MORALITY OF THE OPPONENTS OF THE BALLOT; IN his address
to the electors of Stroud, Lord Josue Resew,
dwelt upon the advantages of national education, and stated that the subject occupied the earnest attention of Ministers. Mr. WARD, at Sheffield, was delighted to hear this ; and there are new
few, even among the Tories, who do not profess to regard ths education of the people as essential to our social wellbeing, Education, however, would be useless, perhaps hurtful, unless it
improved the morals and habits of the people. When, therefore, we see that men who talk ore rotunda, like Lord JOHN Remit
and Sir WILLIAM FoLLErr, about the blessings of popular atm. tion, uphold a political system which generates vice of' almost every description by wholesale, we confess that we have very little respect for their consistency, and give small credit to their ern. fessions.
Now a contested election, as at present conducted, counteracy in a few weeks the effect of years of sound instruction. The quit. tity of vice and wretchedness arising and to arise from the geneal election in which we are now engaged, is quite fearful. Whole communities previously in a state of comparative purity, litie the populace of Bath for instance, have been demoralized. Then are multitudes who will rue the practices with which they first became familiar in the committee-rooms of opposing candidates, Many a wife and mother, many a family of children, will expeti. ence want and misery, the consequence of the misconduct digits who, till the election of 1837, was the sober, honest, and industrions head of a decent though too often needy household. Men who formerly disdained to lie, have been bribed to commit perjury. Others, who at till risks maintained their right to vote conscien- tiously, are dreading the ruinous effects of their independence of mind. Whichever way we turn, may be seen profligacy and suffering, the result of the general election. There is a remedy for all this wrong, a preventive of all this crime, in the simple expedient of secret voting. Yet the uses who talk religiously and preach about morality and "education,'
obstinately refuse to try it. They pretend that it would be no remedy—let them try it. It would he useless to go over the argte
ments for, and the baseless assertions against the Ballot : his sufficient to remark, that some of its principal opponents admit that they may be driven to adopt it as the lesser of two evils. If they could hold such an opinion previously to the present election, they must surely have found it marvellously strengthened by the events of' the last few weeks. Compared with the practices of this election, former electioneering profligacy, bribery, and intimida- tion, were mere trifles.
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