FARMERS AND THE VOTE.
[To ass Emma or TOE "8racravea."1 SIN,—Reading the last London weeklies as I jolted over a South Indian road in a bullock waggon, it was only yesterday that from your columns I learned that Lord Lansdowne had put the following words into the mouth of the British farmer: "As to voting how I like, the ballot gives me the necessary protection." Immediately my mind was back on a South Westmorland farm, on polling day, at the by-election of March last, and I was endeavouring to persuade a farmer who had always supported the Liberal cause to record his vote. He was, however, immovable in his decision to abstain, and reluctantly admitted that the landlord's agent had called on him on the previous day, and had secured a promise that he would not vote at all on this occasion. There is no protec- tion in the Ballot Act against tyranny of this kind, which you will readily see is ten times more oppressive than a request to promise the vote for a certain candidate. I merely quote this one case because it came directly and fully within my personal knowledge.—I am, Sir, &c.,
[We quite agree that this was a most improper action on the part of the agent. But we may be allowed to point out that, on Mr. Somervell's own showing, the farmer had been in the habit of voting Liberal in the past, and that no evidence is forthcoming of his having been penalized for his independence. To judge from our own experience, landowners are mach more afraid of being pilloried for intervention than tenants are of being dictated to in the matter of their votes.—En. Spectator.]
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