MINISTERS AND THE BALLOT.
IN previous pages will be found accounts of numerous elec- tions lost by the Liberals for want of the secret suffrage. "With the Ballot, this election would have been gained"—" with the Bal- lot, the Tories would not have a chance here"—" without the Ballot, there is no use in bringing forward a candidate in the Li- beral interest"—" unless we are to have the Ballot, this entire dis- trict will become Tory"—" the poor voters will not exert them- selves for a Government which denies them the protection of the Ballot"—" such is the tenor of published and private coiumuni- tons from men of knowledge and experience in all parts of the country.
Meanwhile, Sir JOHN CAMPBELL cannot bring himself to think well of secret suffrage; and Sir HENRY PARNELL, w he does approve of it, cannot muster the courage to act on his own opinion— he prefers his place under the MELBOURNE Government, Isrg PALMERSTrmi Mr. SPRING RICE, and Lord JOHN RUSSELL goto the hustitags and deliver speeches against the Ballot. Liverpool Hull, r.nd Bath, are lost for want of protection to the depeifigi voter ; London had very nearly exchanged a Liberal for a T. in Ole approaching Country elections we fully expect to see oadi: tions to the Tory force from the same cause : and yet our )44 ters coolly tell the people and their own constituents—ay, thcit own constituents, for the Ballot is demanded in Edinburgh, Dundee, Cambridge, Tiverton, and Stroud, as well as in Lou* Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester, and Liverpool—that there t00% be more intimidation before an effectual measure can be taken to Prevent it ; that the dependent voters have not been sufficing, coerced as yet, that their spirit must be put to a sterner tee, and that Toryism must gain greater triumphs before the inevi. table Ballot shall be conceded. Ministers put the electoral both to torture : how many limbs must be dislocated—which vita part must be touched, before relief is to be applied?
When we read the Ministerial speeches at Edinburgh, Si, Cambridge, and Tiverton, and then turn to our reports of the Bo. rough elections, u ith the County elections of next week in pm. peel, we cannot help regarding the authors of those speeches% doomed men, in spite of their late windfall. They seem to% labouring under a species of infatuated imbecility. Like idiot whom a way of escape from destruction is opened, they stand stet. still, or rather fall back towards the fire about to consume thee, smiling all the while with delighted self-complacency.
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