The Evening Star TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1870

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2121, 22 February 1870, Page 2

The Evening Star TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1870

When a few clays ago we insisted ou the advisability of vote by ballot, in order to secure an unbiassed representation, we did not expect so glaring an illustration of its necessity would be brought under our notice as has just been afforded us. The reasons given were to secure voters against undue influence being exercised in order to coerce them to support particular candidates. As a matter of course it was presumed that whatever means were odopted. M ould be use-id before an election, and that passed over, whatever heart burnings, jealousies, or enmities wore aroused dining its progress, no steps would be taken to perpetuate them. Even the most rabid advocates of open voting, in theory at least, would desire that the political struggle over, those ties ol friendship that had been broken should be resumed, or at least so far glossed over as to enable men to conduct the allairs of life witli mutual outward tokens of respect. Unfortunately in politics, as in religion, there arc enthusiasts who cannot forgive differences of creed. Anyone who does not think with them is a heretic, who ought to be marked. Were it not that the days of hanging, burning, and the rack arc passed, had they the power, they would consign them to one or the other, or put a brand upon them that they might be known, avoided, and despised. It matters not that they have not the power to do this ; the spirit is the same, and in degree it is folloAved out in practice. We hardly know what conclusion to arrive at, whether the Tuapcka Timex lias been made the vehicle of this malevolence, or whether the extraordinary article inserted in it has been permitted a place there through ignorance on the part of a returning officer. Certainly strange things are done in the upcountry papers, although without some political motive we cannot see why a journal that assumes to be respectable should not have refused to become particeps rnminis, even assuming it to be a sin of ignorance. The matter stands thus : a vacancy in the representation of Wallace having occurred, two gentlemen, Messrs J. C. Brown and G. Webster became candidates. The election took place on the 17th September of last year, and now, in the month of February, there is an article published in the Tuapcka Timex, with the name of the Returning Officer attached, containing the names and residences of the voters, and the record of the vote given by each. This is open voting with a vengeance. It is bad enough that people should be allowed to know how an elector records bis vote from his own lips, but a more disgraceful act cannot be perpetrated than that in addition to the possible disagreeable social consequences of that vote, it shall bo blazoned through the length and breadth

of the land in the columns of a newspaper. It may bo that not one of those who polled on the occasion cares one jot as to his name and vote being proclaimed from the house-top, but by what authority has tin's poll list been published ! So far as we know the course taken is without precedent. The .Returning Officer is appointed by the Governor and fulfils his duty when he has made his return of the election. The record of the votes is for the purpose of inference for the prevention of malpractices and the prosecution of offenders, and may be required by the House of Representatives either to justify or condemn a vote or to confirm or alter the return ; but we have 3m t to learn that it is, in the true sense of the word, a public document. Wo do not know even that anyone has a right without permission of the House of Representatives to examine that poll list, still less that it shall appear in tin; public prints. If there lie objections to a ■ oie. they must bo made, considered, and rocutled at the time of the election, and not subjected to the alter scrutiny of tin; elwtorau body. That is nut their office. Iso one o t 'getoi’ is answerable to the rest for his vote, ,;i;d when the poll book is closed, so far as the public arc concerned they arc shut out from further cognisance of it, and any future proceedings must be taken )>v the House of Representatives. As an officer answerable only to the Governor and the legislature, we cannot but think that the Returning Officer has been guilty of a serious breach of privilege} which the House caninß afford to pass over. Ry the. Constitution Act the province of a Returning | Officer is to execute his Excellency’s I writ, to conduct the election impar- j tialls, to declare publicly the name of i the person elected, and to return the j 1 writ. To do more than this is to ex- j coed his duty. Rut it the Returning j Officer has committed a breach ox 1

viloge. we are inclined to tliink the Tuaprka, Timex is also liable to be called to account by the House of .Representatives. The Returning OOicor may have placed the poll-book in their

hands through misconception of duty, but it was giving them the means of using it for political purposes. Wc do not know sufficient of the. gentlemen who were candidates to be able to express an opinion as to whether the publication of the names of their supporters would be likely to bring one side or other under the ban of popular condemnation. There are states of political fooling when such might be the result. The more publication of the poll-book therefore might hje—tor aught we know was—a political mow', and assuming the journal to have a particular bins, although the article is given without comment, it might operate prejudicially to one side or the other in future. So far as the journal is concerned, the poll-hook ought never to have come into their hands ; and a stronger argument cannot be given in favor of the Ballot than the appearance of the article in question.