Page:Mr. John Stuart Mill and the ballot.djvu/22

20 canvass under the regime of the ballot would, in all probability, be that many voters would promise all candidates alike and then exercise their own preferences.

Mr. Mill fears that the result of the ballot would be to weaken that respect for truth for which he maintains the English are pre-eminent over other nations. This would, indeed, be a serious result, but it may be fairly questioned whether open voting does not most effectually weaken respect for truth. What more pernicious lie can be conceived than that of the voter who, in open day, affirms that a candidate for whom he would not on any account vote unless compelled, is the most fit to be his representative in Parliament? Yet this is the constant and habitual result of open voting. Under the ballot he might, indeed, deceive his persecutor, but now the lie is told in the face of the whole constituency, and the solemn act of registering a vote is made the occasion of a flagrant falsehood.

Theoretically all parties condemn the use of undue influence, practically none hesitate to employ it. Some have sufficient decency to urge that they only resort to it in self-defence. The employment of voting papers has been advocated mainly as a means of checking mob violence; it is, however, certain that their introduction would vastly aid and augment a form of intimidation equally powerful and more objectionable. Intelligent Americans who have watched recent discussions in Parliament have said to the writer, "Why not try the ballot?"

Mr. Mill makes no reference whatever to the ballot as a means of checking bribery, although this is one of the principal arguments used by its supporters. The costliness of election contests is the greatest of existing evils, and, unless some check can be devised, threatens