Page:Mr. John Stuart Mill and the ballot.djvu/21

19 hitherto so acted, provided that persuasion did not take the shape of compulsion or coercion. What was the object, then, of this picketing? Was it that the names and addresses of the non-striking workmen might be found out with a view to their being addressed by reasonable argument and persuasion, or was it for the purpose of coercion and intimidation? Substitute "canvassing" for picketing, and the application of the law to the offence against which the ballot is intended to guard, is complete in reference to electoral intimidation. "As it is essential," says Blackstone, "to the very being of Parliament that elections should be absolutely free, therefore all undue influences upon the electors are illegal and strongly prohibited." Experience unfortunately proves that the rich and educated do not scruple to use undue influences—"picketing" the voters by means of organised canvassing, and even condescending upon occasion to "rattening" if persuasion fails; an offence which ought to be regarded with the same indignation that was provoked by the outrages of Broadhead and his associates. As a security against this evil, can any method be devised so certain as the ballot?

The ballot may or may not put an end to canvassing: it would, however, deprive it to a great extent of its illegitimate power. Nothing more degrading than the ordinary mode of canvassing at elections can by any possibility be conceived. Discussion among friends and neighbours there always will be—this is natural and legitimate. An organised canvass of the electoral body, followed by a sectional canvass in which unpledged voters are allotted to those who are able to "influence" them, is a proceeding alike disgraceful and opposed to all notions of English fair play. The result of such a