Page:Mr. John Stuart Mill and the ballot.djvu/17

15 right hand doeth. Condemnation of secret voting, however, will be found in the main to proceed not from those who are most enlightened in their morality, but from those who know that their power, influence, and gain will be destroyed by the ballot. The politician who depends solely upon the strength of his arguments and the truth of his convictions knows that his influence will be strengthened by the adoption of secret voting, and by the consequent destruction of the undue influences which are his great obstacles.

Mr. Mill, however, does not condemn concealment, if required by some overpowering motive. Is not the desire to give an honest vote without the risk of reducing a wife and family to beggary a motive sufficiently overpowering? The majority of men are not heroes, they probably hold no strong political opinions; they are, however, amenable to reason, and hence the necessity for removing the possibility of undue influence. Legislation must be adapted, not to the necessities of the strong, but to those of the weak.

Mr. Mill urges, that "disguise in all its forms is a badge of slavery." It would be more correct to affirm that secrecy is the refuge of the weak against the strong. On the side of the oppressors there is power, supported, if not sanctioned, by the law. It may well be that the small tradesman whose premises are invaded by half-a-dozen leading men—one of them, in all probability, able by a word to turn him and his family into the street—desires the protection of the ballot; but it is hardly just to designate him as a slave, or as having the soul of a slave, because he seeks in secrecy the means of voting according to his convictions. If he had the soul of a slave he would feel no desire to throw off his yoke. The effect of open voting upon the political morality of