The Lyttelton Times SATURDAY, March 1, 1851.

Lyttelton Times, Volume I, Issue 8, 1 March 1851, Page 4

The Lyttelton Times SATURDAY, March 1, 1851.

We did not anticipate when we began our editorial labours that almost the first political question which was about to excite any interest in our colony, would be the old and worn out one of The Ballot. But the subject is of importance, because it has been put prominently forward by our neighbours at Nelson and at Wellington, as involving a political want; and, amongst ourselves, has elicited a communication which we publish in another column.

We have some difficulty in arguing the question here, because we have not seen how the system of open voting practically works in a colony. But we are at a loss to conceive how the peculiar evils for which the ballot is proposed as a remedy can have any existence in this country.

A system of secret voting is in itself ifc very great and glaring evil. The necessity for introducing it, —if such there be, —is a calamity to any community. If a man possess no political creed whatever, if it be a matter of perfect indifference to him for what party he votes, and if he still chooses to vote, he must be influenced to give that vote, by some motives other than his conscientious convictions of what is best for the public good/. In such a case it is probable that he will vote for his employer whom he naturally looks to as superior to himself, and whom he is desirous to please. It is clearly no hardship that he should give his vote openly, he would gain nothing by concealing it.

The grievance complained of is that men who have, or think they have, and whom, from their possessing the franchise, the law supposes to have, [a sufficient comprehension of political questions,—that such men should be compelled through fear of loss, or should be influenced by motives of personal interest, to give a vote in opposition to their real opinions.

But we do not understand what the ballot does for such persons in this colony. The relations of landlord and tenant are, and ever will be, extremely limited here, compared to what they are at home. No one ever heard of any landlord in New Zealand bringing up large bodies of tenantry to the poll; which a " Land-Purchaser" states with some truth is often done in England.

The ordinary relations of classes in this country are those between employers and labourers, and between buyers and sellers. As to the first is it not absurd to suppose that where labour is scarce and dear, as it must almost of necessity be in a colony, that the employers ai*e in a position to turn off labourers because they will not vote for them ? Is it in the least likely, that, here for example, any one would ask a carpenter, or bricklayer, or shepherd, what his politics were before employing him ? Is it at all more likely that any one would deprive himself of any article he was in need of, because it could only be obtained at the store of a political adversary ? We maintain that these influences which are supposed to be so pernicious in our old country, and which are said to call for the remedy of the ballot, do not exist here. And therefore that the arguments which are urged at home, even supposing them satisfactory there, are untenable here.

We can conceive of but one argument which can be adduced with any force; it may be said that the influence of Government is so universal in a colony, owing to the extensive patronage -which it commands, that some protection is absolutely necessary against the elections being nullified by official interference. There are two answers" to this. First, that the question now is respecting the construction of a new constitution for the colony; and although we ad-, mit that the influence of Government is at] present unduly large, yet the very object for which this new constitution is demanded, is to diminish that influence; and since our friends at Wellington are proposing a scheme for a Government, let their scheme be such, (and we think it is such,) as will not leave any undue amount of influence in the hands of the executive. And secondly,

as| a matter of fact, it appears that all the influence of Government, disproportionatelygreat as it now is, has not been sufficient to prevent the most cordial and unanimous opposition to its views on the part of the settlers at Wellington and Nelson. When we read the unanimous votes of the public meetings at those places for vote by ballot, we could not help thinking that the very passing of such resolutions stultified itself by disproving the necessity of the thing asked Jfir. If a man entertains political opinions, and belongs to a political faction, it is quite impossible for him to conceal it. He tells it at his table ; it is talked of at the tavern ; it isj known in the^ market place; all his life publishes his vote. What good does it do him to give his vote in secret. If he be an honest man, the ballot does nothing for him at all. But if he be a dishonest man, and talks one way and acts another, surely those who would injure 'him for voting against them, will, ignorant of his secret vote in their favor, revenge themselves for his speaking against them. The only persons whom the ballot can protect are the silent politicians, whose lips are sealed on the measures passing for their country's good or ill, whose whole political faith is framed and cherished, communing with themselves, and whose only political act is voting in secret, for a candidate whose merits they dared not discuss.

Then what is left but the real and necessary evils of the ballot: real and necessary because if it do any thing at all, it offers a direct premium upon deceit. It either does no good at all, or else it tempts men to speak one way and act another, or at least to conceal their opinions upon matters on which opinions can only be formed by free and open interchange of human thought.

Thoughts shut up want air, And spoil like bales unopened to the sun. Had thought been all, sweet speech had been denied. Speech! thought's canal. Speech! thought's criterion too : Thought in the mine may come forth gold or dross, "When coined in word we know its real worth. Thought too delivered is the more possest; Teaching we learn, and giving we retain The births of intellect, when dumb forgot.

The very men whose votes the ballot would protect, ought to have no votes at all. A nation with whom the ballot were of use ought to be disfranchised to a man.