Page:Mr. John Stuart Mill and the ballot.djvu/6

 system which thirty years since made the demand for the ballot "right and justifiable," the agitation in its behalf must be pursued with renewed vigour.

"The operation of the ballot is," says Mr. Mill, "that it enables the voter to give full effect to his own private preferences, whether selfish or disinterested, under no inducement to defer to the opinions or wishes of others except as these may influence his own. It follows, and the friends of the ballot have always said, that secrecy is desirable in cases in which the motives acting on the voter through the will of others are likely to mislead him, while, if left to his own preferences, he would vote as he ought. It equally follows, and is also the doctrine of the friends of the ballot, that when the voter's own preferences are apt to lead him wrong, but the feeling of responsibility to others may keep him right, not secrecy, but publicity, should be the rule." Of course in a state of perfect freedom every individual will act according to his own private preferences: the selfish man will give a selfish vote, the public-spirited man will seek to give effect to his convictions of public policy. A sense of responsibility is, no doubt, created by open voting, but of responsibility to whom? In the vast majority of instances not to the public, but to the landlord, the customer, or the creditor of the voter. Further, how is this sense of responsibility awakened in the case of a selfish man by open voting? Is it by arousing his conscience or by working upon his fears? The pressure of "responsibility" may come, not from one individual, but from many: in either case the result is the same, the voter does not give an independent vote, but yields to the pressure of others.

The vote is either a right or a trust; if a right, there is, no doubt, a corresponding duty involved