[131a-022]

1818 March 24 +

Parl Reform Answer to Antiballotists

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So again in the practice of the India House. There you see it – there you see this supposed novelty in constant use, practiced on the occasion of those decisions, by which, under the superintending power of the Parliament of Great Britain and Ireland, the fate of the people of Hindostan, to the number of some forty or fifty millions, that number continually on the encrease, is occasionally disposed of.

Here too it is objected to: nor altogether without reason. Why? Because, in the exercise of their power in this mode the whole body of East India Proprietors, acting in the character of the ruling few, act under the dominance of an interest which unhappily is but too frequently, and to too great an extent, like the interest of the ruling few by whom the rest of the British Empire is more immediately governed, in a state of diametrical, and but too well understood, opposition, to the interest of the subject many, over whom in this mode the power is exercised. Fixt in this their situation for as long as they please, few in proportion find any action[?] for that attendance by which alone the power is exercised: Of those few who do attend, some perhaps, were the mode of voting open, might, by shame be deterred from giving those votes, by which the interest of so many millions is sacrificed to the personal interest of their rulers. The effect of the secret mode is therefore in this case[?] to promote not the legitimate interest which alone ought to be promoted, but a sinister interest opposite to it.

Here ends, for the present at the least, my answer to the four objections, which are the only tangible ones I can find urged against the secret mode of voting, on Elections of Representatives of the people, to sit in the Commons House, on the supposition of annuality of election and virtual universality of suffrage. J.B.