Page:Ballot (Smith).djvu/28

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24
BALLOT.

and the representatives on the other, are carried on in open meetings, then are there two publics according to the Radical doctrines, essentially different from each other: the one acting under the influence of the rich and powerful, the other free; and if all political petitions are to be carried on by ballot, how are Parliament to know who petitions, or the member to know who instructs?

I have hitherto spoken of ballot, as if it were, as the Radicals suppose it to be, a mean of secrecy; their very cardinal position is, that landlords, after the ballot is established, will give up in despair all hopes of commanding the votes of their tenants. I scarcely ever heard a more foolish, and gratuitous assumption. Given up? Why should they be given up? I can give many reasons why landlords should never exercise this unreasonable power, but I can give no possible reason why a man determined to do so should be baffled by the ballot. When two great parties in the empire are combating for the supreme power, does Mr. Grote imagine, that the men of woods, forests, and rivers,—that they who have the strength of the hills,—are to be baffled by bump-