Politics.

OUGHT WE NOW TO HAVE THE BALLOT?

AFFIRMATIVE ARTICLE.-I.

THE Reform Act recently passed having conferred the elective franchise to the extent of household suffrage upon the different classes of this country, it follows as a necessary result that the parties to whom this privilege or right is granted should be protected from all undue influences in the exercise of their votes. This protection can only be secured by the operation of the ballot; as it alone can adequately meet the wants of the case, and protect the voter from all influences, either direct or indirect, that may be brought to bear upon him.

The object of the ballot is to ascertain the true mind of the constituencies by preventing intimidation, corruption, &c.; and, above all, to shield the poor, dependent voter from the displeasure of his employer or superior in the event of voting contrary to his wishes. It matters little to a man placed in an independent position whether he votes in a public or a private manner, but it is entirely different with one who depends upon another for subsistence. In the former instance the voter need fear no consequences, vote as he may; while in the latter, the voter runs the risk of losing his employment or his farm, should he vote against his employer or his landlord. The only point of difference that the ballot would make in the present system of voting is that it would allow the voters to record their votes in secret instead of openly. This system, it will be seen, would enable the electors to give full scope to their own opinions and convictions. It would neutralize the baneful effects of corruption and coercion, and prevent them from having any influence upon the voter's mind. Besides, it would go far to do away with canvassing and the many evils that are connected with it.

If the franchise is to be of any benefit to those to whom it has recently been given, it is manifest that the elector must be placed in an entirely independent position, so far as voting is concerned; he must be able to exercise the privilege without fear of future consequences. Nay, more, he must occupy such a position that his political conduct will be above the suspicion of influences of any kind; for when the smallest pressure is put upon an individual, it has a tendency to withhold, to a certain extent at least, the full expression of his own mind. It thus becomes one of the highest duties of the State to see that the powers which it grants to the people are properly and freely exercised. In the present system of voting the dependent voter is wholly unprotected from the

influences that may be, and too often are, brought against him; and this undoubtedly will continue to be the case so long as open voting remains the law of the land. In fact, open voting is a powerful lever in the hands of the rich and influential, whereby the opinions of the weak are suppressed, and their political action is nullified by intimidation. On the other hand, the ballot would enable a man, poor as well as rich, to do as he thought proper; it would enable him to act according to his own ideas of right, and to give effect to his own opinions.

Indeed, the main argument for the ballot lies in this-that it constitutes a protection to the voter from the pressure of external influences. There is evidently a distinction to be drawn between those who employ and those who are employed, and there is a still greater distinction in the relative positions of landlord and tenant, -more particularly when the latter is a mere tenant at will. As a general rule, all the tenants take the side of their landlord, and it cannot possibly be conceived that they are all of one mind, or of the same mind as he is. But, then, they are controlled by him, and made to do as he does. Now the only means (so long as society is constituted as it is) that can do away with the landlord's influence, or at least render it powerless, is the introduction of the ballot. It is certainly unnatural to expect that, where a voter is a mere tenant at will, he would thwart the wishes of his landlord, thereby incurring the danger of being removed from his farm, and so be deprived of his means of subsistence. Even taking the mildest view of the subject, it has been found that where a landlord has a delicacy in asking the votes of his tenant, or is high principled enough to abstain from such a course, his very example goes a great length in deciding the suffrages of those who hold his land. The tenants know well that the landlord would be better pleased with those who took the same side as himself than with those who went against him; and this knowledge has a natural tendency to keep them from acting in the manner they otherwise might have done. There cannot, therefore, be any doubt that all these influences, direct and indirect, prove a formidable barrier to the expression of individual sentiments and convictions. The same rule applies to the employer of labour, such as a large manufacturer or mill-owner. Thus a man with four or five hundred hands under him must have a considerable influence over them; and if he choose to use it, he can doubtless induce a large number to vote according to his inclinations, regardless of their own convictions. The ballot in this, as in the former case, appears to be the only remedy. It may, however, be urged that the working classes themselves have sufficient power to become independent of their employers. That may be true in the great centres of labour, where trades' unions and co-operative societies exist, but it is wholly inapplicable to the provinces and small towns. Taken all in all, we submit that the only way in which sufficient protection can be afforded to the working classes, farmers, servants, &c., is to make them superior to all the influences

already enumerated, and incident to their situation; and this, we maintain, can only be effectually secured by the introduction of the ballot.

It would make no difference to the legislature whether its members were returned by open or secret voting; for it is easier for a voter to select the best man and give him his support in private than it is for him to be the minion of those who may rule over him in public, creating jealousy, ill-feeling, and evil consequences, which never would have arisen had the due exercise of the franchise been withheld from the gaze of the public. And if it is easier, it certainly is far more likely to be productive of public good; for in the one case the voice of the nation is allowed to speak, while in the other it is the voice of a few interested and selfish, though powerful parties. A voter of pure political principle can have as much effect given to his vote by voting privately as if he had given it before the eyes of the assembled constituency, and he will give it just as conscientiously in the one case as in the other. The ballot is not intended for the strong, although it can do them no harm, but rather as a security for the weak. It is designed to stamp out bribery, corruption, and intimidation; to destroy the tyranny of the selfish on the one hand, and to give freedom of thought and action, with morality of purpose and independence, on the other.

The principal argument brought forward by the opponents of the ballot is its injurious moral effects, but this can be readily answered by maintaining that it is just as moral for a conscientious man to act rightly in secret as in public, and that such a man will require neither inducements nor checks to carry out his convictions. Nay, it is at once apparent that it is far more moral to place poor dependent men in a position in which they can act according to their own sense of right and duty than it is to lay a man open to all the influences that may be used against him by unscrupulous persons, who themselves require no protection.

The only motive that should guide the elector in the exercise of the franchise is the public weal, but it is no less evident that motives spring from a variety of circumstances. All men are quite able to distinguish personal from public duties, and electors have a double set of motives in determining their conduct. A voter, on the one hand, has his own individual advancement, which would induce him to vote from selfish principles; while, on the other, he is aware that he has a public duty to perform apart from his own interests. These interests may purely relate to self, or be exercised for the public good. John Stuart Mill, the eminent Utilitarian philosopher, conceives ("Representative Government," page 31) that a much greater evil than coercion by landlords or employers "is the selfishness or the selfish partialities of the voter himself." This requires little comment, for if the practice of human beings be taken into consideration, it will be found that a selfish man is as likely to be selfish in public as in private; and that a man who is both selfish and independent will look after his own interest in

preference to all others, as public opinion will have little or no influence upon his mind. It is chimerical to imagine that the majority of voters can be trained to such a pitch that nice moral distinctions will shape their career. A voter's interest is that which has relation to himself, either mentally or morally, and it cannot be supposed that in expressing his own political principles. he would represent any other interest save his own. Mr. Mill, in the work before referred to, says that "People will give dishonest or mean votes from lucre, from malice, from pique, from personal rivalry, from the interests or prejudices of class or sect, far more readily in secret than in public." Mr. Mill adduces this as an argument against the ballot, but common sense would tell a different tale. He ought to have remembered that dishonest or mean votes are generally given when seduced by bribery and corruption. Bribery can only exist or be carried out while voting is public, for no one would attempt bribery when the party who bribed would have no means of knowing whether the bribe had any effect or not. It would immediately cease on the introduction of the ballot, for it would have no field on which to operate; as a person would have no security that the bribe would have any effect when the vote of the seduced is beyond the knowledge of the seducer. Instead of the influence of lucre being an argument against the ballot, as stated by Mr. Mill, it is exactly the reverse; for it is lucre that constitutes bribery. No candidate or agent would ever dream of buying a vote, directly or indirectly, when the action of the voter was beyond his knowledge. It is only in public voting that lucre has any influence. And with regard to the other interests enumerated by Mr. Mill, such as those of trade and class, it is clear enough that in open voting the members of a trade generally take the one side, while a few who adopt a different view are coerced by the great majority of their brethren, so that secret voting is the only medium through which liberty can be given to individual thought in large trades and unions. Mr. Mill has laid too much stress on the selfishness of the voter, and the argument can cut in two ways. It may be granted that the employed and those who employ are possessed of this principle of selfishness. In open voting those who have power can carry out their selfishness in a far greater degree than if voting were secret; while in the latter case every one would have an opportunity of representing his own opinion, and, it may be, his own individual selfishness.

Mr. Mill contends that a man's own preferences may lead him wrong, but a man of sound principle has no other preferences than his own convictions. A man's opinion, though right in his own estimation, may be viewed differently by another; but, in any event, one has no higher standard of that which he should do other than what his judgment tells him he ought to do. Mr. Mill further maintains that secret voting would withdraw a feeling of responsibility which the voter owes to the public; and in his work on "Representative Government" (page 35) lays it down that "Pub:

licity is inappreciable, even when it does no more than prevent that which can by no possibility be plausibly defended-than compel deliberation, and force every one to determine, before he acts, what he shall say if called to account for his actions." He believes that there is a certain class who want all moral principle for whom open voting is absolutely required to prevent them from giving votes in the wrong direction. This class may be termed the "doubtful," in whom no party can place confidence at contested elections. But Mr. Mill assumes a false position when he imagines that mere open voting will compel them to do what is right. If Mr. Mill had any practical experience, he would find it rather difficult to force every one of this class "to determine, before he acts, what he shall say if called to account for his actions." It is wholly inapplicable, for they have no one to call them to account, and they therefore simply watch the tide of events in order that they may discover which side will blow them any advantage. Having no higher authority than their own inclinations or fancies, they acknowledge no human responsibility. It may be asked, how can this state of moral depravity be remedied? Simply by the withdrawal of all inducements, and this can never be done through the agency of open voting. Publicity is a virtue or a quality of which a great deal may be said, but any virtue that could possibly arise from it would be outbalanced in a greater degree by the independence of those protected by the ballot. But it may as often happen that protection is even required from public opinion, and experience has taught that the voice of the public is not always on the safe side. Public opinion may be the product of ignorance, and is it natural to suppose that the intelligent are to be coerced by Lynch law and violence? If the ballot is a protection to the voter from intimidation, it will also be a safeguard from the clamour of popular ignorance.

Legislators should always frame laws for society as it exists, but theorists and moralists form a code of ethics in their own minds that cannot be applied, or prove of any practical benefit to the present condition of society. They argue upon society as it should be, and not what it actually is. Mr. Mill has a beau ideal standard, and he assumes that society should be of a like moral character. His theory is that society must act up to certain imaginary excellencies, instead of what modern statesmen apply as real and practicable. It certainly is the part of a wise statesman to be guided by the circumstances in which he may be placed, but Mr. Mill's standard cannot be measured by this gauge. Mr. Bright, in his speech at the Corn Exchange, Edinburgh, thus refers to Mill's theory:-"For my own part, I am not able to accept of those glowing pictures of the immediately improved morality of the people. If it be wise not to grant the ballot because men without it will become strong enough not to need it, I know not why we may not dispense with judge and jury and police; for who knows but that at some time-it may be remote-men will become strong