PARLIAMENTARY INTELLIGENCE.

New Zealand Colonist and Port Nicholson Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 35, 29 November 1842, Page 3

PARLIAMENTARY INTELLIGENCE.

. VOTE BY BALLOT. The time of the House of Commons was yesterday occupied for many hours by a discussion on the hacknied subject of the ballot. Mr. Ward, in introducing his motion to substitute secret for open voting, enlarged on the bribery which was practised at the last general election, and which he admitted to have been quite as widely and grossly perpetrated on his own as on the opposite side of the House. But bribery was not his only complaint; influence and intimidation were still greater evils; and through these means the tenantry of England were now sunk into a state of slavery. He adverted to the numerous election petitions upon which there had been either compromises or special reports, all arising out of bribery in the boroughs, and related several instances to illustrate the corresponding prevalence of intimidation in the counties. But it prevailed, not in the counties alone, but in the boroughs also, by exclusive dealing, and by threats and undue influences of every kind. He believed the ballot would get the better of all this mischief, and cure what the law could not reach. In answer to the objections-about deceit and immorality, he would ask whether it were not at least equally sinful for a man to vote against his conscience ? It was said that the voter ought to give his vote openly, because he was a trustee for the non-electors ; but the non-electors were entitled to be invested with the franchise themselves. . .

Mr. 11. Berkeley seconded the motion. The evil, as proved to exist under the present system, was too great to allow a possibility that any statement of it could be an exaggeration. Ballot was the proper cure for it; and how could that resource be objected, to as un-English in a House five hundred of whose members belonged to clubs employing the ballot-box ? In all elections there were screws. The hop-merchant was the screw on the brewer—the corn-factor on the corn-grower —the cheese-factor on the dairy farmer ; but the great screw of all was the banker screw. As a specimen of electioneering in general, he produced from a canvassing book some extracts which indicated in a particular town what screws were to be put upon various voters. In the counties there was a high pressure screw, called the landlord, who drove his tenants to the poll like pigs to market. The vote was considered the landlord’s property, even more than the rent; for if the rent was behindhand, the voter was only distrained upon; but if the vote was deficient, the voter was ejected. Gentlemen were afraid that by the ballot they should lose their influence. Unjust influence, he believed, would be lost, but not the influence which did, and ought to, belong to a good, landlord.. . He then passed to the corresponding evils in boroughs, illustrating by several amusing specimens from the practice of the Tory part of his own constituency at Bristol, both the bribery and the intimidation which he- expected to extinguish by the ballot. He thought it right, however, to say that similar instances might probably be produced against the Liberal party. Mr. Sheil said, intimidation became the great evil to be remedied. Against bribery, Lord John Russell’s now pending bill would be highly efficient; but against intimidation no provision had yet been made. He denied that the ballot would fail to secure secrecy; it did secure secrecy in clubs, why not in elections ? The landlord might, indeed, be displeased by a private vote, if he discovered it, but would not be affronted by it as by a vote given openly in defiance of him. In the next place, Mr. Sheil denied that the ballot would diminish the influence of property. It would leave untouched the influence of those proprietors who deserved the regard of the people, always prone in this country to respect wealth and rank. Thirdly,

he denied that the ballot would produce hypocrisy and breach of faith. In general, proinises would be kept; and if extorted ones were broken, the sin of the breach was not greater than the sin of the extortion. The franchise was a trust, but for whom ? If for the landlord, by fill means let the landlord know whether the conditions of the servitude Were fulfilled; but, if for the country, let the free exercise of it be provided for. He contrasted the firm step and manly bearing of a Cumberland yeomen with the tremulous paleness of the Irish freeholder, summoned by the landlord-to support that Orange ascendancy which had so long oppressed and scorned him. Perhaps he took heart, and, braving the consequences, voted with his feelings and his friends. In a month he was a ruined man. And then it was urged that the ballot was un-English ! No doubt duplicity was un-English, but tyranny was un-English too. But public opinion was relied on as a sufficient check. Now, public opinion had declared itself against intimidation, there was no effectual exhibition of feeling; and your great men openly claimed their right to do as they.pleased with their own. For this the only redress was the ballot, and he besought the House to adopt it,

Sir James Graham denied that the ballot would be a barrier to ulterior changes; on the contrary, when the people at large should be precluded from seeing the way in which that trust was exercised, they would loudly demand admission to exercise the franchise for themselves. He would repeat, that the ballot could afford no useful protection. The man who meant to avail himself of it, must go to the wrong club, wear the wrong colours, drink the w r rong toasts, cheer the wrong candidate. But no honest voter w r ould do these things, and the secrecy would be good only for the base and dirty skulker. There were other passions beside fear of tyranny —there were envy, revenge, hatred, and all the bad feelings which connected themselves with cowardice. He felt deeply on this subject, and he trusted the House would concur with him. Lord John Russell said he felt serious objections to the present proposal. It would prevent the detection of bribery; and it would aggravate the dissatisfaction of the non-electors. The very Chartists had declared against the ballot, unless accompanied by the other measures which they required. What other measures the proposer of this motion contemplated was not apparent; but it was apparent that he contemplated some; and the House, until they should know what these were, would not properly judge of the proposal before them. This he knew, that the logical, natural, and necessary consequence of ballot would be an extension of the franchise. He requested Mr. Ponsonby, who had regarded ballot as a barrier against further change, to consider who were in general the politicians most favourable to it. He rather wondered that the advocates of ballot so seldom referred to its effects in those countries where it had actually existed. It had been introduced into Rome in her most corrupt age, and it had not abated her corruption. It existed at this day in France; and there he found the opinion to be prevalent and acted upon, that Government knew precisely how each of their people voted. It existed, too, in America; but no man there kept the secret. If ballot had not produced wholesome effects in other states, would it do so in ours ? He could conceive no country less fit for it than our own. You might devise a box perfect in its mechanical concealment, but where was the machine that would hide an English elector’s feelings for weeks before the election, and for ever after the election ? There had been a secret contrivance for the election of the Doges of Venice, and it might have suited the character of the Venetian senators: but he rejoiced to say it did not suit the brave and honest character of the English people. At all events, before he would vote for such a change as this, he must have before him the entire plan of its proposers. To the present measure he would again, as before, record his decided opposition. The House then divided : Against the motion 290 For it 157 Majority 133

Strabismus. —We noticed, some time since, several operations for strabismus, performed by Dr. Brock, which, at the same time, were perfectly successful. Since then it has been stated that the operation would only give temporary relief, and that in a short time the divided muscle would be as bad as ever. We scarcely consider this opinion tenable. In theory we should consider that the antagonist muscle itself would have its power increased by the division of the other, that that division would itself lessen the contractile power of the latter, and that the muscle itself would be in a slight degree weakened, perhaps elongated, in a trifling degree, so as to restore the equilibrium necessary for a direct vision. As a practical fact, we would mention, that we saw Richard Legit, one of the men operated on some eight months since, that his eyes were perfectly straight, and that there did not seem the least tendency to the original deformity. For our own parts, we

should consider that the operation is successful in the generality of cases, and when it is not so, that by bearing an opaque cover for the eye, with a vertical slit, for a short time, the muscles would be readily formed to the properequilibrium. But even this last, we should say, would be perfectly unnecessary in the majority of cases. A Fatal Period. —Within- the period of 100 hours, observes Galignani’s Messenger, three of the greatest calamities of this or any century have occurred : viz, the fire of Hamburgh, on the sth of May; the earthquake at St. Domingo, on the 7tli; and the fatal accident on the Versailles railroad, on the Bth.

Icebergs in the Atlantic.— Lieutenant Parsons, R.N., superintendent of the mails on board the British and North American royal steam-ships, reports, that on the passage out in the Acadia, Captain Alexander Ryrie, on the 1G May, in latitude 4G, longitude 47, there were seen about 100 icebergs, some of them of large size, and one from 400 to 500 feet high, bearing so strong a resemblance to St. Paul’s, that it w'jis at once christened after that celebrated cathedral* The dome was perfect, and it re-/ quires no extraordinary stretch of imagination to supply the turrets, pinnacles, and other parts of the building. But this is not the most extraordinary part of the affair; on the homeward passage of the Acadia to Liverpool, on the 6th instant, the same object was seen, and the immediate exclamation on board was, “ There is our old friend, St. Paul’s.” In the interim between the two views the iceberg had drifted about 70 mile's* Presents for her Majestv. —An Arabian man-of-war, the first that ever appeared in English waters, came up the river on Sunday, in tow of a steamer, and was moored in the afternoon off the Victualling-yard, at Deptford. On Monday she was towed into the St. Katherine’s dock. The pennant was flying at her main-top mast head, and she had a red ensign hoisted at her mizen. This vessel, which excited much curiosity, is from Zanzebar, and has brought over four valuable Arabian horses and other presents, from the King of Muscat, to her Majesty Queen Victoria. The vessel presents a similar appearance to that of one of our own merchantmen of 500 or 600 tons burthen, except that she carries 10 guns. Zanzebar, or Zanquebar, is a country on the east coast of Africa, between 3N. and 10 S. lat. It includes several kingdoms, in which the Portuguese formerly had settlements, but is now subject to the Ring of Muscat. Scandal in the Royal Household. — Lord Worsley is to-morrow night to ask a question of Sir Robert Peel, in the House of Commons, as to his knowledge of certain expressions said to have been used by one of her Majesty’s aides-de-camp respecting his royal mistress, at a dinner party, consisting (we believe) of the members of the Caledonian Hunt. The expression imputed to this aid-de-camp, the Hon. H. Dundas, is so gross and indecent that it cannot. possibly be laid before her Majesty ; but the fact of an outrageous insult having been offered is notorious, and of that the Queen is doubtless cognisant. It is said that Colonel Dundas has anticipated the discussion of to-morrow night by resigning liis aid-de-campship. A Gentleman. —ln the language of his companions, Ulick Burke “ could be a gentleman when he pleased.” How often have we heard this phrase, and with what a fatal mistake is it generally applied ! He who can be a gentleman when he pleases, never pleases to be anything else. Circumstances may, and do every day in life, throw men of cultivated minds and refined habits, into the society of their inferiors; but while, with the tact and readiness that is their especial prerogative, they make themselves welcome among those with whom they have few, if any sympathies in common, yet never by any accident do they derogate from that high standard that makes them gentlemen. So, on the other hand, the man of vulgar tastes and coarse propensities may simulate, if he be able, the outward habitudes of society, speaking with practised intonation, and bowing with well studied grace ; yet is he no more a gentleman in his thought or feeling than is the tinselled actor who struts on the board the monarch his costume would berpeak him. This being the “gentleman when he likes,” is but the mere performance of the character. It has all the smell of the orange-peel and the foot-lights about it, and never can' be mistaken by any one who knows the world.