1818 July 7

Parl. Ref. Bill

VI Mode of Voting

Voting secret why

5

This would be as bad as the giving the lie

3. Under these circumstances the question would not surely be often put. How should it be put /To what end would it be that of insult/ when the impossibility of obtaining the information sought by it is so entire?

The smaller the number of instances in which it is put, the smaller the number of instances in which it is answered.

But in some instances – be it admitted – it will be put: and in part of that number it will receive an answer. Well in each of those instances the answer given will be either true or false. If true, the case under the secret mode is in this respect the same as in the open mode: not better indeed but not worse

Remain the cases in which it is /will be/ false. Falshood it can not be denied is a bad thing: if /wherever/ without the introduction of evil still worse in quality and quantity it can be excluded, so it ought to be.

But surely if there be a case in which the evil of it is at its minimum this is that case. In its immediate consequences it is so much pure good: for it exempts from suffering an individual, without subjecting to it any other. In this respect it is analogous to the case of /where/ an article of false information communicated to a madman or a house-breaker /robber/, to avert the intended mischief of which true information would have been productive.

As to the man’s reputation that from this cause it should receive any /the least/ injury is compleatly impossible: for though by the supposition the information is false, yet that it should to any one but the author be known to be false is absolutely impossible.