Page:Mr. John Stuart Mill and the ballot.djvu/9

7 regarded as an exceptional event. Could the state of things be worse if the ballot were what he represents it?

Moreover, it must be felt that in this sentence Mr. Mill expresses despair of the public conscience, and distrust of individual liberty. His arguments may be perfectly sound against investing such men with the franchise, but not against their free exercise of the power of voting when it is bestowed upon them. There are, however, two sides to the question, and, unless the writer is very much mistaken, the effect of the ballot, if those who believe in a free election are true to their mission, will be to create, not to destroy, a sense of responsibility. The voter must be impressed by public opinion with the conviction that the exercise of his vote is a matter solely resting between himself, his country, his conscience, and his God, and that consequently he alone is responsible and not another.

Is it not equally true now, as "in times not long gone by," that "the higher and richer classes" are "in complete possession of the government— their power the master grievance of the country?" In former times, as now, a few eminent men were returned to Parliament on popular principles; but the vast majority of our rulers now, as then, belong to the favoured class, who believe themselves the hereditary rulers and governors of the people. In the vast majority of counties the politics of the great landowners decide the representation: tenants at will are driven to the poll like flocks of sheep; indeed, it would be more honest at once to give the landlords the votes, and let each vote at the poll according to the number of his tenants, than to uphold a system of voting which is a mockery and a delusion. It was to preserve the power of the landlord that voting-papers were introduced by the peers during