To the Editor of the St. James’s Gazette
Sir,—Utopia is a pleasant and a well-ordered country, and enjoys many blessings to which our little island is a stranger. Some of these must, no doubt, be by us eternally despaired of (for example, no one is ever bored at a Utopian dinner-party, or overcharged by a Utopian cab-driver). Others we may hope with fitting effort to make our own; and among these attainable prizes none seems more precious than “purity of election.” Utopian electors (pardon me for mentioning so trite a fact, but we need some definite basis to begin from) are all sufficiently educated to be able to form independent opinions on the political questions of the day; and in accordance with these opinions they vote, without fear or favour. Who dares deny that this is a state of things to be wished for and striven for; and that, even though the jealous Parcæ may withhold its full fruition, still the more nearly we can attain to it the better and happier we shall be? This, then, being our goal, what are the main obstacles that beset our path—the primary well-springs of corrupt voting?
Bribery, I suppose, comes first—that subtle poison which, ever since the fatal day when Jacob sold pottage and Esau sold his birthright, has rankled in the veins of society. But every corrupt influence, which makes an elector vote on any other ground than his own unfettered judgment as to what is best for the nation, is the same in kind, if not in degree, with bribery. I say “corrupt,” for I will not assert that the uneducated elector, who is simply incompetent to form an opinion of his own, is necessarily voting corruptly. It may not be, and in my opinion it is not, for the good of the nation that such a man should vote at all; still, his motives in voting may be pure. For instance, one of the candidates may be personally known to him as an exemplary private character, and though the maxim—that a statesman “can’t be wrong when life is in the right”—may be (logically) weak, it is not (morally) corrupt. Again, he may act under the advice of some wiser friend. These are not exalted motives, and they are distinctly extra-political; but they do not produce the great evil I am now considering—corrupt voting. But there is a bribery that is not to be expressed in terms of £ s. d.; and many a man to whom gold might be offered in vain will strain his political convictions in order to go with the stream, and will lend his voice to swell the shout of victory rather than own his allegiance to the vanquished few.
Both forms of bribery were rampant in the days of open elections. The introduction of vote by ballot has, we may hope, largely diminished both: the rogue has less chance of getting a high price for his vote now that he cannot prove that he has earned his money; nor can he certainly, however he may wish it, be on the winning side, since in many elections no one knows till all is over where the victory lies. But, though lessened for the individual voters, this evil influence—the passion for being on the winning side—still flourishes in unabated vigour as regards constituencies; and it is to this form of it that I desire to draw attention.
No thoughtful observer of the general elections of 1874 and 1880 can have failed to be struck by the way in which, when once the stream had taken a definite direction, it rolled on in ever-gathering volume, and seemed to carry with it, like straws tossed upon a flooded river, the elections of the later days. During the first day or two each little constituency felt itself an independent factor in the general result—it could do something real to swell or stem the stream; but long before the general election was over, the battle was virtually lost and won: the beaten Government was striking its camp; the late Opposition was exulting over the huge majority with which it would take office; and the unfortunate constituencies who returned their members in the last few days found they had a much humbler function to fulfil. The question no longer was “Which policy is best for the nation?” but “Which position is best for us—to swell the tide of victory, or to efface ourselves by adding a unit to a hopelessly beaten minority?”
But this is not all. The evil extends further than to the single constituency thus washed away in the high tide of popular passion: nay, it extends further than to a single general election; it constitutes a feature in our national history; it is darkly ominous for the future of England. So long as general elections are conducted as at present we shall be liable to oscillations of political power like those of 1874 and 1880, but of ever-increasing violence—one Parliament wholly at the mercy of one political party, the next wholly at the mercy of the other—while the Government of the hour, joyfully hastening to undo all that its predecessors have done, will wield a majority so immense that the fate of every question will be foredoomed, and debate will be a farce; in one word, we shall be a nation living from hand to mouth, and with no settled principle—an army whose only marching orders will be “Right about face!”
To those who recognise the existence of this evil, and who admit that it is desirable that every constituency should be as free in its choice of a member as those who elect on the first day of the general election, let me suggest a simple practical remedy. It is that the result of each single election should be kept secret till the general election is over. It surely would involve no real practical difficulty to provide that the boxes of voting-papers should be sealed up by a Government official and placed in such custody as would make it impossible to tamper with them; and that, when the last election had been held, they should be opened, the votes counted, and the results announced? It may be worth while to point out that, as regards the particular evil I am considering—the mischief done by announcing results before all is over—there is an exact parallelism between the single election, as it was before the Ballot Act, and the general election as it still is; “voters” in the one answering to “constituencies” in the other. My proposal is, in fact, that the benefits derived from secret voting, already conferred on single elections, shall be extended to their aggregate.
Let me, in conclusion, say one word to the possible objector to this new application of an accepted principle—who is saying, so far as audible speech goes, “This is indeed a Utopian scheme! These fine sentiments will not stand the rough wear of a practical age!” but whose secret soul is saying “I prefer the high-tide theory of a general election, because I fancy my pet party has more chance than the other party of being washed into power on the top of that tide!” “What I have here written,” I would say to such a man, “is not meant for you. You and I have no common premisses to argue from. Between us all discussion is impossible. I have written for that insignificant and unenlightened section of society who still cling to the antiquated notion that the world we live in is the work of a Personal Being, not of a Blind Force; that from that Being each of us has received all he has of what men call power, and that to that Being each of us is finally accountable for the use he makes of the power entrusted to him.”—I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
Lewis Carroll.
April 30.