Page:Mr. John Stuart Mill and the ballot.djvu/8

6 his conduct as a representative. Moreover, electors have a right to withdraw their support from a member who does not represent them. There is no corresponding right in the case of an elector who votes against the will of others, whether few or many.

It is unfortunately as true now as it was "thirty years ago" that one of the main evils "to be guarded against is that which the ballot would exclude—coercion by landlords, employers, and customers"—although we do not believe this to have been, even then, altogether the sole or "the main evil." Then, as now, a "much greater source of evil" was the selfishness or the selfish partialities of the voter himself, fostered as they were and are by all the evils attendant upon open voting.

Mr. Mill says: "A 'base and mischievous vote' is now, I am convinced, much oftener given from the voter's personal interest, or class interest, or some mean feeling in his own mind, than from any fear of consequences at the hands of others: and to these evil influences the ballot would enable him to yield himself up free from all sense of shame or responsibility." It may be true that corruption is in certain constituencies more prevalent than intimidation; it will, however, generally be found that they go hand in hand together: where one prevails the other is rarely or never absent. Let the records of election committees, in which the guilt of a small portion only of the constituencies has been disclosed—the experience of nearly every candidate at a contested election—the confessions, if they can be had, of election agents—bear witness on this point. It is a well known fact, that under open voting all the evils of which Mr. Mill complains have increased and are increasing; each succeeding election becomes more and more costly; and his own election for Westminster is