any promise. And, Sir, let me ask, what class of promises is it which the pressure of an open canvass thus causes to be unwillingly broken? Precisely the best class of promises: the free, the heartfelt, and the voluntary promises, which spring from the sincere preference of the electors who give them. Under the ballot all these promises are perfectly certain to be kept with fidelity; the same free will which causes them to be originally made will also cause them to be ultimately kept. The only promise which can possibly be liable to violation under the ballot is the promise, extorted perforce, which does not carry with it the real feeling and conviction of the giver. This is the worst which can possibly happen under the ballot. But I affirm, that this is what will very rarely happen. For who will go about to extort from reluctant voters at the point of the sword these insincere and compulsory promises, when there can be no power of extorting performance? Who will be guilty of an act of ungracious and oppressive interference, which can answer no purpose, and who can only alienate the voter who is made to suffer such degradation? The ballot will strike at the root of the evil, because it will take away all motive and all temptation to compel reluctant promises; and where no reluctant promises are demanded, no such thing as breach of promise will be known. I repeat, that breach of promise, so far from being more frequent under the ballot, will in point of fact be much less frequent than it is now under open voting; for spontaneous promises are sure to be observed, and compulsory promises will not be extorted. Looking at the question, Sir, simply as it regards the legitimate obligation and the just estimate of promises, I contend that the ballot is preferable to an open suffrage. But I will not consent to argue the question upon this narrower ground. I contend, that the reference to private promises is neither the appropriate test, nor even the leading consideration, by which our choice as to the mode of suffrage ought to be determined. I put in a claim on the part of the country to the judgment and voice of every elector, anterior to the claim of any private promise. The elector is under a paramount obligation, from which no act of his own can discharge him, to give his vote according to his own conscientious preference. If he chooses to make any promise at all in reference to the disposal of his vote, it must be at least in conformity with the dictates of his own conscience; he will then be enabled to perform his promise, and to acquit himself of his paramount electoral obligation by one and the same act. But a promise to vote contrary to his own inward judgment, what is it better than a covenant to commit a distinct breach of duty—premeditated breach of a solemn public duty? If there be in human affairs an immoral and unlawful covenant, assuredly this is one of the deepest dye—an agreement to set aside a known public obligation for the accomplishment of some private purpose—wrong in the man who gives the pledge, but often excusable from the dependence of his position; wrong in the highest degree, and altogether without excuse or extenuation, in the man who extorts it. What should we say, Sir, of a plaintiff in one of your courts, who should demand from any witness a pledge that he would deliver false testimony, or from a juryman a promise that he would stand out for a dishonest verdict? Why, the seal of infamy would be set upon him for ever. But where is the difference in principle, or in what respect am I less guilty, if I take advantage of the dependent position of my tenant or my clerk to force him to break his electoral trust? You may tell me that the one act is more common than the other, and, therefore, does not imply the same moral guilt: I admit that it is so; but the very same guilty principle pervades both. The noble Lord, the Member for Liverpool, whom I do not now see in his place, in a speech which he made during the recess, expatiated with great horror on a declaration made by the hon. Member for Dublin, that, under the ballot, a man might shout for West and Hamilton, and yet vote for O'Connell. This, in the noble Lord's opinion, was the very acme of immorality, that a man should speak one way and vote the contrary. Immoral as this may be, Sir, I shall show the noble Lord that the same immorality does happen, and must happen, under the present system of open voting, of which he is the champion. The man who, under the ballot, would shout for West and Hamilton, and yet vote for O'Connell, what does he do now, his heart by the supposition, being with O'Connell? Why, he votes for West and Hamilton, to be sure; but wherever he can express his opinion without constraint, he talks in favour of O'Connell, he drinks O'Connell's health, and heartily wishes him success. The very same contradiction between vote and speech —the very same falsehood and immorality which the noble Lord denounces as the exclusive attribute of my system—meets him just as unavoidably on his own. Do what you will, you cannot avoid it when once the intimidator has put in his coercive grasp; immorality and falsehood of one kind or other there must be whether the voting be open or secret. I say, that when the vote is made secret, the intimidator will not interfere any longer, because he has nothing to gain by it; the he makes against him instead of making for him, and, therefore, he will not cause it to be told. You hear it sometimes argued, Sir, that open voting makes the elector responsible to the public, and that secret voting removes that responsibility. But this is a mere abuse of terms. I am prepared to show you that there neither is nor can be any responsibility in the case. Responsibility, in its only legitimate meaning, can attach to nothing but to the performance of a man's duty; a man is responsible when he is liable to loss in the event of discharging his duty badly, and when he is protected from loss in the event of discharging it well. Now, what is the duty of an elector? Simply to deliver his own opinion sincerely and conscientiously, let him be in the minority or in the majority—let him agree or disagree with whom he may; my neighbour and I may both discharge our electoral duty with equal fidelity, though he votes for a Tory and I vote for a Radical; it would be wrong in him to vote as I do; it would be wrong in me to vote as he does. Now, Sir, this being the sole duty of an elector, will any man tell me that publicity of suffrage makes him responsible for discharging it well? Will any man tell me that every elector who votes sincerely and conscientiously is protected from loss, and that no elector becomes liable to loss except when he votes otherwise? The reverse is notoriously the fact; and it is because the reverse is the fact, that the ballot is demanded. Let it not be pretended, then, that publicity makes an elector responsible for the discharge of his duty; all that publicity does is to mate him liable to ill usage from those whom he opposes, and to good usage from those whom he supports. Who will be found to call this by the imposing title of responsibility? Why, it is only seduction and intimidation under a new name. And not only does publicity of suffrage contribute nothing to keep a voter in the right way against his will (which would be the only object of any real responsibility), but it tends most powerfully to drive him into the wrong way against his will. In a contested election the public are divided into partisans on both sides; no one ever takes the least thought about the sincerity of votes; every one thinks that he is serving the public by multiplying votes on his own side, no matter whether these votes represent genuine convictions or not. It is thus that the real public obligation, the genuine electoral conscience, is left destitute of all support or guarantee from without, while it is exposed to assault and importunity of every kind from those whose good will or ill will bears closely upon the comforts of the elector. Such are the effects of an open suffrage; so far from creating an efficient public responsibility—so far from providing new securities for conscientious voting—it only lets in fresh dangers, and sows factitious seeds of evil. Let the elector vote in secret, and the path of duty becomes at once smooth and easy; he will have no perils to defy, and no temptations to resist. Sir, I shall now commend my proposition to the judgment of the House; intresting from them an impartial and dispassionate decision, such as the magnitude of the question demands. The fact is notorious and indisputable, that the representative institutions of this country have become the prey of internal corruption and intimidation: the form remains inviolate—the ceremonies are exactly observed—but that free influence of public conscience and sentiment, which alone can give to these solemnities any meaning or any value, has been checked and frozen up at its source. There is a method of re-opening this frozen current; there is a method of insuring to the real feeling of electors an easy channel and a certain delivery at the poll-booth; there is a method of sweeping away ail those interested hindrances which now rise up to obstruct the faithful performance of electoral obligation. That method is the ballot; an expedient simple, effectual, and self-operating. From those who look upon bribery and intimidation with unaffected censure and disgust—from those who feel unshaken faith in their own political creed, and who disdain to promote it by the aid of unworthy artifices—from all such persons, to whatever party they may belong, I confidently anticipate support, because I feel that my proposition deserves it. I implore them not to sit with folded arms, and with a passive resignation worthy only of Turkish fatalists, whilst the worst plagues desolate our constituencies; nor to content themselves with unavailing complaints, as if it were the destiny of the age to corrupt and to be corrupted—to intimidate and to be intimidated. Depend upon it, Sir, these vices may be subdued, if we choose to adopt the right remedy; they are predominant only because we are supine; they subsist only by our toleration or connivance. It is not for us to complain of corruption and intimidation, while we refuse to honest voters the means of performing their duty in peace and safety—while we cling to a system of voting which permits the rights of conscience to be trampled on with impunity, and holds out an easy traffic to the selfishness of dishonest electors. Under a secret suffrage every vestige of intimidation will and must disappear; the independence of each separate voter, poor as well as rich, will be built upon a rock which no violence can disturb and no artifice undermine. Believing, as I do, that the exact record of genuine electoral sentiment, at proper intervals, is the main purpose and the inestimable blessing of all representative institutions, I cease not to contend for the ballot, as a step essential to its attainment; and I have full confidence in the good sense and patriotism of my countrymen, that they will not permit freedom of election to perish for want of its legitimate guarantee.

Mr. Ward

rose to second the motion. He was well aware of the difficulty of offering to the attention of the House any new argument on a subject which had been so frequently discussed in that House, and which had been so ably dealt with by his hon. Friend as to leave little for his fellow-labourers to supply. He trusted, however, that on one or two points it was in his power to add something to the clear and eloquent statement which had been made, by pointing out the practical defects of the present system. The English were a practical people, and, when any practical grievances were proved to exist, all parties in that House boasted of their desire to remove them. The right hon. Baronet, the Member for Tamworth, had, on a former occasion, said, that "he would remove all proved abuses," and in this avowal the Gentlemen who sat by the right hon. Baronet's side expressed their full accordance. If, then, it had been proved to the right hon. Baronet that the present system was pregnant with proved abuses, that it was fraught with evils of frightful magnitude, that the evils were daily growing larger, and that they were becoming more apparent at every succeeding election, would the right hon. Baronet now refuse redress? He called upon the right hon. Baronet not to shelter himself under the silence which he had so strictly observed on the two last occasions when this subject was discussed; he called upon the right hon. Baronet not to Conceal his opinions, and state whether he would remove the proved abuses of our electoral system, by applying the only remedy which human ingenuity had as yet been able to suggest? Would the right hon. Baronet come forward and deny the abuse? Would he or his Friends suggest any other remedy? Let them at least tell the country what it had to expect from them by way of redress for this practical and proved abuse. He supposed that the right hon. Baronet attached some importance to the words he had used; he supposed that he was sincere in his professions; and when he heard so often the "cuckoo cry" which had run through the Tory ranks ever since the publication of the Tamworth manifesto, he did fancy that some meaning was intended by it. If the abuses were so great that the table of that House was covered with indignant complaints from some portion of almost every constituency, they had a right to call on the right hon. Baronet to say how he would deal with those abuses, and what remedy he would apply. If the right hon. Baronet derided the suggested means of redress, he would at least show how he would remove the evil, and how he would relieve the people from this proved and much-complained-of abuse. Since the Reform Bill had been introduced, the principle and the practice of the electoral system had been completely at variance. In that bill an important change had been made by a clause introduced by the noble Marquess, the Member for Buckinghamshire, in favour of the county constituencies in England. They had all beheld the working of that clause, and he therefore invited the serious consideration of the noble Lord to the effects produced, to see whether the grounds on which he had recommended it to the attention of Parliament had been established in practice. He well knew the deep interest which the noble Lord felt in the welfare of the yeomanry, not in his own county alone, but throughout England. He knew how justly high the noble Lord stood in their estimation—He had no wish to rob the noble Lord of any merit, but he wished him to compare his theory of that clause with its working in practice, not only in Buckinghamshire, but elsewhere. The principal reason assigned for its introduction was the perfect independence of the 50l. voters. It was urged by the noble Lord that the farmers were a sound, good, honest, and independent class of men, particularly valuable on account of their independence; and that while they were giving a new constitution to this country, there was no place for the farmers in the great charter of liberty. The noble Lord dwelt much on the value of these qualities as entitling them to the consideration of the House; the argument and feeling of the noble Lord were shared in by other Members holding the most opposite political opinions. It was held by more than one Member that the farmers were as necessary to the landlord as the landlord was to them. Lord Western, when a Member of that House, had said that the farmers were most unquestionably an intelligent and independent race of men, and that "the franchise was not calculated to diminish their independence." The hon. Baronet the Member for Shoreham (Sir Charles Burrell) maintained that they "were a most thoroughly independent body;" and the hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Mildmay) declared that, in his opinion, "the franchise was calculated to improve their position and elevate their character." The only person in that House who had held language at all opposed to this was Lord Spencer, then Chancellor of the Exchequer; he alone denied the existence of this independence, pointed out the disadvantageous operation of the franchise upon their interests as farmers, and the impossibility of exercising it freely without the ballot; the noble Lord had added that, if the clause were carried, it would probably render the ballot inevitable, which would alone correct the evils to which the clause had given rise. As to the working of the clause, Lord Spencer had undoubtedly been a true prophet. On a division, however, the clause was carried by the large majority of 232 to 148. The majority was composed of the Radicals and aristocracy united, for the Radical party had on that occasion coalesced with the aristocracy on the principle of extending the suffrage, and they were, consequently, to some extent responsible for the evils to which the clause had given rise. It became, however, a part of the Reform Bill and was now the law of the land. He had no wish to see it repealed; but he did wish to see the evils corrected, and that it should be made what it ought to be and professed to be. He called upon the noble Lord to assist in the correction of the evils which had occurred—he called upon him to work out the principles which he had professed—he called upon that noble Lord to secure the independence for which he had vouched, and to render the yeomanry what he conceived them in theory, but which they were not in fact. As the case now stood the franchise was a curse rather than a blessing. Did not the noble Lord know that it had been a fatal been to every honest man who happened to entertain different political views from those which were held by his landlord? He admitted that a great portion of the farmers agreed in the political views of their landlords, but the ballot would make no difference in this respect; it would not make the farmers Radical, nor would it compel them to vote for the Radical candidate. It would ascertain the real sentiments of the yeomanry, whether they were Radical or Tory. Why, then, did hon. Gentlemen opposite cheer the sentiment that many of the farmers from mistaken views, as he thought, supported the Tory candidates? Why they opposed the ballot, unless they doubted the prevalence of the feeling, and were afraid of the test, was a mystery which he could not explain. Did not the noble Lord know that so far from the tenants being allowed to remain independent, and vote as they liked, their votes were appropriated by the landlords? If they were even indisposed to acquire the right, and neglected to register, there were many instances in which they were compelled; and if they were objected to they were forced to defend their right to be placed on the register? He could quote one instance which occurred in the west riding of York, and in which he believed the noble Lord, the Secretary for Ireland, could vouch for the facts. Many of the landlords there had changed their political opinions. If they pleased, they were at liberty to change, but was it because they changed that their tenants must also change? Must they veer about from Liberalism to Conservatism, contrary to their own reason and to their own opinions, and although they might not have the same interests to serve as those which induced their landlords to alter the course of their political conduct? Or should it be said that they should act upon the bidding of their landlords, in ignorance and in slavery? He would state a case, for the truth of which he could vouch. In the West Riding of York a body of tenants had gone to the noble Viscount by whom they were represented, and had begged that their votes might be objected to, alleging as a reason, that they were anxious not to offend either party by voting contrary to the desire of either, and the objections in some instances were absolutely made. He vouched for the fact of such applications having been made, and he would ask what franchise had those persons? The votes of the tenants were in all cases looked upon as the chattels of the landlord, in which they had a right to deal, and of which they might dispose. Even the neutral plan of not voting was construed into a species of crime, by which the tenants wasted the property of their landlords. The effect of the clause in the Reform Act was to divide all large estates into holdings of 50l. each, and to give the landlords a species of feudal right over the votes.. This had been the pernicious effect of the clause in many parts of the country, and during the last, two registrations, where a farmer had held a farm of 200l. yearly value, he had been compelled to join his son or his nephew, or some other person at all events in his lease, to increase the number of serfs or slaves on the estate, and in effect to revive the state of things which existed formerly in Gatton and Old Sarum. This clause had been introduced by the noble Marquess himself, and he would call on him to endeavour to remove the stigma which he had cast on his favourite class, and to join the hon. Member who had brought the present motion before the House in endeavouring to secure the future welfare of the country, by procuring the adoption of the system of vote by ballot. [A laugh.] Hon. Gentlemen might laugh, but even more improbable things had happened, and he did not despair of seeing hon. Gentlemen opposite actually join the hon. Member, for London in his attempts to give something like an equality to the franchise, and to extend it to the farmers. The right hon. Baronet opposite had said at the commencement of the session that the constitution might be cut and carved, and altered and remoulded, but that such a system as that proposed could never be adopted, for it would not suit the interests of the country. Let the House come to the test, and they would find that the Conservatives would never oppose any measure which left the power of coercion safely in their own hands. He would, however, call upon them to join in supporting this measure, for he was prepared to say that it would produce general benefit and a general satisfaction throughout all constituencies. He was ready to submit his principle to the only tribunal which could decide upon the point, and he could not see what rational objection could be urged against it; nor could he see that it would produce any other end than one which was favourable to the interests of the country generally, and which would at once dispose of the existing abuses with regard to the franchise. The ballot would not destroy the existence of proper feelings in the minds of the people nor put an end to legitimate influence. He did not suppose that it would destroy the influence of the noble Marquess opposite (Chandos); but he was sure that if he should come forward and support it, it would at once remove all suspicion that the noble Marquess had obtained his seat by the exercise of coercion. He would now come to that other argument so often used, and which he had heard so many hon. Gentlemen opposite cheer; that the ballot would substitute something like duplicity and deceit for the frank, and manly, and old English system which now so happily existed, Now, he would ask hop, Gentle- men opposite to tell him what there was frank and manly in the system of men strongly in favour of one party being carried to the poll by force, decked out with the colours of the party opposed to them in politics, to vote for the candidate whom they disliked? He could see nothing frank or manly in it, and there was nothing so admirable in the system which could induce hon. Gentlemen to support it in preference to secret voting; and when it was recollected that the right to vote did not proceed from the accidental circumstance of land being held under the Duke of Bedford or the Duke of Buccleuch, or because it was held of any large capitalist, but was the constitutional right of the voter, there would be little doubt of the propriety of adopting the proposed system. The House was told that the ballot would introduce a degrading system of falsehood; but a very clever pamphlet had recently been published by a Mr. Dennison, in which he said— The employer and the employed will thus be in the situation of two antagonist tacticians. And we shall have Livy's description of the rival stratagem of Hannibal and Fabius reduced to the scale of private discord, and realised in the petty arena of an English farm-yard. But which will be victorious? Here we behold the stout sagacious farmer hedged in on every side and guarding against all surprise; then the subtle, active, prying agent, keenly intent on his own object, and resorting to all the crafty wiles that practised ingenuity can suggest to pluck out the heart of his mystery—flattering the wife, coaxing the children, bribing the domestics, wheedling the friends, seducing the man himself into a state of semi-intoxication, in order to drown his caution and stir up his courage, and then take down his words; converting casual expressions into open avowals, putting the question boldly, and then construing hesitation or silence into assent. If he could contemplate such a state of things as this arising from the introduction of the ballot he should at once say, "Let not an experiment which is so dangerous in its consequences be tried." But he was convinced that such a representation, if applied to the evils which might follow the adoption of the ballot, would be grossly exaggerated and quite untrue; and he would ask whether there could be anything more un-English—for that was the favourite word which was now used—than the system of espionage thus pointed out? Was there one Member of that House who would support any plan which could lead to such results? He would not believe that there was; he would not do the House the injustice to believe it. There might be acts of violence in times when party feeling ran high, but he could not think that any hon. Member could use such means as those pointed out. He did not then attach much importance to this argument, but firmly believed it to be founded on false grounds. Then it was supposed that the landlord had a species of right to dispose of the tenant's vote, and that no measure ought to be passed which would put the tenant in a position in which he might evade the power of his landlord. Now, if this were correct, he was willing at once to admit that the principle of the ballot was a mistake; but the right of the tenant to vote was vested in himself and not in the landlord, and the latter was forbidden to interfere with or to limit the exercise of the franchise. In large towns, he admitted that the mischief existed to a comparatively trifling extent, because the power of landlords was much less than in the country districts, and the evil of intimidation was not carried so far; but the encroachments on the part of landlords and of customers in towns were extending fast, and some means must be adopted to prevent their becoming as great in towns as in the country. Surely, nothing could be more preposterous than that a person should exercise an influence over a voter merely because he happened to be a customer at his shop; but yet this power was claimed to a very great extent in London and other large towns. He never saw anything more beautiful or more perfect than the organization of the system at the last two Westminster elections, and he never saw anything which redounded more to the credit of the hon. Gentlemen opposite; but, at the same time, he must declare, that he never saw anything more dangerous than the system of intimidation which was used. He saw people carried up to the poll by their richest customers, and deprived of all opportunity of exercising their own opinions and feelings in voting, and compelled to vote for the candidate to whom, perhaps, they were opposed in principles and in politics. He said, that this was a most dangerous system; but he would, no doubt, be told that at another election there had been interference of another sort and by another party. He had no doubt of it, but he objected to interference at all; for let the House look at the difference which appeared to have been effected in the opinions of voters. Some of them would be found voting in August in favour of men professing politics diametrically opposite to the opinions of those for whom they voted in May, and this wholly and entirely because the persuasions of the party could not be brought to bear so well in the latter month as they could at a subsequent period. He himself had doubts as to the extent of the good effect which this measure would produce in small constituencies, but in large constituencies, where all the votes could not be purchased, he felt no hesitation in saying that it would have a most beneficial effect, and that it would at once put an end to the crime of bribery. While referring to this subject of bribery, he would call the attention of the House to the means adopted to prevent its discovery when the offence had been committed. At the last election, the bribery oath had been actually administered by the persons bribing to those bribed, in order to render the evidence of the latter useless in the event of their afterwards confessing that they had been guilty of accepting money for "their votes. He would ask, if anything could be conceived which was more disgraceful than this system of perjury which was thus adopted? And he would ask, whether this motion of the hon. Member for London was not likely effectually to put a stop to such proceedings? The question was, could secresy be insured by ballot? This question had been so often mooted, and a satisfactory answer had been so often given to it, that he thought no doubt could exist of the fact, and he believed, that if hon. Gentlemen opposite were not convinced of the fact they would not oppose the motion. Another opportunity would now be afforded to contest this question, but he believed that the objections of the opposition would melt rapidly away, and that secrecy might and would be obtained. Then what other objection was there? The only one which was put forth was, that the ballot would change the national character, for that it was the nature of Englishmen to speak out. Why, that was the very point on which the friends of the ballot complained now, for the present system prevented them from speaking out. Nothing of the real feeling of the country could now be ascertained. But let secret suffrages be granted, and then there could be no doubt that the real opinions of the people would be learned. He was willing to abide by them be they what they might, and he was sure that no hon. Member on that side of the House could reasonably complain of them. But it was said, that the ballot had failed already, and ancient and modern history had been cited to prove it. He did not think, however, that ancient history could be fairly depended upon, from the difficulty which existed in the real facts being ascertained; but, as an instance, in proof of the argument, it was said that the ballot was adopted in Rome, and was found, instead of producing a beneficial effect, to have increased corruption. That, however, was a fact rather difficult to establish, because it could not be distinctly learned whether corruption had not existed before, and had taken such root that the ballot was an insufficient remedy. That might turn out to be the case here, and the longer it were delayed the more likely would be such a result. To come to modern history, the hon. Member for Tynemouth said, that it had failed in America. But it had been adopted in only half the states, the other half continuing the system of open voting. Had the hon. Member shown that any of the states which had adopted it had afterwards gone back to open voting? No; but he, on the contrary, was prepared to show, that several of the states, Connecticut, Louisiana, and Kentucky, for example, had actually since adopted the ballot. Surely this was not a proof of its failure. The ballot, therefore, having been successful in America, where things tended to produce a different effect, there could be no reasonable probability that it would fail in England. In America, most men were indifferent whether their votes were known or not, and there was, generally speaking, a great laxity in the mode in which elections were conducted; but still the ballot was supported because it was known to render the proceedings tranquil, and to tend to the prevention of bad feelings being entertained. The other country alluded to was France, which was in a position precisely opposite to that of America. In France there was but a small electoral body; but yet in all instances when the feelings of the people were excited it was found best calculated to elicit their real independent opinions. He would defy any hon. Gentleman to name any French statesman who had expressed the slightest wish to substitute open voting, or who had given it as his opinion that that system was the best. He feared that he had already trespassed too long on the attention of the House, and there was only one other objection to which he would refer. It was said, that the franchise, as now established, was not a right given to the people, but only a trust placed in their hands; and the right hon. Baronet opposite, in the last speech which he made upon this subject, on the 2d of June, 1835, appeared to have a confusion of ideas which was quite unusual with him. He said he "could see no reason why, if the ballot should be considered good for the constituents, it should not also be good for the representatives, and why the sytem of voting by ballot should not be introduced into the House of Commons." Now, a more complete confusion of ideas than this he could not conceive. Hon. Members were sent to that House with a trust delegated to them by their constituents, and the constituencies had a right to know how the trust was performed, but the electors were the constituent body, and there was no person from whom they derived their rights as electors. If the system of primary and secondary electors existed, as under the Cortes in Spain, this argument perhaps might apply, but the franchise was clearly the right of the electors; it was given to them upon certain conditions being performed, and then it was absolutely their own as much as any other property could be. Voters were acted upon at present by two causes, a superior and inferior cause, and the mischief was produced just as much by the dislike which would be known to be expressed by the landlord of the voter as it was by the open and violent expressions of a mob at Huddersfield or elsewhere. But the right was not acquired from any person, or any body of persons, but from the law, and when it was once obtained it was perfect in all its parts. It was the futility of all the arguments which were urged against the ballot, coupled with the feeling which existed in favour of it, which had tended to work up the public mind to its present state. There was a feeling gradually rising up which was becoming every day more wild, and which proceeded from a sense of wrong. Was there any doubt of the fact that there had been petitions presented to that House from almost every large constituency in favour of the ballot, and was it not the fact that in those constituencies from which petitions had not been presented the fear of the landlords had been the real cause which prevented this step being taken; for if any petition had been sent it would be deemed open rebellion against the landlords. There was no doubt, however, that after the long period during which this question had been under consideration, and the observations which had been made upon the subject, the people of England believed that the question was one only of expediency, as to time, and not as to prinple. The declaration of the noble Lord the Member for Stroud, which was made at the commencement of the Session, had given an importance to the present debate, and to the division which was now likely to take place, and which it would not have obtained under other circumstances. The people were most anxious to know how far the opinions so expressed were the individual opinions of the noble Lord, and how far the Members of the Government were prepared to identify themselves with them. They bore in mind the opinions expressed by all the different Members of the Government, and they anxiously looked to see whether they really entertained them. There was one right hon. Baronet in the cabinet (Sir J. C. Hobhouse) who once represented Westminster, and who was formerly a most enthusiastic admirer of the ballot, and he at least should now be consistent in the opinion which he expressed, because, however natural the change might be, considering with whom fortune had joined him as a colleague, yet his change of opinion would at least tend to shake the opinion of the public in favour of public men. There was another right hon. Gentleman, (Mr. Poulett Thomson) who was returned by the constituency which he represented with the utmost confidence, without solicitation, without canvass; but the time had now come at which all opinions entertained in favour of the ballot must find expression in that House. He saw another hon. and gallant Member (Sir Hussey Vivian) in his place, whose constituency, to the number of 2,000, had signed a petition in favour of the ballot. He surely could not hesitate in the course which he should adopt, and would give his support to the motion of the hon. Member for London. In the person of the right hon. Gentleman, the Member for Dundee, he saw another instance of the same kind. From all these Gentlemen, and from many more whom he could enumerate, would not the country expect a plain "aye" or "no," for or against the motion? He trusted that the answer which should be given would be at once satisfactory to the hon. Members and to the country; but he would call on them to reflect deeply on the consequences of the vote which they might give; and he must express his conviction that anything like a Government opposition to the motion, in which the country was so deeply interested; would have for its effect the production of a new combination most important to the country and to this House.

Mr. Herbert

was understood to say, that he fully concurred in the case made out by the hon. Member for Sheffield, as to the necessity for some measure to suppress bribery at elections. The law upon the subject at present was not sufficiently stringent; but he would not resort to the ballot, because he conceived that other means more fitting and effective could be adopted. With regard to intimidation, he still less saw how the ballot would effectually remove it. The hon. Member for London had, he thought, laid too much stress upon after-dinner speeches, and expatiated too widely upon his remedy, without showing exactly how it would operate in this respect. He was rather inclined to trace intimidation to unions and combinations, and Irish associations, to defeat the ingenuity of which, in order to secure secret voting, they could not hope by speculative acts of Parliament. Recollect that a voter should not only be obliged to conceal his vote, but the sentiments he entertained; and if that were difficult, as it would be in ordinary cases, how much more difficult would it be as regarded unions and clubs, whose tyranny was much more to be feared than that of landlords, because they made life horrible by social persecution? How, also, would the ballot guard against priestly influence in Ireland? Did they expect that law would overcome superstition? or that it would prove a remedy against the confessional as a mode of communicating secrets? Was it not in evidence, taken before the Car-low Committee, that Father Maher made a woman confess the secrets of her husband? They had it also in evidence before that Committee, that Father Maher told the electors, previous to the election, that if they did not vote in a particular way, he would visit them in the mitigated penalty of massacre in this life, and eternal damnation in the world to come. He need not say that the ballot, or indeed any legislative measure, would not prove a remedy against intimidation of this kind. On the question of the morality of the practice of making false representations for the purpose of preserving secrets, the authority of Dr. Johnson had been referred to; but it was to be recollected that that great casuist entertained grave doubts how men should act in such cases; and with these grave doubts, which hardly any honest or moral man could help entertaining, would the House assent to a proposition which every two or three years would expose the whole constituency of the country to the necessity of doing that respecting the morality of which grave doubts could be entertained? Surely, it could not be supposed that Parliament would deliberately take a measure calculated to familiarise men's minds with falsehood. Marked exception had been taken to the argument against the ballot, which was founded upon the assertion that the practice was un-English; he certainly so considered it, and he felt himself strongly averse to the introduction of any new principle alien to our habits, and, as he conceived, inconsistent with our institutions. A high standard of morality had been attained in this country, and in his judgment our free Government and liberal education were good for nothing if they did not in their present state continue to us those advantages which they had been the means of conferring, and were fully capable of perpetuating. It had been contended, that the franchise was a legal right—that he denied; it was not a matter of property, but of grave and serious trust, to be used for the public good, and not for private purposes, or to gratify evil passions. Expressly, because it was such a trust, did a grave and serious responsibility attach to its exercise. If the franchise were a possession in the nature of private property, how could the sale of it be called bribery? In his opinion both electors and non-electors had a right to know in what manner their fellow countrymen exercised the franchise. He was clear in the conviction that there ought to be no secrecy, but he was equally certain that the measure of the hon. Member for London would not afford that secrecy, though it would otherwise effect great mischief. It would give impunity to some, and no security to others—it would increase the facilities of bribery without substantially augmenting the privileges of the people. When he spoke of the immoral tendency of the proposed measure, he of course wished it to be understood that he did not mean that any such observation should apply to the views or intentions of the hon. Member for London; he felt satisfied that that hon. Gentleman would repudiate as readily as he should any measure the tendency of which he supposed to be immoral. In conclusion, he would say, that he saw no grounds for supposing that the ballot would afford the least increase of security, though it could not fail to produce an increased facility in bribery. The works of Miss Martineau, that great apostle of utilitarianism, displayed the immense amount of bribery that prevailed in America, and the necessary inference to be drawn from that fact, that the ballot rather promoted the crime than deterred men from its perpetration. Nothing could be more certain than that it was the great duty of legislators to combine the practice of virtue with the advancement of man's interests; they ought to pause, then, before they entertained a proposition for legalising falsehood, for rendering honesty the worst policy.

Mr. James

After the eloquent and powerful speeches of the hon. Mover and hon. Seconder of the motion, and after the able manner in which the question had been argued by the liberal part of the press of this country, it was a matter of difficulty to make any new observations on the subject; and he, therefore, should not have trespassed on the attention of the House on the present occasion if he had not felt a very deep interest in the subject. The ballot, he was convinced, was essential to the protection of the voter in the exercise of his elective right, and which, if the people of this country possessed at all, they should be allowed to exercise according to the dictates of their own consciences, and not in conformity with the commands of other men. He some years ago presented a petition from a place in the north of England in favour of the ballot, and when he declared himself favourable to the prayer of the petition, his observations were received with shouts of laughter. At that period, the supporters of the ballot in that House were extremely few in number, and one of those persons was the late Mr. Ricardo, the distinguished political economist, who told him on his resuming his seat, not to be discouraged, for he was convinced that if he lived even not many years he would see the ballot become the law of the land. The number of the advocates of the ballot, both within and out of the House had greatly increased, and, he did not despair of seeing it become the law of the land. He said this with perfect confidence, seeing as he did that it was supported by the large proportion of the intelligent classes out of the House and supported also in the House, not only by the philosophical Radicals, but by the unphilosophical Radicals, and by a few stray Whigs and Whig-Radicals, and perhaps, by one or two Tories. The ballot, he was satisfied, would destroy more than any thing else that could be devised, that system of intimidation which obtained so much at elections, and which was so fearlessly used at the last election. If nothing else had convinced him of the necessity of the ballot, what had occurred at the last election for Cumberland would be amply sufficient for that purpose. The large body of the electors of that county were small freeholders, but there were also several tenants at will. Many of the latter had signed the requisition to him and his hon. colleague, but were by their landlords called upon to vote for his right hon. opponent. Some of them did so, but stated that they had not changed their opinions, and that they would not have voted for the right hon. Baronet if they had not been sure that he would not be returned. They also stated, that they were afraid of opposing their landlords, who, if they did, would endeavour to do them some injury. Others, however, persisted in voting for the liberal candidate, and the consequence was, that they received immediate notice to quit their farms, upon which many of them had laid out large sums of money in improvements. ["Name, name."] He would at once say, that if the returning officer had not done so himself, at least his steward had been guilty of such conduct. Should such an opinion be allowed to continue, by which a man could be compelled to vote against his conscientious convictions? To many thousand electors, it was a matter of no consequence whether it was known or not which way they exercised their elective franchise; but to the great body of electors it was of essential import, as regarded their interests and prosperity in life, that it should not be known which way they voted. The ballot was said to be an innovation; but were not all improvements innovations in the first instance? This was said with respect to the Reform Bill, which was now admitted by Gentlemen opposite to have been an improvement. ["No, no!"] Did not the right hon. and learned Member for Ripon, one of the most able men on the benches opposite, state a few nights ago that he was prepared to stand by the Reform Bill? He had always hitherto voted for the ballot, and he should continue to do so till he heard of a better plan being devised to protect the voter in the free exercise of the elective franchise.

Mr. G. H. Cavendish

said, that it was impossible to deny that many Gentlemen who were formerly opposed to the ballot, had become favourable to it in consequence of the extent to which bribery and intimidation had been carried at the last election. The arguments in favour of the plan had, however, failed in convincing him of the propriety of adopting it; but he confessed that it was with great reluctance that he had brought himself to vote against a measure that was the only one that had been brought forward as a measure of protection against the evils he had just alluded to; he, however, felt bound to vote against it, as he was satisfied that the adoption of the ballot would produce much greater evils than were at present experienced. He doubted whether the system could be adopted, without a great extension of the suffrage, and this could not be conceded without a correspondent increase of political knowledge in the people. Again, under the ballot a great many unqualified persons would get placed in the register of voters, as that would not be watched and scrutinised as it was at present; and also many would appear and exercise the right of voting who had no claim to it, by representing themselves as persons who really possessed the elective franchise, and no remedy was provided to prevent this under a system of vote by ballot. Again, he did not think that it was expedient or desirable that so great a change should be carried into effect so soon after the passing of the Reform Bill. He also contended that the ballot would not be an effectual protection against bribery; above all, in small constituencies. As far as the machinery of the ballot was concerned, he did not think that there could be any very great difficulty, but the landlord would still have the power of controlling his tenants, and would easily defeat the object of the ballot —namely, affording a security for secret voting. The influence of property would continue to exist, and would continue to be exercised. Lord Brougham, in 1830, used some powerful arguments against the ballot, which had made a great impression on his; mind, and he would quote an extract from the speech of that eloquent person:— All facts showed very clearly how groundless was the expectation, that election by ballot would accomplish the purpose in view. But here he might be permitted to ask, with much deference to his hon. and learned Friend, and those who agreed with him on the subject, whether, though it must fail in this respect, it might not, at the same time, fully accomplish one of the blackest and foulest purposes of any that could debase and destroy the character of man? Whether it would not make a hypocrite of a man throughout the whole period of his existence? Whether it would not, as was forcibly described by an eminent writer, make him exist as a person whose 'Whole life was one continued lie?' Such a person must be perpetually on the watch against his warmest friends and closest connexions; always tremblingly afraid to betray a secret, the discovery of which would be equally fatal to his interests and character. This was nothing more nor less than to lead a life of deception and fraud to the last moment of human existence. The character of an individual thus circumstanced was true only in its hypocrisy. The man who could for months conceal the manner in which he had voted—who could hold his tongue on that subject which was the universal topic of conversation —who could keep his secret from his friend and his wife, who would never mention it even at the alehouse, would be false to his country and his friend, and could neither be true nor faithful in any of the relations of life; nor would men believe him true, unless human thought were subverted. The result would be, either that the ballot would be altogether ineffectual or it would be but little effectual; for it could never be very effectual, and that little efficacy would be purchased by the fearful sacrifices which he had endeavoured to depict. He admitted, however, that the evils of bribery and intimidation had increased since the time these observations were made, and he believed, that the disposition had increased to punish the poorer voters who gave an independent vote. He sincerely wished, that her Majesty's Government would bring forward some measure as a remedy, and to serve as a protection to this class of voters. He trusted, that some Member of the Government would that night be prepared to state, that it was intended to bring forward some measure for this purpose, to which many who were conscientiously opposed to the ballot could give their support. He trusted, that such a measure would receive the general support of all parties. At the same time, however, it was the bounden duty of the Legislature to support the character of truth and honesty for which the English nation had ever been distinguished, and which necessarily must he lessened by the adoption of the ballot. In conclusion, he should give his vote against the measure, which was long ago described by Lord Brougham as being ineffectual, and which never could be effectual for anything but that which must be stamped as insincerity.

Viscount Sandon

said, he was quite ready to co-operate with her Majesty's Government in carrying into effect any wise and well-adjusted measure for the purpose of repressing or diminishing that amount of intimidation and bribery which upon all sides had been admitted to exist, but which had now become more notorious than before, only because in the nicely balanced state of parties contests were more frequent, while the unsuccessful candidates as their only consolation raised the outcry that their defeat was owing to bribery and corruption. But the real question they had now to discuss was, not the existence of the evil, but the propriety of the remedy, or rather, whether the ballot was not likely to produce greater mischiefs than it was designed to cure. The hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Ward) seemed to think he had made a great point against his right hon. Friend, the Member for Tamworth, because, having avowed his willingness to apply a remedy to every proved abuse, he nevertheless hesitated to adopt this specific; as if it necessarily followed because a physician told him he was suffering from the effects of disease, he must, without looking to his character as a man of sense and probity, and the nature of the medicine he offered, unhesitatingly and at once submit to the nostrums he prescribed. Until the hon. Member for Sheffield was prepared to adopt that principle in private life, it was absurd to accuse the right hon. Baronet of inconsistency, because he refused to adopt as a remedy what he contended would afford no remedy for the evils which he admitted to exist. There seemed to be a radical error pervading the entire basis of the argument on the other side. The advocates of the ballot seemed to think, that the whole essence of a man's political life and conduct was concentred in his vote, so that if secrecy were once given to the latter, the former must be completely secured. Why, the man's vote was the smallest part of his political life. Were there no associations and clubs on the one side and on the other? And if the ballot were adopted, would it induce a voter to withdraw his name, or enable him to conceal his opinion as well as his vote? He did not believe it would; but if not, the mere temporary concealment of his vote would be of little avail. Had the ballot the effect of concealing a man's political opinions where it had been adopted? By no means. In France and America it was well known what particular party a man espoused, Whig or Tory, as in this country. Hon. Gentlemen opposite seemed to be extremely fond of resting on abstract principles, without at all troubling themselves about the practical bearings of the question. When allusion was made to the working of the ballot as in Greece and Rome, it was said the times were too remote, we knew nothing of them at all, although they had the testimony of every author of antiquity, that with the introduction of secret voting corruption and intimidation had increased. But, to come to modern times, was America in their favour? Had the ballot been successful there? They contented themselves with answering, that the ballot was so esteemed in America, that two or three states within the last thirty years had adopted it; but was that any proof that the ballot had practically produced secrecy or put an end to intimidation and corruption? He did not believe the ballot would ever produce secrecy. But even granting the vote were concealed, would there be an end to corruption and intimidation? would any one venture to assert that corruption and intimidation did not exist in America? Did hon. Members on the other side not recollect the famous message of President Jackson, some four or five years ago, in which he denounced the United States Bank, for having recourse to all the arts of corruption in order to influence the elections in that country? If secrecy of voting were adopted in this country, did it follow there would be no intimidation? Let them only look at the history of the late Roxburgh election, where before men had given their votes their clothes were torn off their backs, and themselves thrown into the Slittrig. Would such a state of things be remedied by the establishment of a ballot-box instead of a polling-booth? And so with regard to bribery. Was all the bribery after the vote? Was there not a great deal of bribery before the vote? In France, it was well known the government had recourse to promises of place and other means of influencing the elections; and notwithstanding the secret voting which prevailed, the effect of such means was in no degree diminished. They had been taunted on that side of the House with considering the franchise as a trust: was that the language held before the Reform Bill? They were told by the Reformers of those days, that they were depriving the people, not of a right, but of a trust, to which they attached no real value; yet now they were taunted because they looked upon the franchise as a trust. He maintained he had a right to know how his neighbour voted, and he hoped this country never would be so dead in reference to political matters that one man should be indifferent as to the side on which another voted. How very little did the arguments of hon. Gentlemen opposite on this occasion coincide with the course which they pursued at the late election? Did they not then call upon the non-electors at Wolver-hampton and Liverpool, for instance, to hasten to the hustings and watch over the due exercise of their franchise? Then they considered it a trust, though now it was more convenient for them to treat it as an irresponsible privilege. He hoped a better remedy, a moral remedy, would be found for intimidation and bribery. He thought, indeed, that he already perceived strong symptoms of it. It was for those who had influence to exercise it with delicacy and tenderness. He did not say that had been the case at the late election universally. They saw, for instance, the Comptroller of her Majesty's household sitting in the chair of the Westminster Election Committee, and using all the influence of his office in favour of one class of candidates. And indications of the same kind were not by any means confined to Westminster, but appeared in other parts of the country. He believed it to be quite practicable to extinguish corruption at elections and he would tell them what plan he would adopt. He thought they ought not to proceed, in attempting to punish corrupt boroughs, by disfranchising whole constituencies; it would be far more prudent to hold up corruption as a grave moral crime in individuals. So long as they included a whole community in the punishment due to the misconduct of some of its individual members, they would interest a party in the House in its defence; but let them disfranchise individual offenders, let the crime be regarded as stigmatising only those who had really been guilty of it, and they would erect a moral standard which he believed to be still wanting in many districts of the country. He had never shrunk from the expression of any opinion, however unpopular it might be, but it was his conviction that the view he took of this question was that of the majority of the constituency. He entertained a hope that means might be devised for preventing corruption, retaining at the same time the truly English custom of open, unconcealed, and fearless expression of opinion.

Mr. E. Lytton Bulwer

He was not one of those who thought that the Reform Bill was not a great and most beneficial change. If it did nothing else it gave peace to the country—if it did nothing else it quelled discontent and perhaps prevented revolution. But it did more than this. All the power that it took from certain families, whose interest was distinct from that of the community, it gave to the middle classes, to the shopkeepers, the traders, to men who had the most vital interest in the economy, the commerce, the good order, and the general tranquillity of the country. He was not, therefore, ungrateful for the Reform Act; he did not desire to have a new Reform Bill: he was not anxious to agitate and unsettle the country with all the details of some new measure—to create a new constituency and effect a new distribution of political power. He was inclined theoretically to a more extended suffrage than at present prevailed. He thought in general that the wider the suffrage the broader the foundations of our institutions; but he had many objections to the popular scheme of household suffrage, on which he would not then enter. He was willing to take his stand upon the present Reform Act, freed from all the limitations and restrictions which at present disfranchised many of those who were intended by that Reform Bill to vote in elections. The Ballot was not, therefore, an encroachment of the popular power; it was merely intended to protect the power the people had already acquired. The object of the Reform Act was to give free and independent votes to the middle and a large portion of the industrious classes; the object of the Ballot was to insure that freedom, and protect that independence. He wished to impress on the noble Lord, the Member for Stroud, this point—the exercise of a rote was not merely a poli- tical right; that expression of his opinions was a moral and religious right to the elector; it belonged just as much to liberty of conscience as any right formerly contended for by the Dissenter. He wanted to know why, if the noble Lord and this House formerly thought it unjust for the churchmen to prescribe a mere form of words to the Dissenter, which the Dissenter's conscience objected to, he wanted to know why it should not be unjust for a customer to prescribe to his tradesman the exact substance of opinions which the tradesman's conscience would not subscribe to. If (continued the hon. Gentleman) you thought it right to free conscience from control in the one case, with what face can you contend, that it is not right to free the conscience from dictation in the other? Take one of your new constituency—a householder, a tradesman—suppose that he has endeavoured to the utmost to carry the principle of your own Reform Act into effect, to fit himself for the exercise of the right you confer upon him—suppose he takes the liveliest interest in politics, watches our proceedings, forms an ardent interest in all that concerns his country, and comes with all care and deliberation to a judgment as to the policy he will support —is it the object of your Reform Act—is it consistent with common liberty, that another man should step up to him and say, "Your public feeling is to vote one way—your conscience urges you to it; but if you do not vote the other way, I will take the money out of your pocket, or the bread out of your mouth?" Is this an uncommon thing—does not the whole hideous evidence of your own bribery and intimidation committee—does not every newspaper—does not every man who has stood an election, inform us that there is not a single town in which all the batteries of intimidation and exclusive dealing are not brought to bear against conscientious opinion and constitutional right? Observe, too, that it is exactly in proportion as the man, if he vote against his interest, is honest, zealous, disinterested, public spirited, that he is singled out as the victim of punishment. The lukewarm, selfish, corrupted elector goes free, and the generous, high-minded elector, is punished for the very virtue he exhibits. And how are we received when we complain of this? Oh, say hon. Gentlemen, you must not deprive virtue of its incitements; it is a very fine thing this political martyrdom; would you take away all the heroism of suffering? The hon. Member for Wiltshire has talked of public virtue: was it ever heard before that it was the business of a state to establish punishment and persecution for public virtue—to array private interests against political honesty, and to call upon men to be citizens to-day, in order that they may be martyrs to-morrow? The whole trading part of the constituency, call out with one voice for the protection of the ballot. And what are the arguments by which they are met? The Member for Wiltshire said, first, that the ballot will not attain its object—will not insure secrecy; and yet before he sat down, he contended that it would so effect its object —would be so fearfully close in its concealment that it would make a man's whole life one lie. But these arguments destroy each other. But let us look at them separately. The argument of the noble Lord, that opinions would not be secret is a fallacy. The ballot will not prevent a man's opinions being known—but what then? You do not punish a man for his opinions, you punish him for his vote. No tyrant nowadays establishes an inquisition over another man's sentiments, he only wants to control his actions. He cannot say, "Sir, I don't know how you vote, but I am told you think differently from myself, and therefore, as a man, who thinks differently from me has no right to sell heterodox hats or stockings, I shall take away my custom, or drive you out of the town." If a man were to say or imply this, his own party would not support him, and the public opinion you invoke would indeed rise against him. The ballot is precisely this, that the elector's life will not be a lie, that his sentiments will be known, and being known, no tyrant can seek to intimidate or injure him, because the more he attempts to control the open sentiments, the' more he will insure the hostility of the secret vote. The noble Lord, the Member for Liverpool, said the ballot was a cowardly system—a fraudulent system—a system favourable to falsehood. What, is there nothing cowardly in open voting? Is there so much valour in a system that allows a man to be frightened out of his opinions in the exercise of a solemn duty? Is it not a wholesale fraud of the grossest description, when the state gives you a right, and then allows your neighbour to snatch it out of your hand? Is it not a falsehood of the darkest dye when your actions belie your opinions, and you proclaim to your fellow-citizens that your heart is one way and your vote another? This it is that makes a man's life a lie—this it is makes an election a melancholy sacrifice of public principle and individual conscience. You say that the canvass will be the same; that the landlord will extort a promise, and if the tenant should break that promise he will be a liar. I do not think that the canvass of intimidation will go on, it will be a canvass of another sort. But suppose it does, and suppose the elector does promise and then breaks the promise, I do not commend, I do not excuse his falsehood; but I say it is infinitely less mischievous to lie to an individual than to lie to his country—infinitely less mischievous to vote as his conscience tells him, even at the expense of truth, than to vote equally against the truth by voting against his conscience, and against what he believes to be the public interests. In either case it is a falsehood. But, in the one case, it is a falsehood that effects an individual, in the other case it is a sin against the whole political community. You tell us that the ballot does not work well elsewhere. You tell us that history and experience teach us that it has failed. I find it exactly the reverse. The noble Lord, the Member for Liverpool, has challenged me to refer to ancient states. I do not regard the ancient democracies as models—they were full of fatal errors—they were not democracies properly speaking, for their working classes were slaves, and most of their evils arose from their mistaking liberty, to be the licence of a handful of citizens, and the oppression of the servile population. But, at least, for the liberty they did possess, the ballot was considered so essential that without it the wisest of all the ancient political writers, and one to this day an authority with all reasoners, I mean Aristotle, declared that liberty of election could not even exist. What was the first act of the thirty tyrants in Athens? to overthrow the ballot and institute the open vote. In Rome it was not effective against bribery—I grant it. But why? from the enormous fortunes and gigantic ambition of the patricians, against which all barriers were in vain. They came to their elections laden with the spoils of exhausted nations, and they devoted the plunder of other countries to the corruption of their own. Their wealth was great, their incentives to ambition dazzling beyond all modern analogy. But at least the ballot even in Rome, was effective, if not against bribery, against intimidation. For that very reason both Cicero and Gibbon have condemned it, and many gentlemen will remember that sublime expression of Cicero's, in which he calls it the silent asserter of liberty. Come to modern times. You have America before you. The noble Lord says it does not work well in that country. Listen to this testimony in the able and dispassionate work of Mr. Stuart. But before I read the passage, I beg hon. Gentlemen to recollect that in America the ballot and the open voting have each had a fair trial. Some states have the one, some states the other, and what has been the result? Why, that no state has given up the ballot, and that state after state has given up the open voting. Mr. Stuart says, "The ballot is becoming more and more universal; the States of Connecticut, Kentucky, and Louisiana having lately adopted it instead of the vote viva voce." Now then see why the ballot was preferred—see the different workings of the two modes of election. Mr. Stuart was present at an election by ballot at Ballston Spa. He says, "The excitement occasioned by the election generally was declared by the newspapers to be far greater than ever had been witnessed since the declaration of independence in 1776; yet I am bound to bear this testimony in its favour, that so quiet a day of election both within and without doors I never witnessed. in England or Scotland." "In a state far exceeding Scotland in extent, and almost equalling it in population, the votes for the chief magistrate of the United States and his substitute, for the Governor and Lieutenant-governor of the state, for a senator and representatives to Congress, for three representatives to New York, &c, were taken, and the business of the election finished with ease and the most perfect order and decorum in three days; all voted by ballot, which is here considered the only way to obtain independent and unbiassed votes." This is where the ballot is adopted. Now observe the difference in those states where ballot is not adopted. At Louisville, in Kentucky, Mr. Flint saw the votes taken without ballot—the poll was kept open three days. "I saw three fights in the course of an hour. This method appears to be productive of as much discord here as in England." So much for ballot in America. Now then it is not only that bribery will in a great measure and in all large constituencies be utterly prevented—it is not only that intimidation will be rendered worse than useless, but it is- because you will also gain in order, quiet, and in good moral results generally, that I advocate the ballot. When men come to understand that an election is not a mere holiday excitement, but a great and important national ceremony, they will look more into the real nature of the duties confided to them, and public morality will be no less promoted than private conscience will be protected. But it is said that it will weaken the influence of property. Now there are two kinds of influence—legitimate influence and unlawful and improper influence. The improper and unlawful influence the ballot will undoubtedly destroy: wherever one man trembles at the frown of another —. wherever money is used to corrupt poverty—wherever property is intended to over-rule the conscience—there, indeed, will the ballot step in, and there will the poor man and the rich man be on equal terms. But, where-ever a great proprietor is more beloved than feared—wherever his virtues are made more apparent by the pedestal on which they stand—there the ballot-box will not steal from him a single vote, or take an atom from the legitimate influence of his station. On the contrary, it will always be found that the more the constitution forces the aristocracy to cultivate the favour of the people, the greater will be the moral influence of the aristocracy, and the more you will find them rising to the head of affairs. Look at England and Germany at this day. In Germany, where the constitution keeps the nobility apart from the people, the nobility have not the energy, the ambition, the excitement to produce great men, and the most eminent names spring from the people; but in England, where the constitution has always, more or less, forced the gentlemen to cultivate the public opinion of the masses, you find the gentlemen producing ornaments in literature, in the state, in the army, giving to the nation some of its greatest heirlooms of renown, and exhibiting that intellectual eminence and exercising that moral influence which must always result from uniting the aristocratic advantages of leisure and property with the popular elements of activity and ambition. This species of influence the ballot can only tend to increase; and as men of property are forced to be popular, property itself becomes powerful. In a recent debate on Canada, certain expressions of mine have been severely misinterpreted—certain terms of censure I ventured to express towards not more than five or six gentlemen, whose speeches elsewhere seemed to me to prejudice the liberal cause, have been perverted into a belief of my disaffection to the very cause I wished to vindicate. I have been accused of supporting the Government from a desire of office. Sir, I owe it to my attachment to that literature at which the hon. Member for London directed a not very considerate sarcasm the other night, if I can say, with men of far higher station and wealth, that I am independent of all official temptation. I confess that it is my weakness to prefer the emoluments and the distinctions that are open to me in another career to all the more dazzling honours that a Minister could bestow. I shall not, then, be accused of speaking for myself when I ask her Majesty's Government to consider well the numbers, the energy, the talent in their own party by which this question is supported. Can they turn round to the vast majority of their friends and say, we accept your support, but we proscribe your opinions—you shall never hope a participation in power unless you leave your sentiments behind you. I see among her Majesty's Cabinet Gentlemen known to be favourable to the ballot —are they to set an example to the people that it may be quite right to think one way and to vote another? Must it not tell fatally against yourselves? You ask for the popular support, because you fight for the popular party and against an aristocratic majority. But in every town the liberal party has also its own aristocracy far more bigoted and intolerant to contend against. What are your obstacles on a great scale, are their obstacles in every town, every province throughout the country. But just observe the difference; you can only lose office and its emoluments, the poor elector may lose the very means of existence, and sacrifice the bread of his children to forward your cause and fight a battle which has no office, no glory, no successful ambition to confer upon him. Is it just, is it prudent to call on him for those perpetual sacrifices? Can they be always made? Is not human nature too weak for such violent efforts and such fearful temptations? I do not threaten you with the sordid loss of power, but I do threaten you with what all public men must desire to prevent—serious detriment to your own principles, deep discouragement to public exertion, till at last your indifference to the safety of the elector will end in the corruption of the Parliament. You have given emancipation to the Catholic; give emancipation to the elector; you have asserted liberty of conscience in religious opinions, protect liberty of conscience in civil rights. Tell us, and tell the people of England, that you will defend them in the exercise of that power you have given them, and that when you say you will abide by the Reform Bill, you did not mean that that second charter of our liberties was to be put up to the highest bidder, or wrenched away from public opinion by the strong gripe of individual tyranny.

Lord John Russell

said: I think that my hon. Friend, the Member for Lincoln, in addressing the appeal which he has made in such courtly terms to her Majesty's Government on this occasion, has somewhat followed the course which has been pursued by others, namely, that of assuming that the measure now proposed for the consideration of the House is a fair and proper remedy for the evils which it is intended to cure. The hon. Member for London admitted that there were two propositions which it was incumbent on him, to prove; the one was, that considerable intimidation and corruption existed at elections; and the other was, that the ballot and secret voting was a remedy for such evils. With respect to the former part of his propositions, I am not disposed much to dispute what he said, though I think that even there he resorted to very great exaggeration. I should have collected from the hon. Gentleman's speech, that the whole mass of the people of England—that by far the great majority—that all but a very inconsiderable number were brought up to the polling booths to vote against their consciences. Now, I must say, that in my opinion, if that were really the case, living as the voters do, in the midst of the nation —if those individuals who were intrusted with the elective franchise, and who constitute a large proportion of those who hold property in the country—if they were in this degraded state, ready in masses to be brought up against their will, to vote for whomsoever it might please their landlords or their masters that they should vote—if that were their state of degradation, I should say that the spirit of liberty was extinct in the nation, and no mechanical device could possibly restore that free soul which was then altogether gone, and must be considered as for ever departed. But while I admit that there has been considerable intimidation and great bribery at the last election, I must say I do consider that the intimidation especially affected only a portion of the voters; and that was, in my opinion, only a small proportion of the whole number. Still, however, I am not disposed to dispute that the existence of intimidation is an evil of considerable magnitude. But I am asked to-night not to admit the existence of an evil, not to consider what can possibly be the remedy of it, but to assume that the proper remedy is this secret voting, and to consent to its adoption. I am obliged, I confess, to use on this occasion, arguments that I have used on former occasions, both here and elsewhere, and that others have used before me to-night, against this proposition. When a remedy is proposed for the evil, I do feel a repugnance to it on being told—on its being admitted by almost all the proposers of it—that its first effect and its permanent operation, must be the introduction and encouragement of deceit, hypocrisy, and falsehood among the voters. One hon. Gentleman says, that conduct of this description is justifiable in such cases—that where the landlord or the master is an oppressor, the tenant has a right to deceive him; and the hon. Gentleman quoted several passages from Paley and Johnson in support of his view. I will not enter into that dispute, but I do wish to record my repugnance to the fact which seems to be admitted, that deceit and falsehood must be the result of the very first step it is proposed that the House should adopt to remedy the evil complained of; and this proposition, be it remembered, is part of a new proposal to reform the representation of the people. My hon. Friend who spoke last, endeavoured to get rid of this objection by saying, "Yes, but there is at present falsehood: the man tells a lie to his country now; if the ballot be adopted he will tell a lie only to a private individual." Why, I must say, that even if that were the case, it would merely prove that you would exchange one evil for another; but whether, under such circumstances, the evil be more or less, I do not think it is of the same nature, and that which my hon. Friend has said in this respect is rather a metaphor than an argument on the subject. What I mean is this:—when a voter conceals his opinion, his doing so is very degrading, and no doubt very injurious to the country. He says, "I am sorry that I cannot vote according to my will; I am sorry that the authority of others and my own interest compel me to vote against the candidate whom I think best fitted to be my representative in Parliament." He who so conducts himself does certainly commit a political offence, but he commits it, not disguising that he is doing an act against his will. What, however, is now proposed to us is, that when a man is called on by the agent of his landlord he should promise his vote to a certain candidate; that he should repeat that promise in his association with his neighbours at the public dinner; or in the processions that take place in the course of elections; that he should bear in his demeanour an. appearance of being a friend and supporter of that candidate; and when he comes to give his secret vote that he should belie his promise, and falsify the whole of his previous conduct. I do say that the political degradation which results in the one case, is a totally different thing from the moral degradation which would follow from the adoption of this proposition. Well, but then we are to suppose that by the introduction of this great evil, of this moral plague to the country, we are to obtain a great political good—we are to insure freedom in our elections hereafter. I will not repeat the objections in principle which I have at various times urged against the proposition of secret voting, and which have been much argued against to-night—that the voter is a trustee, and ought to be responsible to the public for the manner in which he executes his trust. When I consider, however, that our public functionaries, whether judges, or ministers, or Members of Parliament, all act in the face of day—and I believe we are all made better in the exercise of our duties by the publicity of our proceedings—I do say that I see no reason for excepting from that responsibility to popular opinion, the great body of those in whom the elective franchise is vested—I see no reason why they alone should be removed from the eyes of the public; why they alone should be allowed to exercise the trust reposed in them protected from publicity; why they should be permitted to discharge their public duty, the public having no knowledge of the manner in which it was performed. The hon. Member for Sheffield tells me he has another doctrine—that he holds the elective franchise to be no trust, but that when it is once conferred on the elector by law, it is the absolute right of the voter —bis absolute property, and if he comply only with the conditions of the law he may exercise it as he pleases. I am glad he did not propound that doctrine at the time we were discussing the Reform Bill; the great principle of which is, that the elective franchise is a power held in trust only for the benefit of the people. There is another answer that has been given, which I have not heard to-night, but which I have seen in print, and which I think is the most plausible answer that can be given to this objection of the responsibility of the voter. It is said, if you insist that the elector shall act under responsibility, and that his conduct shall be exposed to the eye of those who have not the right of election themselves, you admit, that those who have not the right of election are fitting judges of the manner in which the trust ought to be exercised; and if they are fit so to judge they are fit to exercise the right of election themselves. Now, plausible as this sounds, I do not think it a conclusive argument against my objection, because, in all the other cases where you admit the public, many of them being of the same class, you by no means imply that the persons you see and criticise, are persons who are capable of exercising the power. The argument is, that if persons are fit to judge of those who exercise the franchise, they are fit to exercise it themselves; and I say, it might as well be asserted that no persons are fit to sit in a court of justice, or criticise the charges and conduct of the judge except those who are fit to sit on the bench. It does appear to me, that so far as the answer to my objection is concerned, it might as well be made against any other kind of publicity as against the publicity that belongs to the elective franchise. I will now refer to the argument as to the efficacy of this plan, because undoubtedly, unless it is to be efficacious, the incurring the risk of much falsehood, of great hypocrisy, and of acting against the general principle of public responsibility, which has been established throughout the country, in all other matters of state ought to decide against it. That it would be efficacious I much doubt. With respect to the tenantry acting under the landlord, I believe with my hon. Friend, the Member for Derbyshire, that if you suppose—and you must do so, or the measure is worthless—that this is to be a security taken against the bad and tyranni- cal landlord, I say that that bad and tyrannical landlord would soon have the means of exercising a control, even though he had not the power of knowing which way the vote was given. I have said that if this plan were successful it would lead to breaches of promise—it would lead to falsehood. My belief is, that no people in the world are so remarkable for their love of truth as are the people of this country; and that so strongly is that principle implanted in them, that if a landlord's tenants promised him faithfully that they would not vote for a certain candidate, though the ballot gave them the power of secrecy, they would keep their promise. But if they made no promise—if they said, resolutely, "We will not promise; we will give no promise to your candidate or to your friend," why, then, would it not be the presumption of the landlord that they were men who meant to vote against him, that their politics were opposed to his; and if he were an individual to exercise a tyrannical influence, would he not exercise it under such circumstances? Would this be a remedy, be it always remembered, is the great question. Where people's sentiments are known as they are in the country by the conversation which takes place so much in public-houses and in market-places with respect to politics—where the general character and political sentiments of every man are so generally known, can it be supposed that the stewards of the landlords, who we must conclude to be acquainted with their master's wishes, would not take care, before a few years were over, that the tenants were all of them of the same political sentiments as their own? Where, then, would be the remedy? I contend that this measure, instead of being a benefit to the voter, would only be an injury to all the tenants in the country and to the prosperity of the whole people. With respect to tradesmen living in towns, I do believe there is some difference in the case. I own I am disposed to think there would be cases in which the customer has little connection with the tradesman—in which he knows scarcely any thing of the tradesman; under the present system, hearing of the manner in which he has voted, he deprives him of his custom; I think there might be cases in which the customer would not, under the ballot, ask him questions, and would not try by severe means, to find out the manner in which he had voted. Thus I do think that there might be some instances in which you would find this plan effect a certain degree of good, but I also think that the good Would be miserably overweighed by the quantity of evil. I must again refer to what I stated on a former occasion, that I am decidedly of opinion that the question of ballot, as it now comes before us, does not stand alone. I will not go any further into the question of the ballot as an abstract proposition, feeling as I do how often it has been discussed, and feeling likewise that on another occasion I have delivered my opinions very fully upon it; but I wish to address myself to those who think that by means of the ballot they could establish a state of things in which, according to the words of the hon. Member for London, "every vestige of intimidation would disappear," in short, that you have but to adopt secret voting and you place your representation on a sound footing, and your reform will be complete. I said on a former occasion that I thought vote by ballot would lead to other things. It has struck me, besides, and I have since seen it stated, that if you declare that the voter shall hot be responsible to public opinion, and carry your object really into effect, all those who are shut out from the exercise of the elective franchise and who now know how every person has given his vote, will be far more discontented under the new state of things than they are at present. You now say, "It is true, indeed, we do not think you qualified by the conditions of property which we have thought it necessary to lay down to extend the elective franchise to you, but you are among the free inhabitants of this country, you see the whole operation of the Government, from the commencement of the election of Members of Parliament to the Parliamentary debates—you are participators in all, and your opinion goes to swell that grand tide of public opinion on which the affairs of state are borne along;" should you, however, have to say, "We think there is one privilege, and a most important one, from which you shall be entirely excluded, as regards the election of Members of Parliament, you shall never hear which way any voter gives his vote, you shall never know the reason for which one man is elected in preference to another," I do think that under such a state of things there is every probability that dissatisfaction must arise. The observations I made to this effect have been confirmed by my experience of the last few months. I would ask any Gentleman who has watched the course of events—who has observed the meetings which have taken place in favour of the ballot—whether they have not found that this jealousy really does exist—that there is now a large portion of the people who fear that the ballot may be established for the protection of the present electors, that reform will stop then, and that those who are non-electors will be more excluded from the opportunity of observing the course of public affairs than they are at the present moment? In confirmation of my statement I will take the liberty of referring to some extracts I have made, which will show what opinions have been expressed by persons of eminence who have taken a part at the public meetings in favour of the ballot; because, after all, if the ballot were to be carried, it would be by those men who are now standing forward as its chief advocates, and it is by them that, we must expect the course of affairs in future with respect to the representation to be in a great degree conducted. At a meeting held in Westminster, soon after the commencement of the Session, there was a letter read from Lord Brougham. The noble and learned Lord declares: "But more frequent appeals to the country may be of little avail while a mighty body of our fellow-citizens are excluded from all share in the management of their own affairs, and left without the power of enforcing opinions which they have at the least as much capacity to form, and at the very least as much independence of spirit to assert, as those who at present possess the elective franchise. This exclusion I certainly regard as the worst of grievances now complained of." He says further—Upon the yet more enormous injustice, the incomparably more perilous mischief of excluding so many thousands from those political rights which they are so unquestionably entitled to enjoy, and so well fitted to exercise, I have again and again declared my fixed opinion both in Parliament and to the country." Lord Brougham declares himself a reluctant convert to the ballot; he is an ardent advocate for the extension of the suffrage. The hon. Member for Southwark, who has spoken on this subject on many occasions at public meetings, has always stated that he considered the ballot if given alone would be of little value; he would have with it an extensive franchise. I believe he said on the last occasion on which he addressed his constituents on the question—if I am not representing him correctly be will correct me—that every person resident in the place of voting should be allowed to register his vote. At all events he expressed a desire to carry out a great extension of the suffrage. My hon. Friend, the Member for Bridport, said this:—"His maxim had always been to take what he could get, in order that he might obtain power to get more. Lord John Russell had stated that the ballot, universal suffrage, and triennial Parliaments were so closely connected together, that if one of them were granted it would be the means of obtaining the other two, and, therefore, he refused all of them. Whenever the question of the shortening the duration of Parliament, universal suffrage, or the vote by ballot came before the House, he (Mr. Warburton) would always support the one, that he might obtain the other; but if he were asked which he would choose first he should say the ballot. He would do so because he thought, when he had gained that, the inevitable consequence would be to get all the others." But when my hon. Friend told the meeting that he was ready as soon as he had got the ballot to obtain all the others, the meeting cried out, "All at once," being persuaded—and not improperly—that if this great change took place it might be as well that in one Bill all those other changes which they desired should be effected. Many other meetings took place in London and in the country, to which I need not refer, except to say I think that in most of them, besides a resolution in favour of the ballot, there was generally a resolution carried in favour of shortening the duration of Parliaments, and another for the extension of the suffrage to household suffrage, or at least for such an extension of the suffrage as involved a very considerable change. At a large meeting which took place at Sheffield there was a division, and that division negatived universal suffrage and triennial Parliaments, and adopted vote by ballot. One would presume, from the course pursued on that occasion, that vote by ballot was to be adopted alone, and that with that change the changes in our representation were to cease; but if you consult the speeches of those who advised the meeting to take that course—the speeches of those who influenced the meeting to come to that decision —a different result will appear. A gentleman who spoke frequently at the public meetings held in that neighbourhood, and who has considerable influence there (Mr. Palfreyman), said, "To us, and to all the requisitionists, the ballot is only important inasmuch as it is connected with the great cause of the people, the cause of reform, the ultimate extension of the suffrage, and the shortening of the duration of Parliaments. The only question about which we differ is at which end to begin. I think the proposers of the amendment are attempting to put in the thick end of the wedge first. [No, no!] I say yes, yes; but I think that when we have got the ballot—when we have got the matter once between the rollers—we shall necessarily draw all connected with it through. With the supporters of the amendment I agree that the ballot might be injurious unless the other two questions should be carried after it." I think the hon. Member for London said that his proposition did not trench on any other question, and the hon. Gentleman who seconded the motion also kept quite clear of those other questions—the extension of the suffrage and the shortening the duration of Parliaments; but he did not so at Sheffield. In an able speech he made there, he denied that this was a question unconnected with any other. He said, "To me the question is indifferent. I am prepared to support them all [hear, hear! from the supporters of the admendment]. I beg that I may not be misunderstood. [It was here intimidated that the amendment was for universal suffrage.] I am for a large extension of the suffrage, but I am not prepared for the abstract proposition of universal suffrage. But the question is, whether it will advance the object we all have in view to combine these questions, or whether it will be better to select the one upon which the greatest amount of opinion can be brought to bear." Now, undoubtedly, it is a fair mode of proceeding, to bring forward the ballot, as that question on which the greatest amount of public opinion can be brought to bear, and on which the greatest division can be obtained in this House; but while I am asked to change my former votes and vote for it, I see on the one hand that greater intimidation is practised—but I do not see on the other that the ballot will remedy it. I find those who are proposing the ballot now say, what I do not remember them to have said on former occasions. They say at the public meetings on the ballot, that once carried, they will endeavour to get the duration of Parliaments shortened, and then an extension of the suffrage—and the extension of the suffrage, mind, is a most indefinite term. A gentleman who has done me the honour to address a letter to me (a Mr. Symonds), in which he has discussed the principles of household suffrage, says what is not quite inapplicable to the subject. "Some mean by an extension of the suffrage universal suffrage, and if the ballot is granted, this indefinite change is to be brought in as a necessary sequel." Is not that with me a sufficient reason to pause? Ought I not to consider, whether I shall not be called on to adopt the other changes demanded. The hon. Member for London did not allude to the other countries in which ballot has been adopted. He alluded to the Report of the Intimidation Committee, and to the evidence as to intimidation; but he passed over the evidence on the subject of secret voting. My hon. Friend behind me has referred to the operation of the ballot in Greece and Rome and in modern states. I agree in what he says respecting Rome; the people were so degraded by corruption that it was impossible the ballot or any other measure could reform the state. But what has been the operation of the ballot in America? Without perfect secresy, said the hon. Member for London, the measure must be quite inoperative. Now, has perfect secresy been obtained in America? Three witnesses examined by the Committee spoke to this point; one said, "I think the ballot is used by us as a matter of convenience, few or no persons caring to conceal their votes." Another said, "I should think in New York that the sentiments of upwards of ninety voters, I was going to say ninety-nine out of every 100, are perfectly well known before they go up to poll." Such is the state of property in America, that I believe it is not worth the while of any man to endeavour to influence the voter: but it is not so here where there are large masses of property and many poor persons, a different feeling must be expected to exist. Then in France the use of the ballot is to prevent influence being exerted by the Government. Does it do so? There was lately a discussion in the Chamber of Deputies, in the course of which the Minister was charged by the leader of the oppo-position with having used the influence of the Government to a great extent in the elections. One would have supposed his answer would have been, ''We have secret voting, it is impossible to know any man's vote;" but so far from that having been his reply, he admitted the fact, and asserted, that the exercise of influence was necessary to the existence of any Government. I can see then nothing, either in the question itself, in the present state of the country, in the anticipations with which we are furnished with respect to other measures, or in the experience afforded by other countries, to induce me to adopt this proposition. I am sure, it may be said, that if we acknowledge the evil to a great extent, we are bound to find a remedy. I do not think it might be impossible to propose a remedy that might have some considerable effect, but I believe, that so long as hon. Gentlemen feel themselves bound to carry the ballot out, a remedy would be despised by them, and it would be useless to propose it unless they were willing to admit it to fair trial. But allow me to say, before I conclude, that I do feel that a very great evil exists in the intimidation and corruption which have been practised at election after election, and more particularly in the two last general elections. I do not charge any party with this conduct, but I do say, that all those who have the power to intimidate, on those who are the landlords and great proprietors in this country, that this sort of intimidation will be visited, unless some change shall take place. I cannot, Sir, vote for the ballot. I cannot vote for it because I think it would be a very serious evil instead of being an efficacious remedy. I cannot vote for the ballot because I do believe, that with the ballot Parliament would be driven into other changes in the representative system, and because I believe that the prosperity of the whole of this country, in which the lowest man not less than the highest is concerned, must be dependent upon the permanency, the stability, and the tranquillity of our institutions; but when I say this I cannot but perceive, though I may not take part in the measures, and though I refuse all concur rence in them, yet if the people of England, year after year, feel more and more intimidation and undue influence used, that they will also feel, that there are left to them not the rights which are given to them, not less by the ancient constitution of this country than by the new franchise conferred by the Reform Act. I think, that the feeling now existing on the subject of the ballot will, under such circumstances, be strengthened. I believe that the people of England, who have seen great changes accomplished, are most unwilling and are most reluctant that new changes of great importance should be effected. I believe, particularly, that a change of voting secretly instead of openly would be a change most abhorrent to their feelings and their desire to act with openness, fairness, and manliness. Yet I do believe, with all this, that unless those who have great property in this country will endeavour in future to abstain from intimidation—and I do think they would not lose their influence by it, I believe they would scarcely lose a single supporter—but unless they will endeavour to sustain their power by means of conciliation and allowing five in one hundred or five in a thousand of their tenants, tradesmen, and customers to take their own way, unless they do this, I think that this question will gain strength, and if it does gain strength I cannot but perceive, that very great evils are impending over the country.

Mr. E. R. Rice

spoke amid loud cries of "question!" He was understood to say, that it was his intention to trespass but a few moments upon their attention. He wished to say that he supported this motion independent of any other question, and he thought it was quite distinct from any other. He thought it so distinct that if he were called upon to support the ballot, as the hon. Member for Finsbury had called upon the House to do, in connection with the extension of the franchise, then he most certainly would vote for the ballot, and against the extension of the suffrage, especially as the latter would, in his opinion, be virtually repealing the Reform Act.

Mr. Hall

rose, but shouts and cries rendered the hon. Member quite inaudible.

The Speaker

begged to tell hon. Members that it was neither creditable to themselves nor to the House that they should incur the imputation of a desire to interrupt fair discussion in that House.

Mr. Hall

was not at all surprised at the impatience felt by the House, neither was he astonished at the unwillingness with which some hon. Members listened to the arguments which were adduced in support of the present motion. The question itself had been so often discussed, that the arguments, both for and against it, must be to a great extent exhausted; and as he had on former occasions been permitted to state his own opinions, which remained not merely unchanged, but considerably strengthened, he came down to the House with the full intention of giving a silent vote upon the present occasion, and not obtruding himself again upon their attention. But having listened attentively to the speech of the noble Lord below him, he could not, in justice to himself as an independent Member of the House, adhere to his original intention. He rose, then, not for the purpose of entering upon the discussion whether the ballot was or was not a desirable remedy for the evils which existed; but to express his deep regret at the speech which had been delivered by the noble Lord. When he looked back at the debates which had taken place in that House, and remembered the loud advocacy in behalf of this very measure which was taken by some right hon. Gentlemen who now sat upon the Treasury Bench, and compared with that expression of their former opinions the conduct which they were now about to pursue, he naturally experienced those sentiments of dissatisfaction which such extraordinary conduct tended to produce. The noble Lord had admitted that intimidation and coercion had existed to a great extent at the late elections; he had stated that it had been carried to a wider limit at the two last elections than at any previous ones. Did the noble Lord remember the speech made by his noble Colleague, the Member for Northumberland, when this subject was before the House last year? Did he recollect the concluding sentence of that noble Lord's speech? He had already stated that he had not come down to the House with any intention of addressing it; he was not, therefore, prepared with written extracts from that speech, but he remembered full well the ability with which his noble Friend spoke; and in allusion to the intimidation which had been practised, he said that although he was not prepared to support the Ballot at that time, yet, if the intimidation, were continued—if it was persevered in—"We must, and we should have the Ballot." Such were the words of his noble Friend. They were considered at the time as a guarantee for a favourable consideration of this subject, and he now called upon the Government to desist from their present course, and to realise the hope which they had held out, that if the Ballot was not to be supported by the Government as a body, they would at least allow those connected with them, who were favourable to the proposition of his hon. Friend, the Member for London, to record their opinions in favour of that measure.—But, even if the Administration was not prepared to go that length, and yet admitted that great malpractices existed at elections—that the voter was coerced, and instead of his franchise being his own, that it was made the property of others—why did they not tome forward with some good and efficient remedy? He was not so wedded to his support of the ballot, that he would not abandon it if a better remedy could be found, and he was sure his hon. Friend, the Member for London, would be equally ready to give up this motion, if such a substitute could be proposed; but he believed it would be extremely difficult to produce such an invention, and the real objection to the ballot was, that it would be thoroughly efficacious. The noble Lord had, strange to say, quoted Lord Brougham as an authority upon this subject. Lord Brougham had once stated that he feared the ballot would lead to bribery and falsehood; but had not Lord Brougham changed his opinions? Was he not now a supporter of the ballot? But were not elections in some boroughs now a scene of bribery and falsehood? Could any thing be worse than the system which now existed? But he would keep his promise, and not argue the subject; he was ready to answer the objections taken by the noble Lord, but he would not do so. He would ask, was it fair towards the Reformers, was it fair towards the country, that the present Government, who professed opinions of a liberal character, who in former years were the advocates of a liberal policy, of reform in our institutions, of the political liberty of their countrymen, should now stand forward as the opponents of a free exercise of the franchise, and, instead of supporting their friends, throw themselves into the arms of the Tories. He lamented this course, it was one now of frequent adoption, but although in the present case they might be successful, it would ultimately be of no avail. The ballot was the question of all others most taken up by the public; it was the ground upon which they rested their hopes for the free exercise of their franchise. Each succeeding election rendered it more necessary, and despite of the present unnatural coalition between the Government and the Tories, he believed that such a number would go forth in support of the motion this evening as would convey an assurance to Ministers that we soon must and shall have the ballot.

Lord Worsley

addressed the House, but, in consequence of the noise, he could not be heard. He was understood to say, that he intended to vote in favour of the ballot, although he admitted that secret voting would not put an end to bribery.

Captain Pechell

said, that it had been his intention to have expressed his opinions fully upon this subject; but perceiving the tone and temper of hon. Gentlemen, he knew well how vain would be the attempt to address an unwilling House. He had hoped that the admonition delivered by the Speaker might have a proper effect upon hon. Gentlemen opposite, but that hope was vain. It was his duty to stand up there in his place, and support a petition from the town that he represented, particularly when the object of those who petitioned was to obtain protection for the voter. He knew well at what cost electors maintained their opinions, and therefore it was, that he felt it to be his duty to support them on the present occasion.

Mr. Elliot

came there determined to vote for the ballot, as he thought that the voters throughout the country required protection. His object was to protect the voter. If he understood correctly the noble Lord (Lord John Russell), his intention was to protect the voter, and that he meant to propose a measure which would produce that effect. If the noble Lord gave now an intimation that it was his intention to propose any such measure, he had such perfect confidence in the noble Lord that upon that promise he should rely, and not vote that night for the ballot; but if no such intimation were given, then, as a matter of justice to the country, he was bound to give his vote in favour of the motion of the hon. Member for London.

Mr. W. O. Stanley

attempted to address the House, but shouts and cries were continued. He had hoped, he said, that he was in the society of gentlemen. Last year he had given his vote in opposition to the ballot, he had since changed his opinion with respect to it, and he could assure the House that for no other reason than this was he desirous of addressing them. He confessed he had heard with great sorrow the noble Lord, the Secretary for the Home Department, declare himself opposed to this question. That noble Lord entertained an erroneous opinion with respect to the prevalence of intimidation. He could assure the noble Lord that if he had been in distant parts of the country he would find that coercion prevailed to a very alarming extent. He would not attempt to go into the arguments on this question, as they had been much more ably stated than he could possibly state them; but he would relate one instance of coercion which he had seen in the public papers. It was a letter from "A consistent Conservative,' to his banker. The letter was as follows:—" Dear Sir,—As a consistent Conservative, I feel I cannot continue my property in your hands, since you have supported a party in the borough which is bent upon carrying such measures through Parliament as are likely, I conceive, to disturb the security of private property, and to destroy the established institutions of the country—institutions which this property has been intrusted to me to support. I therefore beg to close my account with you." Hon. Members opposite seemed by their cheers to approve of this proceeding; but the gentleman who wrote this letter, as if there could be any doubt of his intention, stated afterwards, at a public dinner, that seeing the great influence which a banking business gave, he was not willing to neutralise his own exertions by contributing to an influence that was exercised against him, and he therefore closed his account. Did hon. Gentlemen opposite approve of these practices. The hon. Gentlemen opposite seemed to think that they had a right to do what they liked with their own. If such conduct were generally followed, what would become of society? If the principle were carried out to the full extent, society would fall asunder. He could state other circumstances. He had heard of a letter from two clergymen to two other clergymen, begging them to retract the solemn promises which they had given to vote for a particular person. They were well known in the county he represented, and were known, he doubted not, to some hon. Members of that House. He had only to say that, as the only means of protection that he at present saw against coercion and intimidation, he felt bound to advocate the ballot.

Mr. Slaney

said, that as the town which he had the honour to represent bad sent up to that House a petition, most respectably signed, in favour of the ballot, it was with pain and regret that he felt compelled by a sense of duty to vote contrary to the feelings of so many of those whom he so highly respected. He felt bound to vote against the proposition of the hon. Member for London. He acknowledged that the evil was great, but he thought that the remedy proposed was not the proper one. He acknowledged, that intimidation had taken place, and he regretted it; but be believed that it had taken place only lately. He believed that the evil was of a temporary nature, and he was unwilling to apply to what he conceived to be a temporary evil a permanent remedy, which be thought would increase the evil. At the last election party hostility had been carried to a much greater extent than at any of the six elections in which it had been his misfortune to be engaged. The two parties considered that they were contending for power for the whole of a new reign, and the magnitude of the occasion excited the men of the respective parties to make every effort for the purpose of gaining a majority. Under these circumstances of excitement both parties had recourse to means which in their cooler moments they would shrink from. Were they, for the sake of curing an evil that had arisen from temporary excitement, to introduce a change, and such a change, into the institutions of the country? Many reasons had been stated against the proposition of the hon. Member for London; but there was one, in his opinion, still stronger reason than any that had been adverted to. It was this, namely, that this proposition would alter the franchise of the whole kingdom. The Reform Bill, when agreed to, was considered as finally settled, at least for the time. He contended that this was one of the great claims in favour of that Bill; and in order that the Bill should have that effect, it was of a larger, a wider, and a more extensive nature than the most sanguine Reformer expected. That Bill had been received with approbation on all sides; and never had there been so strong an expression of the public voice in favour of any measure—a measure which was said at the time to be final. He did not mean that no alteration should take place in its details, but that as far as regarded the franchise it should be final. But, unfortunately, there were those who were now discontented with the Reform Bill, and who brought forward such measures as the ballot, the extension of the suffrage, the discontinuance of qualification, the repeal of the law of primogeniture, the expulsion of the Bishops from the House of Lords, and the reform of the House of Lords itself, which meant nothing more or less than its abolition. Such measures it was which induced the people of England, who viewed matters calmly and considerately, to throw themselves into what was called the Con- servative scale. This it was that produced that reaction to which on a former occasion the right hon. Gentleman, the Member for Tamworth, alluded. His firm opinion was, that if such measures as the present were pressed for, the effect would be that that reaction would be increased. On the other hand, if intimidation were still carried on to the lamentable extent to which it had often proceeded, there would be such a reaction in the public mind as to call for some remedy, either the ballot or some other, with a force that there would be no resisting. He would not detain the House longer. He had stated his honest opinions; and however displeasing those opinions might be to some of his friends, he trusted that they would be reconciled to what he conscientiously believed to be his duty—to vote against the present proposition.

Sir Robert Peel

^* —Mr. Speaker, one charge has been preferred against me in the course of this debate to which I must plead guilty. The Member for Sheffield (Mr. Ward) has asserted, that on the last occasions on which the question of ballot has been brought forward, I have contented myself with a silent vote. This is the fact: but as I have on three several occasions, since the year 1830, delivered my opinions on the subject of the ballot—as I have declared my decided objections to that mode of taking votes, and my reasons for entertaining them, I do not consider the imputation of occasional silence a very serious one. It is painful to travel over and over again the beaten circle of a stale and exhausted subject, and to consume the precious time of the House of Commons, by the repetition of statements and arguments perfectly familiar to your hearers. If I could have recriminated on the hon. Gentleman—if I could have charged him with the offence of holding his tongue, I cannot say that, in my opinion, the debate would have suffered from his silence.

He imputes to me a great confusion of ideas, in confounding a right with a trust, in considering the franchise of the voter to be a trust, for the exercise of which he is responsible. He says, that I was the first who discovered that the privilege of voting was of the nature of a public trust, and that the doctrine is exclusively mine.

Now, first, as to the novelty and the exclusiveness of this doctrine. I have heard the following question put in this ^* From a report published by Murray. House by others than by me: "What is the nature and obligation of the electoral trust?" I have heard this House adjured in emphatic language to "guard the commonwealth against innumerable breaches of trust committed by electors." I have heard supposed appeals made to this House by electors couched in the following language: "We (the electors) are tempted on every side to induce us to forfeit our trust." These are not extracts from my speeches, but from the speeches of the Member for the city of London (Mr. Grote). He, indeed, denies, that publicity is any security for the faithful performance of the trust. He thinks the ballot will enable the voter to discharge his duty more conscientiously; but he does not deny that the voter has a public duty to perform—that he has had committed to him a most, important trust. The difference between him and me is not as to the existence of the trust, but as to the security for its faithful discharge. The doctrine, therefore, in regard to the elector's franchise being a trust, is neither novel nor exclusively mine.

Now for the argument of the hon. Gentleman contesting that doctrine. He says the franchise is not a trust, because it is a right. As if a trust could not be coincident with a right. I presume I have at present a right, an absolute legal right, for a time limited by law, to a seat in Parliament. But have I not a trust, also, co-existing with, and derived from, that right? But, further, according to the hon. Gentleman, the elective franchise is not only a right, but it is a right partaking of the nature of property: it is a right of the elector as absolutely his own as any other property can be. Was there ever heard such a doctrine? Was the elective franchise ever placed upon such a thoroughly sordid ground? If the franchise be a right involving no trust, and partaking of all the incidents of property, why does the hon. Gentleman object to the sale of votes? According to him the elector has an unquestionable right to dispose of this species of his property to the best bidder. Why, then, call for the ballot?

Now, what is the origin of this, the really novel doctrine, of which the hon. Gentleman will probably prove, not only the first, but the single advocate? It is not mere confusion of ideas on his part. It is that he feels the pressure of the argument in favour of publicity, as a security for the faithful execution of any public trust. It becomes, therefore, his manifest interest to show, if he can, that the elective franchise is not a trust; that it is thereby exempted from the application of that rule of publicity which is considered the most effectual check against abuse. The hon. Gentleman is the man who proposed the present system of taking votes in this House—who extended the time of a division from ten minutes to half an hour, for the express purpose of preventing secret voting—of publishing the names of the Members who vote on any question, and the side upon which they vote, in order that their constituents and the public may know the fact—in order that Members may be responsible to public opinion—in order that the salutary check of publicity may constantly exercise its tacit but powerful influence. What avails it, to say that the function of a Member of Parliament is different from the function of a voter—that the privilege and the trust of each respectively are derived from different sources? The question is, if both are public trusts, why is not the security against abuse, admitted to be good in the one case, good in the other? The ballot would occasionally give different results from open voting, if adopted in this House—it would be occasionally a check against the undue influence of private partialities and of party spirit, but you refuse, and wisely refuse, to purchase these occasional advantages at the cost of greater evils and greater abuses? Upon you rests the proof, that the same principle does not apply to the secret voting of electors, and there cannot be a more signal proof, that you feel the pressure of the argument against you, than that you fly for refuge to the ridiculous position, that a privilege, which is a right, cannot involve a trust; and to the monstrous doctrine, that the elective franchise is a right of the voter over which he has a control as absolute as that which he has over his property. So much for the hon. Gentleman's complaint against others, of a confusion of ideas, and novelty of doctrine.

The hon. Gentleman has another appeal to make to me. He says, that I have declared myself an advocate for the correction of all proved abuses,—this term also having been, like the argument in respect to the franchise, a discovery of mine. Now, says the hon. Gentleman, as I can show the abuse of intimidation and undue influence to be incident to open voting, and as you are pledged to correct proved abuses, you must adopt my remedy of the ballot, or propose a substitute. My answer is, that from the complicated relations of society—from the perversity of human nature—from the imperfection of all human devices—every institution, every public right that exists, must be liable to occasional abuse. Show me one that is free from it. Is trial by jury never abused? Is the liberty of the press never abused? Will it be sufficient that every shallow projector should show an abuse, in order that he may claim assent to his remedy? Surely he must satisfy us, that in the correction of one abuse he is not engendering others of greater magnitude? that in cutting out one gangrenous part, he is not injuring the vitals?

My belief is, that abuse in this case does exist, but that the extent of it is grossly exaggerated; that landlords, speaking generally, are not the tyrants they are represented to be; that the influence they exercise, is not so much the influence of intimidation as the natural and legitimate influence which is almost inseparable from the relation of landlord and tenant. There is no doubt, that during a contested election every appeal that can be made to the prejudices, passions, feelings, interests, of the voters, is made by each party, and will continue to be made, whatever may be the mode of taking votes. But we must not confound the language of heated partisans during the contest with the practical exercise of power afterwards; and I apprehend that the instances are of rare occurrence, in which a tenant, voting against the wishes of his landlord, is dispossessed of his holding: that when the excitement which prevailed during the conflict has subsided, better feelings regain the ascendency, and the tenant is not disturbed. I come to this conclusion quite as much from a consideration of what is the interest of the landlord as from implicit confidence in his sense of justice and generosity. It clearly would not be for the pecuniary interest of landlords to eject tenants, eligible in other respects, because they were lukewarm or hostile at an election. But it may be said that party feelings, that the electioneering spirit of the landlord will prevail over his pecuniary interest. My answer is, that the political influence of the landlord will be injured by harshness and severity towards his tenants, and that you have in that public opinion, which you will paralyse by secret voting, a natural and efficacious check upon tyranny, the more efficacious, because it does not merely operate by way of remonstrance; it does not merely make a tyrannical act unpopular: but it visits such an act with the penalty of the diminution of that influence which the act itself is intended to uphold. There are, no doubt, instances in which the gratification of vindictive feelings will prevail over every other consideration; but can it be denied that the political weight and influence of a landlord will be better promoted by justice and forbearance towards his tenants, than by injustice and severity; and that if political weight and influence be his object, a sense of his. own interest will dictate to a man not swayed by passion, but by common prudence, the policy of not shocking the public feeling by acts of oppression and tyranny?

I shall proceed briefly to detail the grounds upon which I object to the system of secret voting.

In the first place, it is a system totally at variance with all the institutions, usages, and feelings of the people of this country, with all the maxims which have taught them to believe that free discussion, that publicity, that the light of day, that public opinion, are the great checks upon abuse. The people have been habituated to canvassing at elections, to the solicitation of promises, to all the activity and all the artifices, by which, at a contested election, one party seeks to gain a superiority over another. Every voter's inclinations and intentions are known; there is no neutrality, scarcely an instance in which a vote is reserved until the day of election. This may be right, or it may be wrong; but it is the inveterate usage of the country, and all this you hope to counteract by a small piece of cunning machinery, by Mr. Green's or Mr. Grote's ballot-box.

My belief is, that there will be no secrecy. I doubt, in the first place, whether you can give any assurance of what I will call the "mechanical secrecy" of the ballot-box, whether it can be so contrived as to guarantee absolute concealment. According to your hypothesis, landlords and customers will burn with desire to know in what manner their tenants and their tradesmen have voted. Every effort of mechanical skill, every device of vigilant dexterity, will be employed to discover the great secret. If it be discovered, nay, if there be a suspicion, that it may be discovered, the ballot-box fails. The fears of unjust punishment, magnified by doubt and uncertainty, will continue to operate on the mind of the voter.

In order to insure the success of this system of secret voting, it is indispensable, not only that there shall be absolute secrecy, not only that there shall be the impossibility of fraud, but a perfect conviction on the minds of voters and of the public that the disclosure of votes, and that fraud in taking the votes, are impracticable. Now, at every polling place throughout the country, there must be a ballot-box placed in some apartment casually provided, committed to the charge of some inferior agent—a deputy, I presume, of the returning officer. The -returning officer may be a warm partizan at the election. The result of the balloting may disappoint the public expectation. Votes have been promised in sufficient numbers to carry the election of one party, but the other has succeeded. In nine cases out of ten, there will be a suspicion of unfair play—an unjust one, perhaps, but how will you correct it?

Suppose there be unfair play, and who, seeing what has been effected by mechanical skill, what apparent miracles it has performed, deceiving the senses and bewildering the reason of men, can be perfectly sure that the contrivances of your ballot-box may not be defeated through superior dexterity, combined with dishonesty, in those who have charge of the ballot-box? Suppose there be unfair play, what means can you resort to of detecting it? Suppose there be the imputation of fraud, how can you refute it? You can have no scrutiny. You cannot open the ballot-box. Your pledge to the voter is absolute concealment of his vote. Surely this is in itself a great objection to your system. You not only free the voter from all sense of responsibility, you not only enable him to discharge in secret a public trust, but you preclude yourselves from all subsequent inquiry, from all satisfaction of the public mind, even if there should be a prevailing suspicion that there has been dishonesty and fraud in the taking of votes, and that the rightful Member has not been seated.

But let us concede, for the sake of argument, that mechanical secrecy can be effectually provided for, that there shall also be a perfect conviction on the public mind that it is so provided for, and that the possibility of fraud is excluded. Still I contend the ballot will give no effectual security either against intimidation and undue influence, or against general notoriety of the manner in which votes have been given. After the ballot shall have been adopted, what will be the practice at an election? Canvassing is not to be prohibited. All the appeals now made to the prejndices, feelings, passions, interests of the voters, may still be made. And, by the way, why is not canvassing, why are not these appeals prohibited? According to the principles of the Member for the City of London, they ought to be; at least according to the principles laid down in one part of his speech, for he is at direct variance with himself upon this head. In one part of his speech he observed, that landlords would still make an appeal to the reason and affection of their tenants and dependents, and that, what he admitted to be the legitimate influence of property, would not be diminished. But in another part of his speech he stated, that the voter was as much bound to give his vote according to the pure dictates of his conscience, as the witness to give his evidence on oath, and the juryman to find his verdict: and that it was as great an offence to tamper with the vote as with the evidence or the verdict. If this be so, why do you tolerate canvassing? What legitimate influence can property exercise? What right can there be to appeal to the affection of voters? Did any landlord ever take a witness or a juryman aside, and remind him of long family connection, or of benefits received, as a reason for influencing his testimony or his verdict? No; there is an obvious distinction between the two; the universal usage of mankind has at least recognised such a distinction, and it will prevail over all the analogies which the refinements of argument may try to establish.

But to return. The election approaches. The landlord and his steward, with a long train of friends, will canvass the tenants. Precisely the same appeals will be made, and with precisely the same result. The instances will be rare in which the promise of a vote will not be freely given. Can it be withheld? Not according to your hypothesis; for, so far as the previous promise is concerned, the influence of the landlord and the fear of oppression are untouched. The doubtful voter will be asked to stay away; to pair off with the certain enemy. What remedy does the ballot-box give? You contend, that though canvassing is not to be prohibited, it will virtually cease under the system of secret voting, because it will be useless—because no one will think it worth his while to ask for the promise of a vote, when he is not certain whether the promise will be kept. What an unfounded assumption! If true, what a condemnation of your own measure! for it rests the vindication of secret voting on the imputation of universal dishonesty and universal distrust. Depend upon it, that, in nine cases out of ten, where the voter is subject to influence, and where influence would now be exerted, it will continue to be so. The promise will be asked, the promise will be given, and the promise will be kept. There will be occasionally an ill-conditioned fellow, with a spite against his landlord, or with his head turned by the tirade of the last Radical newspaper, who will break his word; but the general rule will be—the observance of good faith. If it be, the ballot will have done nothing; for the promise will have been given from the same motives which now influence the vote. But supposing the observance of good faith be not the general rule; supposing that promises are freely given, and afterwards violated, will the ballot give an effectual protection to the voter against the landlord who shall be disposed to abuse his power—will no suspicion fall on the violators of promises? Is it possible that in a country like this, in which perfect publicity has hitherto accompanied the exercise of the franchise—in which every man's vote is talked of and canvassed—in which the contested election occupies the thoughts, and is the theme of conversation for weeks before and weeks after it takes place, a man can so regulate his language, his company, his very looks, that there shall be no guess as to his inclinations and intentions—that the cunning agent shall have no means of discovering from his intimate associates, from his family, from his servants, from his wife, or, at least, of vehemently suspecting, which is the tenant that has kept, and that has failed to keep, his word? Now, vehement suspicion is no ground for inflicting a legal penalty; but it is a ground on which a landlord, assumed by the hypothesis to be of an oppressive and vindictive character, might harass an obnoxious tenant. These, Sir, are the main grounds upon which I doubt the efficacy of the ballot to insure secrecy and to protect the voter.

It is said, however, that if the ballot shall effect little good, it will do no harm, and may therefore be adopted without danger. I dissent from this opinion. In times of perfect tranquillity the ballot might possibly be merely a delusion, but in times of great public calamity or excitement it might be the instrument of irreparable evil. There might prevail a temporary clamour for war or for peace; unreasonable prejudices, with regard to public matters of deep interest; there might be false impressions purposely created by a Government, during the prevalence of which it might be deeply and permanently injurious to the public interest to have a general election, the voters being freed from all control of publicity. The fever of the moment, the popular cry, might deaden the influence of reason, and the influence of property, much more effectually under a system of secret than of open voting. I know it will be said, that this implies distrust of the constituent body—that it presumes they are unfit to be trusted with the elective franchise. It certainly does imply that there may be occasions when the public mind is for a season under the influence of prejudice, of passion, of unwise impatience, and that it is for the public interest that a public trust should be discharged under responsibility to public opinion—to that sober public opinion which, a few months afterwards, will pronounce judgment;—subject also to the present control, which property, and station, and more enlightened views, may legitimately exercise, and can exercise with greater effect at such seasons of excitement, under the present system of voting than under the ballot. I do mean to imply this distinctly; and my position is, theoretically and practically, more sound than that for which you contend; namely, that every voter is entitled to exercise precisely an equal degree of influence upon the administration of public affairs—no matter what may be the differences in point of property, or education, or experience—and that he may exercise the privilege that has been conferred upon him, not for his individual advantage, but as a public trust, in secrecy, free from all responsibility, and without even the possibility of being questioned.

It has been taken for granted, in the course of this debate, that the ruling principle with the tenant is to obey the commands of his landlord. A Radical candidate finds himself opposed by the far- mers, and at once attributes the opposition to himself, not to the free will of the tenant, but to the control exercised by his landlord. One gentleman has admitted that he found a great change, a great reaction, in the opinion and feelings of the landed proprietors, but complains that the tenantry should have been made to change their votes. But why made to change? Why should not the reaction have extended to the tenantry? Why should not they have voluntarily partaken in the sentiments or the fears which influenced their richer neighbours? Suppose the repeal of the corn-laws has alarmed the gentry, or the correspondence with rebels in Canada has disgusted them, is it not a more natural presumption that similar fears and similar disgust have extended to the occupiers of the soil as well as the proprietors, than that one class has been coerced by the other?

The examples of foreign countries have been again cited as an argument for the ballot. It is said that it comes recommended to us in modern times by the practice of France and the United States, and is sanctioned by the venerable authority of Rome. Even if the ballot had been a successful institution in other countries, no safe conclusion could be drawn therefrom as to the easy adaptation of it to the inveterate habits and feelings of this country. It would be difficult to judge what has been the reciprocal effect in any country of political institutions upon the character and manners of the people, and of character and manners upon such institutions,—how they have acted and reacted upon each other. I was struck in the course of this debate by the contrast drawn by one hon. Member (Mr. Lytton Bulwer) between the character of the aristocracy of Germany and of that of England, but I drew a totally different conclusion from that which the hon. Gentleman drew, as to its bearing on the question of the ballot. "Look," said the hon. Gentleman, "at England and Germany at this day. In Germany, where the constitution keeps the nobility apart from the people, the nobility have not the energy, the ambition, the excitement sufficient to produce great men, and the most eminent names spring from the people: but in England, where the constitution has more or less forced the Gentlemen to cultivate the public opinion of the masses, you find in the glass of the Gentlemen the great ornaments of literature, of the state, of the army, exhibiting that intellectual eminence, and exercising that moral influence which must always result from uniting the aristocratic advantages of leisure and property with the popular elements of activity and ambition." Now, if this be, as I believe it to be, a just panegyric upon the character of the English aristocracy—if the contrast with the aristocracy of continental Europe be correctly drawn, there is surely a strong presumption against any material change in those institutions which in all probability have principally contributed to produce this happy result. But there is a peculiarly strong presumption against this particular change, that is, against the system of secret voting. According to your own showing, the personal intercourse between the aristocracy and the masses (so far as elections are concerned) is to be diminished. The gentry are to be virtually excluded from that particular field on which, in political matters, they come habitually into contact with the masses. There is to be no motive for soliciting a promise; all the stimulants to energy and activity which are now supplied by the necessity of personal canvassing, of unremitting personal exertion, of appeal to every motive by which an elector can be influenced, are to be deadened or destroyed. It appears to me, then, to be a perfectly just conclusion, that if the character of the upper classes in England do stand so deservedly high, and if it be mainly attributable to the combination of the aristocratic advantages of leisure and property, with the popular elements of activity and ambition, it is most unwise to disturb, by experiments of uncertain issue, the political institutions of the country, of which that aristocracy is the ornament, and particularly by a system of secret voting, to paralyse existing incentives to the activity and exertion of the upper classes, and to their personal contact and intercourse with the people.

Now with respect to the examples of foreign countries which have adopted the ballot. In France the main object of it is protection from the influence of the Government. Yet it would appear that in France the ballot fails in these respects at least; first, in producing a complete assurance on the part of the public as to this perfect secrecy of voting; and, secondly, in preventing the exercise of influence in elections on the part of the Government. There repeatedly is dissatisfaction in France with the results of the ballot; charges have been preferred against the Government or the agents of Government, of violating the secrecy of the ballot-box. The first of the four charges preferred against the Government of the Prince de Polignac, was interference with elections, and the violation of electoral rights. At every general election there is in France, the direct and avowed exercise of Government influence. Demands are made upon all the subordinate functionaries of the Government to support by their vote the views and interests of the Government; and when the charge of interference is preferred against the Government of the day in the Chamber of Deputies, the answer is not denial, but recrimination—"You did the same." If the ballot-box in France does give per feet protection to the subordinate officers of the Government, if it insures perfect secresy, removes all apprehensions of fear, or expectation of favour, whence the circulars of French Ministers, the exhortations to the electioneering activity and zeal of their dependents, the rewards for the exbition of these qualities, the punishments for the want of them? And does the ballot in France justify your predictions, that there will be no motive to solicit the promise of a vote, when you have not the means of ascertaining how the vote will be given?

The ballot is in force in the United States, but what are its effects? Is there no canvassing there? No solicitation of votes? Is there secrecy as to the vote? Is it not notorious that the influence of party feeling, the influence of institutions, laws, manners, habits like our own, the love of publicity, the prevalence of free discussion, the open expression of individual opinion, defeat the precautions of the ballot-box, and establish, by voluntary disclosures, or by indications of opinion which are tantamount to disclosures, a general notoriety as to the manner in which votes have been given? In the United States, when the ballot was originally introduced, there had not previously prevailed the inveterate usage of open voting. The people had to form a new constitution; they were at liberty to adopt such institutions as might appear to them most consistent with its ruling principles, unembarrassed by previous usages and prejudices in favour of other pre-existing institutions. If the ballot had succeeded there, it would not necessarily follow that it must succeed in another country, where it would have to struggle against the current of established habits and the feelings connected with them. But if it fails in the United States, in insuring secrecy (I speak not of mechanical secrecy)—if there even "sensus moresque repugnant"—if it is there counteracted by the influence of feelings stronger than the provisions of the law, and that the votes taken in secret are, nevertheless, generally notorious, is there not reason to apprehend that it will fail here also in establishing secrecy, and that the security it professes to give, will be perfectly delusive?

The example of Rome has been again appealed to, and the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Lytton Bulwer) has referred to Gibbon's authority for the purpose of establishing the fact that the ballot was effectual in Roman elections in securing the voter from intimidation and improper influence. The expressions of Gibbon, referred to by the hon. Gentleman, in respect to the veteran being freed by the ballot from the controlling influence of his general, point out the particular passage which the hon. Gentleman has in view. Now let us take the whole of that passage, and then judge whether Gibbon can be fairly referred to as an authority in favour of the ballot and its operation upon the state of society and the civil Government of Rome. The passage is this:— The tribunes soon established a more specious and popular maxim, that every citizen has an equal right to enact the laws which he is bound to obey. Instead of the centuries they convened the tribes; and the patricians, after an ineffectual struggle, submitted to the decrees of an assembly in which their votes were confounded with those of the meanest plebeians, Yet as long as the tribes successively passed over narrow bridges and gave their voices aloud, the conduct of each citizen was exposed to the eyes and ears of his friends and countrymen. The insolvent debtor consulted the wishes of his creditor, the client would have blushed to oppose the views of his patron, the general was followed by his veterans, and the aspect of a grave magistrate was a living lesson to the multitude. A new method of secret ballot abolished the influence of fear and shame, of honour and interest, and the abuse of freedom accelerated the progress of anarchy and despotism. When next, Sir, the hon. Member for the city of Lincoln quotes Gibbon, I hope this will encourage him to give the whole passage, instead of only a portion of it.

There is a remarkable passage in Pliny, with respect to the practical working of the ballot in Rome. Pliny had admitted, that for some evils in elections, the ballot would probably be a remedy, but he feared that it would introduce evils more aggravated than those which it might correct. In writing afterwards, he says, that his apprehensions had been confirmed by the result; and in the course of his observations, he gives this brief but striking description of the voter by ballot:— Poposcit tabellas, stilum accepit, demisit caput, neminem veretur, se contemnit. The reverence for authority was gone, the fear of public opinion was removed, the aspect of a grave magistrate—the living lesson (as Gibbon calls it) to the multitude, ceased to encourage or rebuke; and the voter retired from the ballot, conscious perhaps of the violation of a promise, with the sense of shame in his demeanour, and the feeling of dishonour and degradation in his heart. And be assured that if this feeling be introduced here, if you accustom the voter to the violation of a solemn promise, if you make him believe that a he told to a landlord is of little comparative consequence, you will dearly purchase the advantage of a secret vote, at the price of promises disregarded—truth habitually violated—the sense of honour destroyed, and self-esteem extinguished.

You tell us that the ballot is necessary for the perfection of past reforms, and for the contentment and satisfaction of the people. The ballot is now proclaimed to be the great, the only measure which can secure liberty of opinion and lay the foundations of concord. I distrust your prophecies. I compare your past predictions, as to the results of great constitutional changes, with your present description of them. You told us, a short time since, that the one thing needful for our harmony and welfare, was the destruction of nomination boroughs, and the infusion of more of the democratic principle into the constitution and working of the Government. Your opinions prevailed,—. your views were accomplished. Six short years have passed, and so far is it from your prophecies having been fulfilled, that, according to your own declarations, reform has been an utter failure; it has aggravated all the former evils of elections, there has been more of intimidation, more of expense, more of corruption since the passing of the Reform Bill than there was before. There is now, if we are to credit your assertions, no legitimate ground for confidence in the Members assembled within these walls. The existing system has lost all title to national esteem;—in fact, we have no representative system The baneful principle of nomination remains in force. We are described, in short, to be in the last stage of that decrepitude in which the power of Home crumbled into dust, when the forms of free government were preserved, but all the vital energy was extinguished.

All these are your expressions, not mine; your expressions applied in the course of" this debate, to the present reformed representative system of this country. I contrast them with your former predictions, when that very system was under discussion, and when you hailed the measure of parliamentary reform, as the second great charter of national liberty. So will it be with the ballot. Six years hence, you will discover not only that it is inoperative, but a positive curse. Then will arise the complaints of new abuses—of new schemes of wholesale and systematic bribery—of payments for votes, contingent upon the successful result of the election—of voters harassed and punished upon bare suspicion of imputed frauds, and the impossibility of detecting them, if the pledge of perfect secrecy is to be fulfilled. But, above all, will arise the indignant complaint, that the constituent body is a limited and privileged class, protected from all responsibility, shielded by secrecy in the exercise of public functions, enabled, because unchecked by shame or public opinion, to gratify private pique, or, perhaps to profit by the new and secret corruption which ingenious bribery will have devised. Then will come the demand, even now plainly foreseen and foretold,—the demand for extended suffrage as the necessary consequence, nay, as the only remedy of the special evils of the ballot,—for suffrage, not circumscribed by arbitrary rules as to residence or property, but for suffrage co-extensive with population, and restricted only, if at all, by the age of twenty-one. Thus will you proceed from change to change, one rendering inevitable another, partly from the restless appetite for innovation, growing with indulgence; partly from the impatience, the justifiable impatience of new and intolerable evils. Thus will you proceed, until the whole principles and character of your constitution and form of Government are changed, and a fierce democratic republic is erected on the ruins of a limited monarchy.

Believing that limited monarchy to give much better securities for peace, prosperity, and liberty than such a republic, foreseeing that the Ballot must involve future changes in the representative system, more extensive and important than the Ballot itself, changes inconsistent with the principles of a mixed form of Government by King, Lords, and Commons, I shall give my unqualified opposition to this motion.

Mr. C. Butter

said, amidst cries of "divide, divide," the right hon. Baronet had come forward in a chivalrous manner to defend the noble Lord from the attacks made upon him in another quarter. Now, although he gave credit to the right hon. Baronet for the magnanimity of this conduct towards a political opponent, he could not help thinking that he was taking the most effectual method of damaging such an adversary and increasing his unpopularity by proclaiming the identity of their opinions. When the right hon. Baronet said, he had not introduced any novelty into this discussion, he did himself great injustice; for he certainly had introduced into it great novelty of discussion. He would not refer to ancient history as copiously as the right, hon. Baronet had done; but he would just remind him that Cicero said, "that the ballot opened the front of man." The right hon. Baronet, referring to the elections in France, said that there was a tampering with the ballot-box; that after the votes had been deposited in the box they were not safe, but were exposed to be tampered with by the returning officer, who, consequently, frequently made a false return. Now, he defied the right hon. Baronet to find an instance of this in the whole history of France, from the time of the concession of the Charter by Louis 18th. Many elections had been illegal; but there was not an instance of one which had been tampered with in the manner described by the right hon. Baronet. The illegality consisted in the returning officer depriving the elector of his right of writing down his vote secretly, and compelling him to write it down in public. As to the opinion of the people of France or of the people of America, with respect to the ballot, he did not pretend to be intimately acquainted with it. Nor would he refer, as he might, to the statement of travellers on that subject, but he would advert to much higher evidence. He would advert to the public testimony afforded by the conduct of those and other nations, as showing what their experience had taught them to think of the efficiency of the system of voting by ballot. He would challenge the right hon. Baronet to show an instance in all the countries of the modern world in which a state, adopting a representative government, had not, at the same time, adopted the vote by ballot. In all the new states of the North American union that had been done; in all the alterations made in the old states that had been done. In Switzerland the same thing had occurred. Where the states were free there the ballot was found; where they were not free the ballot did not exist. All the cantons in Switzerland which partook of the revolution of 1830 adopted the ballot. There was not a single instance in which a canton, which had used the ballot, had gone back to the system of open voting. And yet the House had been told that the ballot did not work well; they had been told so, notwithstanding this general acknowledgment in its favour. They had the testimony in its behalf, not of the friends of the people, but also of the enemies of the people. For whenever the enemies of the people attempted to violate their privileges they attacked the ballot. His hon. Friend, the Member for Sheffield, had said that "no eminent French statesman" had opposed the ballot. His hon. Friend had forgotten that eminent statesman Charles 10th, who, when he attempted by his ordinances to destroy representative government, had taken care to decree the substitution of open for secret voting. The inference to be drawn from the conduct of the Liberal portion of America, Switzerland, or France, was not against but strongly in favour of the efficacy of the ballot. Nor was it less so to its morality. The ballot had prevailed in the moral and enlightened cantons of Switzerland, in the moral and enlightened monarchy of France, and in the moral and enlightened republic of America. In all those countries moral and religious freedom was preserved, notwithstanding the system which its opponents declared must demoralise any country into which it was introduced. He would grant that the ballot would give voters the power to accept bribes from both sides in an election contest. What was the inference he drew from that circumstance? That, by establishing the ballot, they would take away from any man an interest in bribing a voter. That was not the only case in which our laws and usages operated beneficially in this indirect manner and prevented evil by apparently permitting it to be practised with impunity. In order to prevent minors from being cheated by tradesmen, minors were allowed the power of cheating tradesmen. Why were they allowed this power? For the plain reason that it rendered tradesmen loath to give credit to persons who were permitted by law to cheat them with impunity. In the same way give the elector the power of cheating with impunity the man who bribed, canvassed, or threatened them, and candidates would not bribe, threaten, or canvass those who could cheat them with impunity. He hoped he might be allowed to make a few remarks upon the speech of the noble Lord (Lord John Russell), who, he must say, had been as little guilty of novelty as any body who had addressed the House upon the occasion. It was not with the arguments which the noble Lord advanced against the efficacy and morality of the ballot that he intended to deal, but with the imputation which, without a shadow of reason, he endeavoured to fasten upon all the supporters of the motion of the hon. Member for London (Mr. Grote), and by which he attempted to make out that the ballot would be employed as the first and primary instrument towards the achievement of very wild schemes of extensive and unlimited encroachments upon the constitution. He thought that the noble Lord was palpably unjust when he advanced such an argument against the supporters of the motion. The proposition for the adoption of the ballot was not brought forward with the view of making it the instrument for effecting future and more extensive changes. He could not conceive how it was to operate as an instrument of change. The proposition for the ballot was introduced for the purpose of consolidating political power in the hands of those who now possessed it. The Reform Bill gave the right of voting to a large class of persons; the supporters of the ballot wished to enable that large class of persons to exercise their right of voting unchecked and uncontrolled—unchecked and uncontrolled as much by the non-elector below them as by the wealthy and influential above them. The noble Lord in the course of his address had raked up all the speeches which had been made at various meetings at various places n consequence of the unfortunate speech made by the noble Lord at the commencement of the present Session of Parliament. The noble Lord had alluded particularly to the speeches made by the hon. Member for Southwark (Mr. D. W. Harvey), and by another Member of the House, in one of which he said the ballot was recommended because it could not fail of becoming the instrument for effecting an extension of the suffrage, and in the other, because it would lead to a shortening of the duration of Parliaments. Now, the real effect of the ballot would be to make the 10l. householder perfectly independent in the exercise of his vote; and that, he supposed, was what the opponents of the ballot did not wish. The right hon. Baronet (Sir Robert Peel) was wrong in saying that he had introduced no novelty into the discussion of this question. The right hon. Baronet was too modest. The right hon. Baronet had been guilty of the great novelty of being too frank. The argument advanced by the right hon. Baronet was an argument against representative government altogether, and that was what the opposition to the ballot really meant. The right hon. Baronet had stated it as one of his objections, that by the ballot the people would in times of excitement obtain the power of exercising their franchise in a manner dangerous to the peace of society, because it would be in opposition to the more wealthy and intelligent. But if open voting had the effect of subjecting the voter in one case to the influence of the powerful, how did the right hon. Baronet provide for its not always producing this effect? And as the right hon. Baronet had not defined the peculiar crises in which one class ought to have this control over the votes of the rest, and as it appeared impossible to do so, he could not help inferring that the right hon. Baronet really wished that the rich should in all cases have the power of controlling the franchise of the rest of the community, and this was the real ground of opposition to the ballot. The ballot was opposed because it would substitute representation in the place of nomination. Every argument upon which the opposition rested distinctly avowed it. By the Reform Act the people obtained the suffrage; but matters had since been so managed as to render the effect of that measure in a great degree null; and now that the true and legitimate objects of the Act had been defeated, the hon. Gentlemen opposite came forward and declared themselves its stanch supporters? Why? Because it kept the voter in thrall—because it prevented the independent exercise of the franchise—because it neutralized the act and the principle of representation which those Gentlemen had always opposed. [Cries of "Oh.!" and "Divide"] He had always observed, that, nothing so much excited a noisy and obstreperous cry of "Oh!" from the opposition benches as a plain telling of the truth. The fact was, that since the hon. Gentlemen opposite had become practical reformers, they had forgotten all their ancient principles of conduct, and nothing was now so distasteful to them as to be reminded of their former sayings and doings. The noble Lord the Member for Stroud, did not oppose the ballot with the same view, be admitted that the vote ought to be free; but, somewhat oscillating between aristocracy and democracy, he added, that he thought it ought to be checked by responsibility—to whom he could not make out, whether to the aristocracy or to the democracy. He himself stood between the two, and said, that the voters to whom the Reform Act gave the franchise were the fit depositories of political power, and that means ought to be given to them of exercising their franchise with freedom and security. But he maintained, that the legal gift of the franchise had been nullified by the deficiency which existed in the mode of voting. He asked for no increase of the franchise. He did not agree with the hon. Gentlemen opposite, who in spite of their professed respect for the Reform Act, endeavoured last Session, when they voted for the proposition of Sir James Graham, to curtail the franchise by depriving a large class of electors of the right to vote. He did not agree with those who wished to disfranchise the freemen or the 50l. leaseholders. He wished to disfranchise no man. He would leave the franchise as it now stood, neither curtailing it nor extending it. That was his wish at present; but he did not mean to say, that hereafter an extension of the suffrage might not be necessary. He was not presumptuous enough to lay down laws to bind posterity. He did not think, that the franchise prescribed by the Reform Act was a franchise that should last for ever. But he had no intention to change it; he merely wished it to be unfettered. For that purpose he supported the ballot. It was not to the principle, but to the defective machinery of the Reform Act that he and those who thought with him upon the subject of the ballot, attributed the evils of which they complained. "The Reform Act," he continued, "is a good Act, if you would carry it into effective opera- tion It is good in as far as it confers the legal title to the franchise on the mass of intelligence and property of the country. All we call on you to do is, to adopt an alteration in the mechanism of voting, that shall ensure to that class the actual possession of the privilege which the law has given it. We seek not admission for any new principle. The independence of the voter is a principle as ancient as Parliament itself. Many laws have been passed to guard it; a hundred resolutions of this House have proclaimed its importance and its sanctity; and still the independence of the voter is not preserved. What I call upon you to do is to vindicate your own laws. Do not allow the insolence or the frauds of wealth to trample on the fundamental principles of your constitution, but by the simple machinery of a box and a card protect rights which you profess to revere —rights which a mighty nation cherishes and will cause to be respected."

Mr. Grote

said, it would ill become him to trespass at any length upon the patience of the House after the indulgence with which it had been kind enough to listen to him in the early part of the evening; but as his motion had been met by the decided opposition both of the noble Lord (Lord J Russell) and of the right hon. Baronet (Sir R. Peel) who sat opposite, he hoped he might be permitted to make two or three remarks upon what had fallen from them only. With all the ability which they had employed upon the occasion they had not done what it was incumbent upon them to do—they had not replied to his objections, nor to the complaints and objections of the voters of England, who were the principal parties interested in the discussion. They had neither of them denied the existence and reality of intimidation; they had not pretended to provide any other remedy for intimidation than that which he (Mr. Grote) proposed, unless, indeed, he were to be called upon to adopt as a remedy that sort of impotent lecture to the landlords which the noble Lord, the Member for Stroud, had not been ashamed to use again that evening, although he had used it at his election for Devonshire in 1832, and although subsequent experience must have convinced him how utterly useless, how wholly null, it was. He repeated, that to the complaints and objections of the voters of England no solid answer had been returned either by the noble Lord or by the right hon. Baronet. Instead of returning a solid answer, what had been done? Why, they ascribed to the ballot a tendency—which in no reasonable view the ballot could be held to possess—to stifle free discussion. He maintained that the ballot would at once open to the constituency of England a greater freedom of discussion, a greater freedom of speech, than they had ever yet possessed. He maintained further that it would encourage and strengthen all those moral influences which the noble Lord and his right hon. ally contended it would depress and destroy. The right hon. Baronet had said much about the impossibility of maintaining secrecy. But, surely, it could not have escaped the right hon. Baronet that if he wished to see whether the plan which he proposed would be effectual or not the right hon. Baronet ought to allow him to introduce his bill. If the provisions of the bill did not satisfy the right hon. Baronet that a complete secrecy could be secured, then he might oppose it; his opposition now was premature. If he were one of those who felt eager for the permanence and popularity of the Government of which the noble Lord was the leader, he should express his very great regret at the language which he had used that night, and the opposition which he had given to the question. Little did the noble Lord know the effect which would be produced in the country by the words he had uttered that evening. He (Mr. Grote) was much mistaken if the noble Lord did not soon find reason to regret those words and the decision they announced. The noble Lord told them that the ballot was now indissolubly connected with extension of the suffrage, and triennial Parliaments. And what had made it so? He would tell the noble Lord. It was his own declaration upon these subjects at the commencement of the present Session. He was a friend to the ballot, a friend to an extension of the suffrage, and a friend to triennial Parliaments; but he asserted that the three questions were quite distinct, that any one of them might be supported and the others resisted by the same individual, without his being thereby exposed to the charge of inconsistency. It was the noble Lord and his Government who were doing all they could to connect the three questions by an indissoluble tie, and he would take leave to tell them, that though for the moment they might get over the difficulty caused to them by the question of the ballot, they were laying up for themselves far greater difficulties, and that ere long the three questions they so much apprehended would roll in upon them and the House in a way they would find it impossible any longer to resist. He maintained that the Government had no right at the present moment to connect the three questions indissolubly together. He now introduced to the consideration of the House the separate and distinct question of the ballot, placing it before them on its own grounds and merits, and on those grounds and on those merits, and without reference to any other question, he called upon them for their decision.

The House divided:—Ayes 198; Noes 315: Majority 117.

List of the AYES.
Aglionby, H. A.	Dashwood, G. H.
Aglionby, Major	Davies, Colonel
Ainsworth, P.	Denison, W. J.
Anson, Sir G.	Dennistoun, J.
Archbold, R.	D'Eyncourt, rt. hn. C.
Attwood, T.	Divett, E.
Bainbridge, E. T.	Duckworth, S.
Baines, E.	Duke, Sir J.
Ball, N.	Duncan, Visct.
Barnard, E. G.	Duncombe, T.
Barron, H. W.	Dundas, C. W. D.
Barry, G. S.	Dundas, Frederick
Beamish, F. B.	Dundas, hon. J.
Bellew, R. M.	Dundas, Captain
Bentinck, Lord W.	Easthope, J.
Berkeley, hon. H.	Elliott, hon. J. E.
Bernal, R.	Ellice, Captain A.
Bewes, T.	Ellice, E.
Blake, M. J.	Erle, W.
Blake, W. J.	Etwall, R.
Blewitt, R. J.	Evans, Colonel
Blunt, Sir C.	Evans, G.
Bodkin, J. J.	Fielden, J.
Bowes, J.	Fenton, J.
Brabazon, Sir W.	Ferguson, Sir R. A.
Bridgeman, H.	Finch, F.
Brocklehurst, J.	Fitzgibbon, Col.
Brodie, W. B.	Fitzsimon, N.
Brotherton, J.	Fort, John
Browne, R. D.	Gibson, J.
Bryan, G.	Gillon, W. D.
Buller, C.	Grattan, H.
Bulwer, Edw. L.	Guest, J. J.
Busfield, W.	Hall, B.
Butler, hon. C.	Harvey, D. W.
Callaghan, D.	Hastie, A.
Carnac, Sir J. R.	Hawkins, J. H.
Chalmers, P.	Hector, C. J.
Chapman, Sir M.	Heron, Sir R.
Chester, H.	Hindley, C.
Chichester, J. P.	Hobhouse, T. B.
Clay, W.	Hodges, T. L.
Clive, E. B.	Hollond, R.
Collier, J.	Horsman, E.
Collins, W.	Howard, F. J.
Conyngham, Lord A.	Hume, J.
Craig, W. G.	Humphery, J.
Crawford, W.	Hutton, R.
Currie, Raikes	James, W.

Jephson, C. D. O.	Scholefield, J.
Jervis, J.	Scrope, G. P.
Jervis, S.	Seale, Col.
Johnston, General	Sharpe, General
Kinnaird, hon. A. F.	Sinclair, Sir G.
Lambton, H.	Smith, J. A.
Langdale, hon. C.	Somers, J. P.
Langton, W. G.	Somerville, Sir W.
Leader, J. T.	Spiers, A.
Lister, E. C.	Standish, C.
Lushington, C.	Stanley, M.
Macleod, R.	Stanley, W. O.
Maher, J.	Stansfield, W. R.
Marshall, William	Steuart, R.
Marsland, H.	Steuart, V.
Martin, J.	Stewart, J.
Maule, W. H.	Stuart, Lord J.
Melgund, Viscount	Strickland, Sir G.
Molesworth, Sir W.	Strutt, E.
Muskett, G. A.	Style, Sir C.
Nagle, Sir R.	Talbot, J. H.
O'Callaghan, hon. C.	Talfourd, Sergeant
O'Connell, D.	Tancred, H. W.
O'Connell, J.	Thornley, T.
O'Connell, M. J.	Tuffnell, H.
O'Connell, M.	Turner, W.
O'Conor Don	Vigors, N. A.
Paget, F.	Villiers, C. P.
Palmer, C.	Vivian, Major C.
Parrott, J.	Vivian, J. H.
Pattison, J.	Vivian, rt. hn. Sir R. H.
Pease, J.	Wakley, T.
Pechell, Captain	Walker, R.
Pendarves, E. W. W.	Wallace, R.
Philips, M.	Warburton, H.
Phillpotts, J.	Wemyss, J. E.
Ponsonby, hon. J.	Westenra, hon. J. C.
Poulter, J. S.	Whalley, Sir S.
Power, J.	White, A.
Protheroe, E.	White, L.
Pryme, G.	White, S.
Ramsbottom, J.	Wild, Mr. Sergeant
Reddington, T. N.	Williams, W.
Rice, E. R.	Williams, W. A.
Rippon, C.	Wood, Sir M.
Roche, E. B.	Worsley, Lord
Roche, W.	Wyse, T.
Rundle, J.	Yates, J. A.
Russell, Lord
Russell, Lord C.	TELLERS.
Salwey, Colonel	Grote, G.
Sanford, E. A.	Ward, G.

List of the NOES.
Acland, Sir T. D.	Bailey, J.
Acland, T. D.	Bailey, J., jun.
A'Court, Captain	Baillie, Colonel
Adam, Sir C.	Baker, E.
Adare, Visct.	Baring, F. T.
Alexander, Visct.	Baring, hon. F.
Alford, Viscount	Baring, H. B.
Alsager, Captain	Baring, W. B.
Alston, Rowland	Barnaby, J.
Arbuthnot, hon. H.	Barrington, Viscount
Ashley, Lord	Bateman, J.
Bagge, W.	Belfast, Earl of
Bagot, hon. W.	Bell, M.

Bennett, J.	Duncombe, A.
Bentinck, Lord G.	Dundas, hon. T.
Bethel, R.	Dungannon, Visct.
Blackburne, L.	Dunlop, J.
Blackstone, W. S.	East, J. B.
Blair, J.	Eastnor, Visct.
Blennerhassett, A.	Eaton, R. J
Bolling, W.	Egerton, W. T.
Borthwick, P.	Egerton, Sir P.
Bradshaw, J.	Egerton, Lord F.
Bramston, T. W.	Eliot, Lord
Broadley, H.	Ellis, J.
Broadwood, H.	Estcourt, T.
Brownrigg, S.	Evans, W.
Bruce, Lord E.	Farnham, E. B.
Bruges, W. H. L.	Farrand, R.
Buller, Sir J. Y.	Fielden, W.
Burdett, Sir Francis	Fellowes, E.
Burr, H.	Ferguson, Sir R. A.
Burrell, Sir C.	Fergusson, rt. hon. C.
Burroughes, H. N.	Fitzroy, hon. H.
Byng, G.	Fleming, J.
Byng, right hon. G. S.	Foley, E. T.
Campbell, Sir H.	Follett, Sir W.
Campbell, W. F.	Forbes, W.
Canning, Sir S.	Forester, hon. G.
Cantilupe, Viscount	Fremantle, T.
Castlereagh, Viscount	French, F.
Cavendish, hon. C.	Gaskell, Jas. Milnes
Cavendish, hon. G. H.	Gibson, T.
Cayley, E. S.	Gladstone, W. E.
Chandos, Marq. of	Glynne, Sir S. R.
Chaplin, Colonel	Goddard, A.
Chapman, A.	Godson, R.
Chetwynd, Major	Gordon, hon. Capt.
Chisholm, A.	Gore, O. J. R.
Christopher, R.	Gore, O. W.
Chute, W. L. W.	Goring, H. D.
Clive, Visct.	Goulburn, rt. hon.
Clive, R. H.	Grant, hon. Col.
Codrington, C. W.	Greene, T.
Cole, Visct.	Greenaway, C.
Colquhoun, Sir J.	Grimsditch, T.
Compton, H. C.	Grimston, Viscount
Conolly, E.	Grimston, hon. E. H.
Coote, Sir C. H.	Hale, R. B.
Copeland, Alderman	Halford, H.
Corry, hon. H.	Halse, J.
Courtenay, P.	Handley, H.
Cowper, hon. W. F.	Harcourt, G. G.
Cresswell, C.	Harcourt, G. S.
Cripps, J.	Hardinge, rt. hon. Sir H.
Curry, W.
Dalrymple, Sir A.	Harland, W. C.
Damer, hon. D.	Hawkes, T.
Darby, G.	Hayes, Sir E.
Darlington, Earl of	Heathcoat, Sir G.
De Horsey, S. H.	Heathcote, G. J.
Dick, Q.	Heneage, E.
D'Israeli, B.	Henniker, Lord
Dottin, A. R.	Herbert, hon. S.
Douglas, Sir C. E.	Herries, J. C.
Douro, Marquess	Hill, Sir R.
Dowdeswell, W.	Hillsborough, Earl of
Duffield, T.	Hinde, J. H.
Dugdale, W. S.	Hobhouse, Sir J.
Duncombe, W.	Hodgson, F.

Hodgson, R.	Norreys, Lord
Hogg, J. W.	Ossulston, Lord
Holmes, W. A'C.	Packe, C. W.
Holmes, W.	Paget, Lord A.
Hope, G. W.	Pakington, J. S.
Hope, H. T.	Palmer, R.
Hotham, Viscount	Palmer, G.
Houldsworth, T.	Palmerston, Viscount
Houstoun, G.	Parker, M.
Howard, P. H.	Parker, R. T.
Howard, hon. W.	Parker, T. A. W.
Howick, Viscount	Patten, J. W.
Hughes, W. B.	Peel, right hon. Sir R.
Ingestre, Visct.	Peel, J.
Ingham, R.	Pemberton, T.
Inglis, Sir R. H.	Perceval, Colonel
Irton, S.	Perceval hon. G.
Irving, J.	Peyton, H.
Jackson, Sergeant	Philips, Sir R.
James, Sir W. C.	Pinney, W.
Jermyn, Earl	Planta, right hon. J.
Johnstone, H.	Plumptre, J. P.
Jones, J.	Polhill, F.
Jones, W.	Powell, Colonel
Jones, T.	Praed, Winthrop M.
Kemble, Henry	Price, Sir R.
Knatchbull, Sir E.	Price, R.
Knight, H. G.	Pringle, A.
Knightley, Sir C.	Pusey, P.
Labouchere, rt. hn. H.	Reid, Sir J.
Lascelles, hon. W.	Rice, right hon. T. S.
Law, hon. C. E.	Richards, Richard
Lefroy, hon. T.	Rickford, W.
Lemon, Sir C.	Rolfe, Sir R. M.
Lennox, Lord George	Rolleston, L.
Lennox, Lord Arthur	Rose, right hon. Sir G.
Leveson, Lord	Round, J.
Lewis, W.	Rushbrook, R.
Liddell, H. T.	Rushout, G.
Litton, E.	Russell, Lord J.
Lockhart, A. M.	St. Paul, H.
Logan, H.	Sanderson, R.
Long, W.	Sandon, Visct.
Lowther, J.	Scarlett, hon. J.
Lygon, G.	Scarlett, hon. R.
Mackenzie, T.	Shaw, right hon. F.
Mackinnon, W.	Sheppard, T.
Maclean, D.	Shirley, E. J.
Mactaggart, J.	Sibthorp, Col.
Mahon, Visct.	Slaney, R. A.
Mahony, P.	Smith, A.
Maidstone, Visct.	Smith, hon. D.
Manners, Lord C. S.	Somerset, Lord G.
Marsland, T.	Spencer, hon. F.
Marton, G.	Stanley, E.
Master, T. W. C.	Stewart, J.
Maunsell, T. P.	Stuart, H.
Meynell, Capt.	Strangways, hon. J.
Miles, W.	Sturt, H. C.
Miles, P. W. S.	Sugden, rt. hn. Sir E.
Milnes, R. M.	Surrey, Earl of
Milton, Visct.	Talbot, C. R.
Moneypenny, T.	Tollemache, F.
Mordaunt, Sir J.	Townley, R. G.
Morpeth, Viscount	Trench, Sir F.
Neeld, J.	Turner, E.
Neeld, J.	Vere, Sir C. B.

Verner, Col.	Wood, C.
Villiers, Lord	Wood, G. W.
Vivian, J. E.	Wood, T.
Wall, C. B.	Wrightson, W. B.
Welby, G. E.	Wynn, C. W.
Westenra, H. R.	York, hon. E.
Wilberforce, William	Young, G. F.
Wilbraham, G.	Young, J.
Wilbraham, B.	Young, Sir W.
Wilkins, W.
Williams, R.	TELLERS.
Wilshere, W. E.	Seymour, Lord
Wodehouse, E.	Smith, R. V.