THE BALLOT.

Evening Star, Volume VII, Issue 1910, 19 June 1869, Page 2

THE BALLOT.

F«dM “ THE GLADSTONE GOVERNMENT,” BY A TEMPLAR. Throughout his parliatneirtary career, Mr Bruce has beeu perseveringly and consistently a liberal politician. Upon one only subject of especial importance has he had occasion to revise his originally expressed opinions. It is one, however, in regard to which many, we rejoice to believe now most firmly, will speedily find it advisable to fol ow the very course just recently pursued, frankly and manfully, and without a moment’s further hesitation, by Her Majesty’s Secretary of State for the Home Department. Hitherto Mr Bruce has avowed himself to be distinctly and resolutely an opponent of the Ballot. He now confesses himself to be a convert to that great measure ; and thfs not in a half-hearted way but boldly and confidently. We, who have been ourselves (meaning tbe writer of these pages) for upwards of three-and-twenty years among tne most devoted and enthusiastic advocates of the Ballot, as the most effectual means that could by any possibility he qqnt?‘i ve d f° r the guarding agaipst bribery and intimidation, for the ensuring, in other words, of a complete and thoroughly reliable electoral independence, cannot, as a matter of course, but exult now over those rapidly multiplying signs of the times, which point as clearly $3 any signs of the times could do, as by one accord to the certain triumph. Sooner or later (and sooner, we believe, it will be than later), of a great principle, for the ulterior success of which we have, during so protracted an ininterval as nearly one quarter of a century, through good report and‘evil report, labored, as we have labored, earnestly and unhesitatingly. Accomplished that triumph of the Ballot will be; and that it is coming, and that speedily, has been clearly enough indicated since th e present Government came into power; among others, by the Prime Minister himself, and by the first lord of the Admiralty, but by none more clearly or more emphatically, than by the Cabinet Minister —ligw more immediately under our consideration—her Majesty's present Horae Secretary. Recognising at last the imperative necessity there is for the adoption of the Ballot, more particularly now that the electoral franchise has been placed upon the widened basis of household suffrage, the Home Secretary shrink 3 hUt from (It once boldly and honestly avowing himself to be a convert to the cause of those who have long before him believed in its efficacy. —Sketch of the Right Honorable A. Bruce.