Page:Mr. John Stuart Mill and the ballot.djvu/23

21 to make Parliament still more than ever a rich man's club. As a general rule, the fewer the legitimate qualifications of a candidate the more readily does he resort to illegal means. Under the system of open voting elections have become a periodical saturnalia, disgraceful alike to civilization and Christianity.

It is true that election agents assert that they would have no difficulty in bribing if the ballot were in operation. Some have even gone so far as to assert that they could do so more easily than with open voting. It is, however, a striking fact that, almost unanimously, they are opposed to its introduction. This alone would lead to the inference that the ballot would check, if it did not eradicate, their nefarious practices.

There are burglars so skilled as to defy the most perfect locks, but no one dreams that burglaries would be less frequent if locks were abolished. In like manner there may be moral burglars, so skilled as to bribe successfully, under secret voting, but the number of them would be small compared with those who now operate upon constituencies. The great guarantee of the briber is the publication of the votes: remove this and bribery would be lessened. The man who will take a bribe from one candidate will not scruple to do so from all, and hence the knowledge of the way in which the vote is exercised is the safeguard of corruption.

The question of corruption at elections was discussed in April, 1864, at a meeting of the Social Science Association, when Mr. Edwin Chadwick, C.B., said: "At the International Statistical Congresses which I have attended, I have taken occasion to make inquiries from the delegates as to the electoral procedure in their respective states. There were, they said, occasional complaints, more or less well founded, of the exercise