IRISH " ILLITERATE " VOTERS.
NVHENEVER it is contended that, emphatic as has been the declaration of the "predominant partner" at the recent Elections in favour of the Union, the mass of Irish people have voted as solidly as ever for Home-rule, and have even strengthened the Nationalist representation in Parliament, Unionists are entitled, and, indeed, bound, to look at the facts behind the number of Nationalist Members returned. Conspicuous among these facts is the great number of " illiterate " voters in Ireland. Statistics with regard to the comparative strength of the " illiterate " vote in the different parts of the United Kingdom at this year's polls are not yet available. But they are available with regard to the Elections of 1892, and facts are available in relation to the Elections:of last month, which go far to show that the next set of figures on this subject is not likely to be less impressive than the last. In 1892, there voted as " illiterate " in England and Wales, 46,109 electors ; in Scotland, 4,5'7; and in Ireland, 84,919,— figures which yielded percentages of F24, 0.98, and 21.50, in the three parts of the United Kingdom respectively on the total number of votes polled. Now, if those figures could be accepted as corresponding to' the actual state of facts, a great deal might properly be said as to the relative value of votes cast by electors who can, and by electors who cannot, read and write. But it is notorious that the illiterate vote in Ireland is to a large extent an brganised imposture. Electors are instructed to make the declaration of illiteracy who can read and write, but as to whose political soundness there is so much misgiving among the Nationalist organisers, that it is not thought safe to allow them to exercise the freedom of the ballot. Of this fact there is, we believe, no doubt or question whatever. We have been at pains to inquire with regard to some of the Northern constituencies, and the information which reaches us from trustworthy corre- spondents reveals a state of things amounting to a flagrant scandal. Thus, with regard to one constituency in which the Nationalists gained a seat, we hear that an elector insisted on making the declaration of illiteracy, as to whom it was ascertained in argument before the pre- siding officer, that he held an employment necessitating his being able to read and write. We should have sup- posed that in such a case the presiding officer would have been empowered to refuse to allow the voter to make and act on an openly false declaration, but that does npt appear to be the law; and we are assured that glaring impostures occurred "in dozens of other cases" in one group of polling-booths in the constituency in question. Our informant adds that many Roman Catholic voters were seen, as they came into the booth, reading their number on the register from the cards furnished to them by the Nationalist organisation, and that, having thus announced their respective numbers without assistance, they proceeded immediately to state that they "could not mark their papers." With regard to another con- stituency we are informed, from an excellent source, that many of the people who declare themselves illiterate "are known to be able to read and write ; " and that some who had made the declaration and voted accordingly "were seen almost immediately afterwards reading a newspaper." In one instance only have we heard of a failure on the part of a soi-disant illiterate to obtain treatment as such, and that was entirely due to the recklessness of the voter, who looked over the sheet on which his name and address were being entered, and remarked that the name of the place from which he came was misspelt ! He perceived too late that he had given himself away, and in self-defence abandoned his claim to illiteracy. Unless, however, the elector professing to be illiterate thus openly demon- strates that he is lying, there appears to be no check whatever on this system of fraud. Some of our readers may remember the story—we believe quite a true one— which we printed in 1892 of the schoolmaster who claimed, and was allowed, to vote as an illiterate, and of the Nationalist politician, who, when the circumstance was mentioned to him as a good joke by an English lady, re- plied, without a smile, "Shure, and we weren't shure of him." Public opinion, it seems, on the Nationalist side, does not condemn these practices. Not only so ; but we fear that it cannot be disputed that they are absolutely inculcated by many of the priests. One of the correspondents quoted above thus describes the part which ministers of the Roman Catholic Church play after the names of the candidates have been announced for a Parliamentary election, in one of the constituencies with which he is familiar ; and he affirms that it is broadly typical of what happens in Ireland generally From every altar in , on the following Sunday, directions were given, in more or less forcible language, to the voters how they were to proceed. Schools were formed by the priests, copies of the ballot-papers were procured, and the voters were told where to put the cross. Numbers of them were told to vote illiterate When the polling-booth was reached, long files of electors were formed. Numbers of priests from outside districts were imported, who mar- shalled the 'free and independent L electors, and kept dinging into their heads the name of the person they were to vote for Inside the booths the scene was even more discreditable. There the agents were mostly priests ; the poor voters, in order to show without doubt for whom they voted, and also to prevent any chance of the paper being spoiled, in numbers of cases declared themselves illiterate, and voted for the priests' nominee. You can well picture to yourself," continues our correspondent, "the feelings of these poor people when, ushered singly into the ballot-room, they found themselves again in the presence of their priests, and compelled to vote with such an influence surrounding them. It is impossible they could exercise freely, without constraint, the sacred trust of the franchise." And, to guard against the off-chance of such lurking independence, "the priests, who know the doubt- ful men, order them to vote illiterate, which most of them do without hesitation." In fact, it appears to have come to this, that refusal on the part of a voter to make a false declaration of illiteracy at the bidding of his priest would be regarded as a sure indication that he meant to vote wrong.
In our opinion, this state of things demands the inter- vention of Parliament. Open voting has its merits and demerits ; so has voting by ballot. But the practice pre- vailing in Ireland combines, in the highest degree, the demerits of both systems with the merits of neither. We do not pretend to believe that under a perfectly free ballot in Ireland there would not still be a large majority of votes cast for some form of Home-rule. But we say, without hesitation, that at present the ballot is notoriously not free, and is so worked that there are no means of ascertaining the real strength of Unionist feeling among the Roman Catholics. Not only so, but the fact that it is so worked affords a powerful presumption that if the ballot were truly free, the Unionist feeling among Roman Catholics would be shown to be substantially greater than it now appears to be. It is probably equally true that if the ballot were truly free there would be an appreciable enhancement of the support given to the Parnellite party in constituencies in which their can- didates are run against the nominees of the party at the leadership of which Mr. Healy is so vigorously clutching. We have no interest in the relative elevation or depression of any section of the Irish Nationalists, but it certainly seems to us clear that Parliament is bound to look into such facts as those to which we have called attention, and to take steps to secure that in future the franchise shall be exercised as freely in Ireland as in Great Britain. What steps are required to meet that requirement is not an absolutely easy question. One of our correspondents urges strongly that the presence of clergymen of any Church, as agents in the polling-booths, should be entirely prohibited, and advances reasons of considerable weight in support of that view, which we should imagine is held by many Unionists. He points out that the presence of the priest in the booth is the last and perhaps most powerful instalment, in the case of the Roman Catholic voters, of a spiritual and moral pressure which, as de- scribed by him above, begins at the altar of the chapel as soon as the names of the candidates are announced ; and he adds, what may readily be believed, that the ignorant Roman Catholic voters very generally hold that the ballot - box cannot conceal the mark on the paper from the priest in the booth. In view of such considerations as these, he maintains that there cannot be true freedom of voting unless the Roman Catholic priests are excluded from acting as agents in the polling-booths, and he assures us, on the strength of a wide knowledge of the inhabitants of his own part of the country, of all classes and creeds, that the presence of the priests in the booths is not liked by the people. We recognise the force of the considerations he advances, but we fear that there are serious difficulties in the way of giving effect to them. The clergy of other religious communities would of course have to be embraced in any prohibitory enactment in this connection ; but as a matter of fact they do not, as we understand, in Ireland, nor, so far as we are aware, in this country, show any desire for the thankless office of personation agent in polling-booths. It would be difficult, therefore, to deprive any prohibitory enactment on the subject of the appearance of being directed against the Roman Catholic priests in particular, and though we fear there is ample evidence to justify Parliament in taking special steps to prevent spiritual intimidation on their part, it is doubtful whether a step which they personally resented would not, on the balance, do more harm than good in Ireland, by neutralising the healing operation of other measures which the present Parliament may pass for the satisfaction of the legitimate susceptibilities of the dominant Church there. No objection of this character, however, applies to the other principal remedy advocated by our correspondent, and one which has for years past been growing in favour among Unionists on both sides of the Irish Channel. We refer to the abolition of the privilege afforded to the illiterate voter of having his ballot-paper marked for him, on his making a declaration of his inability to read. There was never, in our opinion, any sufficient ground for this arrangement, which is at variance with the practice of many States of the American Union ; and whatever justification may have existed for it when the Ballot Act was passed in 1872, has now passed away. Popular education has made enormous strides in the interval, and schools are now within the reach of all c'asies. There is thus no reason why ignorance should possess greater privileges in the United Kingdom, than among our sufficiently democratic kinsmen across the Atlantic. A simple Act of one clause, repealing the twenty-sixth clause of the First Schedule of the Ballot Act, and applicable of course throughout the British Islands, would remove what is a humiliating disfigurement of our electoral system everywhere, besides being, under the special conditions of Irish life, an instrument for the defeat of the intentions of Parliament, and for the perversion of the honest exercise of the franchise. It would still be open to the priests and other Nationalist organisers in Ireland to hold " schools " for the instruction of those really illiterate voters who grew up before the present facilities for obtaining elementary education generally prevailed. But it would not be open to them to require the doubtful voter to make a false declaration in order that they may be "sure of him." The removal of this possibility would, we are sure, be an important gain to the sound political development of Ireland, and it would unquestionably meet with the hearty approval of all enlightened and conscientious members of the Roman Church both there and elsewhere.
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