Now  intimidation  may  be  partly  prevented  by  the
secrecy  of  the  ballot;  and  the  importance  of  prevent-
ing it  is,  in  my  opinion,  a  decisive  argument  for  secret
voting  in  spite  of  the  strong  objections  that  may  be  urged
against  it.^  StiU,  this  prevention  cannot  be  made  complete,
since  in  many  cases  the  way  in  which  an  elector  has  voted
may  be  inferred,  with  a  high  degree  of  probability,  from  his
own  words  and  actions  or  those  of  others ;  and  if  there  is
a  strong  probability  that  a  particular  class  wiU  vote  in  a  par-
ticular way,  such  a  class,  when  in  a  small  minority,  incur
nearly  all  the  risks  of  openly  voting  against  their  opponents
by  venturing  to  go  to  the  ballot-box.  Bribery,  again,
may — more  easily  than  intimidation — ^be  partly  put  down
by  penalties :  but  the  difficulty  of  legally  preventing  an
exchange  into  which  both  parties  are  desirous  to  enter  is
shown  by  experience  to  be  very  great  in  private  transactions,
and  it  is  therefore  likely  that  the  purchase  of  votes  will
always  go  on  to  some  extent.  Nor  is  it  probable  that  any
efforts  to  disseminate  truth  and  sound  reasoning  are  likely
to  put  down  demagogy  altogether.  Hence  it  must  be  recog-
nised as  possible  that  on  these  grounds  the  disadvantages
of  giving  the  suffrage  to  poor,  dependent,  and  ignorant  per-
sons may  outweigh  the  disadvantages  of  excluding  them.
^  See,  for  instance,  Mill,  SepreseiUative  Oovemment,  chap.  x.
368  ELEMENTS  OF  POLITICS  chap.
Whether  this  is  likely  to  be  the  case  at  any  particular  time
and  place  it  does  not  belong  to  general  theory  to  decide.
