THE EFFECT OF THE BALLOT.
IT is now pretty evident that the Ballot has not, so far, worked as in one respect we feared it might. It has not diminished the total number of voters. In the City of London, for instance, the number of votes recorded for the highest Liberal and the highest Conservative candidate, taken to- gether, was in 1868 12,650 ; while, this year, the sum-total gives 15,190. Again, in East Surrey, the sum of the highest Liberal and Conservative candidates' votes is this year 9,965 ; while in 1868 it was 7,719. Again, in Liverpool, where the contest in this election was rather tame, the same sum-total is 36,912; while in 1868 it was only 32,103. Or, to take the case of a very small borough chosen at random :— in the Radnor Boroughs, the sum-total of the votes of the two rival candidates was this year 774; while in February, 1869, it was 721. No doubt in most places the number of registered electors has considerably increased. Still, allowing for this, it is quite clear that on this, the first occasion of the use of the Ballot- at the General Election, it has not in the least tended to indifference, as we feared it would. On the contrary, our Conservative contemporary the Globe is quite right in asserting that hitherto the feature of the • elections has been a great increase instead of decrease of the total number of voters. No doubt new brooms sweep clean, and it may very well happen that the toy which is attractive while it is fresh will be thrown aside when it is familiar.
• Still, thus far the Ballot has disappointed one of the worst fears entertained about it, one which we confess that we • strongly shared,—that it might shelter political indifference so effectually as to render it doubtful whether the elections really tested the convictions of the majority of the people or not. It must be fairly admitted by all sincere Liberals that the elections which give the Conservatives their first victory declare in a not less, perhaps even a greater degree, the deliberate choice of the masses of the people, than the elections which gave us so great a Liberal victory in 1868. So far so good. Whatever Liberals want, they do not want to see the popular force of the opinion expressed, be it good or be it bad, diminished. We would even prefer a worse choice supported by a decisive fiat of popular opinion, to a better choice backed only by a doubtful majority. To know that whatever is decided is decided unambiguously by a force from which there is no appeal, does at least give that determinateness to political problems which is one of the most important elements of .political strength. But there is a second element in the manifestations of popular opinion almost as important as their unambiguous- mess and decisiveness for the moment, and that is their stead- fastness or caprice. Now on this point as yet we have no evidence that is favourable. It may be, of course, that the Ballot may promote this also. It may be that it will show the popular vote to be permanently more Conservative in tone than it had ever been under the constraints of open voting. We do not believe, however, that this will be so. As far as we can judge from the past, we are inclined to believe that if the Ballot had been in exist- ence in 1868, the Liberal majority would have been not less, but more decisive than it was, and that if the mode of voting this year had been open voting, the Conservative majority would have been not more, but less decisive than it is. In other words, we think we see that the Ballot increases the tendency to violent fluctuations of opinion,—causes the pendu- lum to swing more suddenly from side to side. For example, Renfrewshire has now had two elections under the Ballo: within less than five months. In September last it returned Colonel Campbell (Conservative) by a majority of 178, after a poll in which 3,532 votes were recorded. This time, with the very same rival candidates, Colonel Mure (Liberal) has been re- turned by a majority of 88 over his opponent, after a poll in which 3,894 votes were recorded. The change of result may be due, no doubt, to a completer poll. That is not the case, however, in Stroud, where the opinion which rejected the Liberal candidate (Sir Henry Havelock) five weeks ago has declared decisively in favour of two Liberal Members on this occasion. Then, no doubt, the reason was an accidental offence given by the Liberal candidate of January to the electors, who, in February, returned triumphantly two Liberals, though one of their rivals was the successful candidate of the previous month. Still, this exactly illustrates our belief that the Ballot lets loose a very unreasonable amount of arbitrary feeling, which the respect for public criticism keeps within certain well-defined limits where there is no secrecy. The very same electors who, had there been no Ballot, would never have ventured to vote for Mr. Dorington simply because they had taken offence at some expression of Sir Henry Havelock's, did venture to do that very thing under the Ballot. And what they ventured to do for one reason, probably other electors in other boroughs will venture to do for another reason. Doubt- less the Ballot will enable every man to do much more com- pletely what he likes as distinguished from what he thinks consistent with his own avowed principles and convictions. But he will very often like to change sides for trivial reasons, because he thinks he has had enough of a special Government, or because he is offended with it for not authorising a money- order office at the nearest post-office, or because he is irritated with the treatment of the local Volunteer corps, or because he did not approve the last nominations of Justices of the Peace, or because his child failed to get a pupil-teacherahip, or from any trifling vexation which it is in any way possible to connect with the action of the Government. Bath, again, has had already four elections under the Ballot within a year. In the first two the Conservative candidate beat the Liberal candidate ; in the third the Liberal candidate beat the Conservative candidate ; and in the last, one Liberal and one Conservative candidate were seated. Captain Hayter, rejected at the election of June by a majority of 51, was returned at the October election by a majority of 139. His victory was confirmed last week, but the election gave him a Conservative colleague in Major Bousfield. It seems pretty clear, therefore, that Bath, never a very steady constituency, uses to the full its absolute right of caprice under secret voting. Our own impression is very strong that the immense weight given to small motives under the secret system will always tend in the direction of rapid oscillations, and for this very good reason :—the Government in power is always the Government which has more or less given offence. It is simply impossible for the Government to satisfy half as many people as those whom it offends. These dissatisfactions, therefore, all tell in the direction of promot- ing a change, of "giving the other party a turn," as many of the electors and non-electors have intimated on this occasion that it seemed fair to do,—partly for the mere sake of some- thing fresh, partly from the accumulation of petty disappoint- ments. Electors who would not choose to be proclaimed as turncoats, as disloyal to their known professions, if their vote were public, will unquestionably give, and no doubt have given, very great weight to petty considerations, both personal and political, under the shadow of the Ballot. Again, the English Press exercises, and will exercise, under secret voting, an influence tending to much more rapid vacilla- tions in the public judgment than it did under the open system. For, as we have seen, every influence, small or great, wbach acts in the direction opposite to that of the political principles to which the individual electors adhere, is likely to take a much stronger effect when men are liberated from the binding power of public engagements and professions, than it does when they act in concert. Now the influence of the Press at the present day is more than ever critical of the acts of men in power, minutely and even mischievously critical, not because the criticism is unfair, but because it tends to make so much more of minute and easily apprehensible blunders than even of a long career of quiet and sagacious administrative policy to which no one calls attention because no one has any fault to find. Under the imperious necessity of finding something to say, the Press very naturally concentrates attention on the dubious points of every administrative policy, and of course amongst the dubious points the blunders are sure to be found. The general effect of this criticism is certainly a solvent of public con- - fidence in the Administration in power, nor does the Press, which in conformity with its party policy defends the actual Government, supply anything like an equivalent for the Press which attacks it. This is so, first, because it only attempts defence on the points criticised, and cannot in any way explain the true set-off against these possible errors, namely, the number of wise and right decisions which no one has ever called in question ; and next, because, at least when Liberals are in office, there really are very few newspapers which will lay themselves out for the official defence of the Administration,—the public interest must always take pre- cedence of party interests,—and, therefore, when there is a real or even only an apparent miscarriage, the Government is apt to be left in the lurch by its own staunchest supporters. The result is that the people hear of every fault, real or apparent, and hear of it almost ad nausecan, but do not hear much of the good services which ought to go a great way towards counter- balancing the effect of these faults. It has been so with Liberal Governments, and doubtless it will be so with the Conservative Government, and we hardly know whether there is any remedy for it,—at all events, while the Press is as capable of criticism as it is, and while the public trusts the Press as much as it does. In America the people trust their highest officers, their President and Senators at least, much more than they trust the Press. That is partly because a large proportion of the Press has been so virulent in its personalities, and so petty and scrappy in its politics, that the people look to it only for news and for amusement, and not very much for guidance. The consequence is that they often persist steadily in trusting officers whom the Press has denounced bitterly and with all kinds of detailed accusations for years, the stories of the newspapers seeming to the people of the various States little more than idle wind. But while our English Press is as good a Court of Appeal as it now is on public affairs,—while every serious charge against a statesman is sure to be fully met, discussed, argued, and judged in it,—and long may that be,—it will inevitably influence greatly the judgment of the electors ; and the effect of this criticism must on the whole be, and be in an increasing degree, damaging to the men in power. Public criticism as it becomes more detailed and complete becomes also more and more of a solvent of political reputation. Further, we maintain that the effect of criticism, which must tell much more heavily against those who are responsible for public affairs than against the Opposition, who are only, like the Press itself, critics of the exercise of that responsibility, must be to diminish greatly the confidence of the electors in the states- men of the party in power, and that this effect will be much greater under the Ballot than under open voting. Under open voting the organisations of party, the loyalty to party principles, the Englishman's dislike to admit that he is changing or appearing to change his mind, all tell greatly in favour of "voting straight," in spite of secret disatisfactions. But these influences lose their power under the secret system, and the dissatisfaction which the solvent criticism of the Press engenders, inevitably tells. All influences unfavourable to the existing Govern- ment are much more formidable under a secret than under an open system, because under secrecy esprit de corps is in a great measure broken up. In a word, though the sensibility of the political balance is doubtless greatly increased by secret voting, yet you may easily have too great a sensibility. You do not want a balance susceptible to the influence of mere caprices and tastes, or even of the more trivial political judgments: you want a balance that will vibrate only when a considerable weight is thrown into one scale or the other, and with the Ballot you have ' one which will vibrate to almost every makeweight, however small. We sincerely believe that the great movement of public opinion over which the Conservatives are now exulting, will very soon, perhaps too soon, turn the balance suddenly in the other direction,—we say too soon, not because we admire the prospect of a Conservative Government, but because we admire still less the prospect of violent oscillations and unstable popular convictions.
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