ELECTIONS THEN AND NOW.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 442, 1 December 1908, Page 2

ELECTIONS THEN AND NOW.

Sterne sighed over “the sad vicissitude ot things.” But “the glad vicissitude of things” better expresses the change which the secret ballot has introduced into the recurrent political spasms of parliamentary electioneering. Byron tells how

* ‘ One by one in turn some grand mistake ; Casts off its bright skin yearly, like the snake.”. But it took many a weary year before the humble and dependent elector bad thrown around him the welcome protection of secret voting. From the end of the eighteenth century the movement for the secret ballot in the United Kingdom made slow and toilsome headway, with many a check and many a stop. With us in New Zealand, voting by ballot is so far, and has been so long, bone of the bone and flesh of the flesh of our parliamentary and municipal institutions, that it seems to be, as it were, of the nature of things. And the young New Zealand elector who dropped his folded voting paper into the uru last week can hardly realise that, only a little over thirty years ago, elections in Great Britain—and to a vastly greater extent in Ireland—were accompanied by all the intimidation, the disorder, and the corruption to which the open, system was so liable. Secret voting was introduced into the British Isles by Mr Forster’s Ballot Act of 1872. There are those who miss the tornadoes of ‘ fun ’ that whirled around the old open-voting single polling station for borough or county, with its hustings, its stormy oratory, the bantering of candidates, the whisky-drinking and the skull cracking, and (further back) the duelling contests, in which such redoubtable knights of the hair-trigger as ‘ Bully ’ Egan figured of a frosty morning. But people with little taste for the gladiatorial side of life will welcome the peace and order and decorum which the ballot has thrown around this exercise of a grave citizen right and duty. The last open-vote election in Ireland —perhaps in the British Isles —was ‘ the Kerry election of Home Rule.’ It took place oil February 9, 1872, and resolved it-, self into a trial of strength between the spirit of Nationalism that was stirring in the hearts of the people, and the might of the landlord party, who made a last desperate effort to drive their tenants to the polls, in the old way, like so many head of cattle driven to fair or market. And the power of rackrenting, eviction, and confiscation of tenant-property that still rested with the landlords made opposition to their plans a rather risky piece of amusement. The rival candidates were Blennerhassett (a young Protestant Home Ruler), and Dease, the landlord and Tory nominee. The description of the contest forms one of the most enlivening chapters in A. M. Sullivan’s New Ireland. Troops horse and foot —were poured into Kerry county for the contest. ‘The landlords,’ says Sullivan, who was an eye-witness, 1 hired vacant buildings, courts, or yards, in which to secure their tenants the night before the poll. In virtue of their powers as magistrates, they requisitioned detachments of loot and lancers for the purpose of 1 ‘ escorting ’ ’ those voters to the booths. The streets of Tralee rang with the bugles or echoed to the drums of military arriving by train or departing for Dingle, Distowel, Cachirciveen, Castleisland, etc. Here is an incident of this historic election which is worth transcribing as a fair sample of the methods that were followed in dealing with voters as ‘ dumb, driven cattle ’ :

‘ From Dingle, distant some twenty miles, a great avalanche was to have overwhelmed us. The story of “ the Dingle contingent ” was told me in great delight. Mr De Moleyns, it seems, had gathered as many conveyances as would transport a small army corps, and quite a formidable body of calvalry had proceeded to Dingle to escort the cavalcade. When it started for Tralee it was fully a quarter of a mile in length ; Mr De Moleyns riding proudly at its head. After it had gone some miles he turned back to make some enquiry at the rear of the procession. Great was his dismay to behold the last five or six cars empty. “Where are the voters who were on these cars? ” he stormily shouted at the drivers.

‘ “Thewothers, Captain ? Some of them slipped down there to walk a bit of the road, and faix we’re thinking that they’re not coming at all.”

‘ “ Halt! halt! ”he cried ; and, full of rage, galloped to the head of the cavalcade. He called on the officer in .command of the calvalry to halt for a while, and. detail a portion of his men for duty in the rear; when, lo! he now noticed that half a dozen cars at the front had, in his brief absence, totally lost their occupants. According to my informants, Mr De Moleyns, losing all temper, more forcibly than politely accused the officer of want of vigilance and neglect of duty; whereupon the latter sharply replied: ‘“What, sir] do you think I and my men have come here to be your bailiffs ? I am here to protect these men, if they want protection ; not to treat them as prisoners. And now, sir, I give you notice I will halt my men no more. Ready, men ! Forward! March!”

‘ By this tithe fully a third of the voters had escaped. There was nothing for it but to push on. At the village of Castlegregory, however, the severest ordeal awaited - iV I, .-'.r.v’ y ’\

them. Here they found the entire population of the place—men, women and children —occupying the road; the old parish priest Standing in the middle of the highway, his grey hair floating in the wind. The villagers, chiefly the wbmen, well knowing how the voters felt, poured out to them adjurations and appeals. The priest, in a few brief sentences, reached every heart. “Ah, sons of Kerry,” said he, “where is }'our pride and manhood, to be dragged like prisoners or carted like cattle in this way ? And for what ? That you may give the lie to your own conscience, and give a stab to your country, poor Ireland !” With one wild shout the voters sprang from the cars and disappeared in the body of the crowd. The grand “Dingle cavalcade ” was a wreck, and Mr De Moleyns, sad at heart, rode into Tralee at the head of an immense array of empty cars.’ This was the last open vote election in Ireland. The popular candidate (Blennerhassett) won the day. Five months later—on July 13, 1872—-the Ballot Act received the royal signature. ‘ That Act,’ says our author, ‘gave a death blow to electoral intimidation irum whatever quarter directed, and delivered the reality of political power at the polls, for the first time, into the hands of the people themselves.—New Zealand Tablet.