THE CONVERSION OF THE HOME SECRETARY TO THE BALLOT.
"UR. AUSTIN BRUCE has, we believe, impressed both the late House of Commons and the country generally, as one of that most popular type of English statesmen which, without being particularly radical at heart, is radical through the firmness and clearness of his intellect, which cannot endure to see a real evil merely trimmed or truncated, when it might be eradicated. He is usually supposed,—and, we believe, very justly,—to be a man whose actions have always a very strong presumption of reasonableness in their favour even when they seem least reasonable ; and certainly, his complete and unanswerable vindication of his, at first sight, unintelligible leniency in advising the Queen to reprieve the convict Bisgrove, is another confirmation of the public confidence in his strength of judgment. When, then, we find a statesman of this type,—without any of the old animus in favour of a radical formula,—telling his constituents that, in spite of his dislike to secret voting, and his steady refusal hitherto to support it, he has, under the light of the facts brought before him by the last election, decided that secret voting involves less evil than open voting, and that he shall support the Ballot in future, we cannot but admit that the chances in favour of the Ballot have assumed an entirely new aspect, and that the reasons which have induced such a statesman as Mr. Bruce to support it require and deserve the gravest consideration. And this accordingly we now propose to give it.
Mr. Bruce admits that "the institutions of a country ought to foster a manly, truthful, fearless spirit, and that any institution which would have a contrary effect would be a mischievous institution." "I have myself," continues Mr. Bruce, " often quoted the famous saying of Sydney Smith that it was not by the Ballot-box, that it was not by concealing their political opinions, that the Dutchmen drove the Spaniards out of Holland, or that the Americans achieved their independence, and I may add that it was not by secret but by open action that Scotchmen maintained their civil independence and gained their religious liberty. I have also, no doubt with considerable truth, insisted on the benefit to all of us which trial is, and that every man who once performed an action which exposed him to risk was a stronger and a better man for doing so." Yet, in spite of these admissions,— which are, by the way, far from bringing out the full strength of the case against the Ballot,—Mr. Bruce has withdrawn his objection to the Ballot on various grounds, chiefly this, that at election times intolerance rises to so artificial a height that even honest and brave electors are exposed to an amount of insolent pressure—not only from the rich, but also from the poor— which makes an election under the present law an intolerable nuisance to them, and one to which they ought not to be
exposed. "I have observed small tradesmen, during the recent election, which lasted four months, who were hardly ever free from intimidation and from threats of withdrawal of custom, and not from the richer of their customers only, but from the poorer also." Further, the process of tendering the vote at the polling-booth was so formidable, and exposed so many voters to insult, and even injury, that those less interested in political matters stayed away altogether. Now, says Mr. Bruce, trial should be proportioned to
the occasion. You may fairly ask a man to undergo serious persecution rather than deny his religious faith or his God ; but can you fairly ask a man to undergo serious persecution of the sort involved in endangering the subsistence and welfare of his family, for the purpose only of exercising his judgment freely on a matter which he does not care very much about, and which seems to him, whether rightly or wrongly, to involve rather trivial issues. In other words, Mr. Bruce would ask us, we suppose,—would you insist that it was a man's duty to give an opinion at all on a question (say) of roadmending or even Church-rating, if the opinion would involve great annoyance and worry to him ? Do not men every day disguise or suppress from mere motives of personal regard a number of opinions for which they are asked, because if freely given they might give pain both to others and to themselves ; and if so, how can you blame a man who cares but little for politics for taking the same line with regard to political matters, if he finds it personally distreising to avow such uncertain impressions as he has formed ' ? It may be true, Mr. Bruce might add, that men ought to hare stronger and more eager opinions on politics than is here assumed ; but is it the way to encourage honest and earnest political study, to make men feel that if they get strong convictions on such sub-. jects, they will either have to suffer for, or perhaps to disguise and sacrifice them ? In a word, it appears to be Mr. Bruce's notion that the majority of the poorer voters have not at present fixed strong opinions, and cannot begin to have them,—
at least, on rational and judicial grounds,—unless they are effectually protected from all personal insult and persecution in expressing them. In other words, he asks for the Ballot, in order to prevent riotous scenes at the election itself, and in order to ensure shade and shelter to the weakly growth of political conviction in the minds of those who cannot well be expected either to form or cling to political views of any sort with anything like a religious fervour or sense of obligation. If there were but sufficient vitality and energy in every man's political nature to make a faith of his politics, then Mr. Austin Bruce appears to think he ought to be expected to endure persecution like a man, and feel strengthened by it. But as political conviction is only a very delicate plant in the minds of the majority of poor voters, we must encourage the growth of the roots, just as we do that of hyacinth roots, by putting them into the dark for a time, at least till they have made enough root to bear the light.
We suspect Mr. Austin Bruce's reasoning, if good for as much as he supposes, is good for a good deal more, namely, as condemnatory of the policy of enfranchising a class with so little of definite political conviction in it. A class which does not much care whether Mr. Gladstone's policy is accepted. for Ireland or Mr. Disraeli's, is scarcely a fit class to which.
to entrust the decision which of the two is to be accepted. But without urging this point, our main answer to Mr.
Bruce's argument is this,—that an opinion on public affairs formed in secret, and not tested or justified by public expression at all, wants altogether the principal guarantees of sound. public opinion. What you encourage by the shade and_ shelter of secrecy is not the growth of a sound public. opinion, but of a variety of units of strictly private opinion about public matters,—a very different thing, and an infinitely less valuable thing. What is the value of a strictly private view on any subject, before it has been moulded and sifted by submission to the test of criticism and remark from those who have the best opportunity of knowing its deficiencies or excesses? What is the value of a strictly indi vidual opinion even on domestic matters unless it has run the gauntlet of family criticism and discussion V What is the worth of any opinion on political matters, concealed from general view, formed in the dark, and formed, therefore, without that reference to the necessity of justifying and defending it to others, which is one of the best guarantees both of sincerity and accuracy, namely, that it proceeds from personal conviction, and that it proceeds from a personal conviction not founded. entirely on onesided considerations ? Certainly very much less than of political convictions which are prepared to run the gauntlet of adverse criticism, and formed, therefore, under a sense of public responsibility. Indeed, it is one of the justest and commonest criticisms on even the honestly and anxiously formed opinions of men who live in solitude and without submitting their views to the " natural selection " of social criti cism, that such opinions are crotchets that do not take into account the conditions of actual life. But, again, besides this, such opinions will too often not be anxiously formed under asense of public responsibility at all. No doubt we may hope that nothing could remove wholly the sense of public duty in relation to political opinion,—because, if anything could, there would
be nothing nearly so respectable in the public wish, arbitrarily formed and without relation to anything beyond the caprice of the crowd, as there is even in an enlightened despotism or an aristocracy governed by a supreme sense of political honour. It is because politica take their root in public duties, that any man who is competent to understand such duties and rights may claim to share in them. And if the Ballot turned out harmless, it could only be because the sense of public duty would still enter men's consciences and mould their secret votes. Of course we hope that this would be so to a very large extent. But is it not certain that secrecy would very much diminish the clearness with which the electors realize that they are discharging a duty, not to themselves chiefly, but to others, and are bound to consider not merely their own, but their fellowmen's interests and welfare ? Anything that has a tendency to reduce the power to vote to a mere sense of privilege, to be exercised chiefly, if not solely, on personal considerations, —anything that has a tendency to reduce it to the level of the balloting for new members at a club,—has a tendency to lower the whole tone of political morality, and to increase the share of caprice, and of arbitrary personal preferences, in our political verdicts. It seems to us as clear that political opinion, if it is to be healthy, should be formed under public influence and public pressure, as that a plant, if it is to be healthy, should be allowed to breathe the air, and not put under the receiver of an air-pump. And we should say so precisely as strongly if we had universal suffrage, as now when we have in the boroughs only household suffrage, and in the counties only a £12 suffrage. It is not merely that our present electors are trustees for a vast number of others who have no votes, and that therefore they are as much bound to give their votes under the eyes of the non-electors, as are members of Parliament to submit their votes to the eyes of the constituencies which return them. That is not now our point at all, though it has weight. It is rather this, that no political opinion formed without the sense of public responsibility can be sound, and that the habit of secrecy in the delivery of opinion has a tendency to promote a habit of secrecy in forming it,—in other words, a habit of giving weight to mere private taste and irresponsible preferences in political life generally. Of course, we, as genuine Liberals, believe that this must in the end do infinite injury to the cause of Liberalism, just as all genuine Conservatives will, with equally good logic, believe that it will do infinite injury to the cause of Conservatism.
We admit freely all the evils of the present system. We admit that many of those evils,—not the corruption, but the undue influence, the threatening, and intimidation, —might be very greatly diminished by secret voting. But we sincerely believe that in the effort to exclude the pressure of illegitimate influences, we should exclude the pressure of infinitely more important legitimate influences, without which a sound political opinion could not be formed at all. We know by experience the mischiefs of public voting ; we do not know by experience the mischiefs of secret voting, and we believe they would prove far the more important of the two. Shut out publicity, and we let in the most dangerous of all the influences under which a crowd can act,—caprice, arbitrariness, the fiat of a mere concurrence of wishes. The despot acts under a restraint,—the restraint of respect for the nobles and the people. Au aristocracy acts under a restraint,—the restraint of respect for the masses before whom it is powerless. But a democracy acts under no restraint except deference to its own reason and justice. Protect each unit of the democracy from all fear of being tried by the common standard of reason and justice, and you tend to generate, instead of a steady public opinion, a fickle popular caprice.
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