AMERICAN OPINION ON ENGLISH ELECTIONS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume VIII, Issue 504, 2 September 1857, Page 3

AMERICAN OPINION ON ENGLISH ELECTIONS.

(From the New York Times.) The student of English politics might gain greater profit from reading a file of English papers than could be derived from half-a-dozen volumes of historical narrative. He might find in one number even of the leading London journal sufficient matter to give him a pretty clear insight into the British representative system. Parliament has been dissolved before its legal term of existence had expired, and the whole country is alive with preparations for a general election, previous to the creation of a new House of Commons. The excitement is similar to what takes place here on the occasion of the Presidential election, and the object aimed at is very nearly the same —to take the political sense of the people. But there could not be a stronger contrast than is offered by the different methods pursued in the two countries. As soon as the Prime Minister had signified his intention to dissolve parliament and appeal to the country, a general scattering took place and the papers were filled with addresses from the old members to their constituents, explaining their past votes, and giving promises of what they intended to do if again elected. Men left their places and hurried to the boroughs towns and counties they represented, to meet their constituents face to face, to talk to them of the state of the country, to defend themselves, arraign the ministers, as the circumstances required. It is a bold, open; and actual representative system, and as unlike our Caucus system as possible. The candidate offers himself to the people,'or is invited openly by them to be a candidate, avows his principles, tells what he means to do in the event of his election, and asks for their support. The meeting is held in the open air in a public place, and if they approve of him they agree to give him their votes; a rival candidate appears, there is a show of hands in his favour, and a poll is demanded to decide which candidate has the larger number of supporters. The voting takes place in the open air, and each voter calls out the uame of the candidate whom he desires should be his representative. Fraudulent voting, then, is impossible, and ballot-stuffing an unmeaning phrase. Wire-pulling and caucusing are equally out of the question, and the voters have the satisfaction of seeing and knowing personally the man to whom they give their suffrages. All is fair, open, and above-board, in appearance, at least, at an English election ; but in reality, excepting in the large towns, there is very little, if any, more purity than at our own Congressional elections. The people vote openly, but they are first instructed, or paid secretly; the great landlords give their orders to their tenants, managing attorneys buy up whole constituencies, and the owners of pocket-boroughs nominate whom they please for representatives. But, with all the inequalities, the corruptions, and the family influences of the English system, we cannot deny that the method of choosingtheir representatives is infinitely preferable to our own manner of doing the same thing by secret and irresponsible managers. people here are informed by an advertisement in the papers that a man has beea nominated to represent them in Congress whose name even they never before heard, and of whose "character and principles they are. equally ignorant. They know nothing even of the men who nominated him ; their wishes were never consulted, and they vote for him by secret ballot, blindly. The whole process is conducted in the dark, and at last, when the result is announced, there are whispers and even open charges, and

more than suspicions, that the election was by unscrupulous rascal depositing a handful of ballots in one of the boxes, and it is not known but that hundreds of men have put in votes who had no legal right to exercise the privilege. The hustings and open voting would do much towards elevating the character of Congress, tut nothing would be more instrumental towards insuring greater ability in our representatives than the adoption of the English method of the candidate offering himself to the people, instead of leaving his selection to a self appointed and irresponsible Caucus, as is now generally done.