Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 August 1892 — ELECTIONS IN ENGLAND [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

ELECTIONS IN ENGLAND

MISERIES OF THE PARLIAMENTARY CANDIDATE. Humors of a British Political Meeting —Visiting the Candidate Kvadlng Troublesome Inquiries—Who May Vote for a Candidate lor the Commons. -A Par]lam«-n tury Pieotion. The iroperviousneSs of the average British skull to a joke-prevents a general and thorough appreciation of'the humors of a British election. The English have a faculty of taking everything ■with the utmost seriousness, and as an election is, to them, the most important affair in .which the British can engage, every step in its progress, from the dissolution of the old Parliament to the assembling of the new, is taken with overpowering solemnity that is often very,funny. According to the GlobeDemocrat, every one who has anything to do with the affair, no matter how small and intlgnificSnt his shard may be, is profoundly impressed with a

sense of his own importance and of the fact that he is making history, and so goes about the job with an earnestness that does him much credit, but often fails to impress the bystanders in the manner intended. From the candidate himself to the Chairman of a popular meeting, and from the latter pompous functionary to tho humble sharer in political work who walks up and down the sti eets bearing two boards on which is inscribed advice to voters as to the proper person to receive their encouragement and votes, every one feel 3, or seems to feels, that he is a part of one stupendous whole, and conducts himself accordingly. The infrequency of parliamentary elections in Great Britain, as compared with those for Congress in this country, has a tendency to increase their importance in the eyes of the people, and the local interest is not in the least diminished by the fact that, as a general thing, up to a short time before the election few of the electors in many or the boroughs know for whom they will be called on to cast their votes, ior the leaders of the two parties Choose the candidates and assign them to districts, so that a Scotchman may be called on to contest a borough in the south of England, while an Englishman goes to Scotland to solicit tho favor of the people there. The fact that they frequently have never seen their candidate until he appears before them on the hustings does not disturb the determination of the men of his parly to vote for him, and when he “comes down" from London—for in England London is “up," and everywhere else is “down"—to address them, they turn out with an enthusiasm torn of a zeal for the party to give him a welcome. Suppose, then, that the Liberals propose to contest a scat in Kent and the

Liberal management sends down John Smith to make the canvass. John goes doJira.visits Oranbrook.Biddenden.Harsmonden, Goudhurst and other Villages in.. his district, shakes hands with the men, Win? about the 'health of their “missuses” and the children, and goes through other processes of an electoral

eanv&ss as familiar to voters in this as in England. But John’s e&nn&s is not to be completed without makfatg • public appearance of some klndfcbfor much as the English, people fidicxl 6 the American of li&lltfngktfcedW'c flo <-* is itokjaftt as strong in of am in any part of America.

the past and what it proposes to do in the future, and to prove, to the satisfaction of all the Liberals in hearing, that the Tories are dragging the nation to swift and certain destruction.

For a day or two before small hoys halve distributed hapdbi Us through the town and vicinity inviting the voters to turn out in force to the meeting in, for instance, the vestry hall of Cranbrook. The hall, which is a place of public assembly. will spat 300 or 400 people, and on the evening of the meeting is packed

to suflocation with voters anxious to hear what Mr. Bmithhaa to say,. Liberals ape tjhero, of course, in great numbers, but among them is a liberal sprinkling of Tory adhprepts, who have cbme to have & little fun and to make things

Interesting Tor Mr. Smith and his supporters. Long before n eeting is called I lo order a war of words has been begun ; betweon the men of the two parties, 1 and,they quarrel in pairs over the issues ’ of the canvass, each making the matter j entirely personal to himself and opponent, The entiy of the Chairman apd local committee ushering in John Smith is the signal for prolonged" uproar, .The Chairman and !ee#l tee are jeered at by their acquaintances of, the opposite political laith I# the crowd, the candidate is cheered and hooted, while comments t n his personal appearance are often too ponied to bo agreeable. The Chairman finally succeeds in bringing tho meeting to, some show of order and introduces John Smith, who, with desperation in bis heart,.begins the task of running the gauntlet of a, fine 1 of quostionse<hiVd interruptions from the mob. Unless Ihe meeting has beeh packed there are always sturdy opponents present to ask inopportune questions, and thee* self-appointed cross-examiners do their work well, frequently driving a candidate almost wild with their tshaWesome queries. Sbrfcre they; to be put down or overawed' They have generally prepared themselves beforehand With -e fist 0! j questions, and refer to their memoranda from time to time eo as to omit none of the Bat. . • . . After 1 the tow bdtwecti th'e two sacprogressed so s point Where , alternation is evidently about to be sus;- . seeded by Sstieoffa. a compromise Is

generally effected, the most pertinacious and troublesome of the opponents is invited to a seat on the platform, to become a partof the meeting, and is thin expected to hold his peace until given a chance to speak his mind. The compromise is generally respocted so far as he is concerned, but his followers do not in any wise consider themselves restrained by the courtesy shown their leader, but lesort to every possible means to interrupt and embarrass tho speakers. They shout, they groan, they yell, they whistle, they call out, “ ’Earl ’ear!” in the most ironically annoying way. They bring (o their assistance various instruments of music; tuneful and otherwise, on which they execute fantasias of the most earsplitting description; they crow like cooks, they bellow like cows, they bray like donkeys. Poor John Smiih, who is all the while endeavoring to sot forth his deolafption of principles and t,o give his' personal pledges as to tho policy he will adopt if elected, might as well sing comic songs as speak, for should ha do so, few would be the wiser. But he perseveres, recites as much of his prepared speech as he has not forgotten in the uproar, and fills up the time with such remarks as occur to him on the spur of the moment or are suggested by the more or less impertinent questions of tho mob. Tired out by his efforts he finally takes his seat, and is vigorously applauded by his female relatives on the platform, who have listened to his address with looks of admiration at the profundity of his wisdom, and with reproachful and contemptuous glances at the crowd which did not appreciate such talent.

The close of John’s speech is the signal for an outbreak compared to which the uproar that prevailed all along was a trifle.. Some of the audience desire to hear o ( her speakers of the samo party as tho candidate, others ?wish to have a taste of something different, and | the leader of the opposition, who wasinvited on the platform in order to keep him quiet, usually seizes the opportunity of the lull to spring to his feet and begin an answer to the statements and arguments that have been ad- j vanced by the candidate. Ho is often successful, for the spirit of fair play is i strong among the English people, but | not infrequently, when the local com- j mittee deems the situation inopportune, he is, on one excuse or other, suppressed j whereupon he retires in high dudgeon ' from the platform and. gives utterance to his dissatisfaction from a chair in. the back part of the room. A few days later the Tories have their meeting in the same loom, and are addressed by their candidate, the same scenes being enacted, this time, however, the Liberals appb'ating' as the disturbing element, and; in alt probability a member of the Liberal Ideal e*>nuuitt^£ Appearing in tho ro.e of chief Srumblef, and, being invited to a seat oi} the platform to secure a temporary respite while the Tory candidate airs Ws views. . Disorderly as they often are, however, the political meetings of the present day are a marked improvement dyer those desorlbed by Dickens half a ffentury ago, when the nominating, meetings were oiten riotous. No one who lias read the great novelist’s picture of the election in which Mr. Pickwick and his friends bore an humble part can ever forget the description; and yet, from the evidence given by less imaginative writers, there is reason to believe the sketch is little, If at all, overdrawn.

The methods of canvassing after the nominations have been made have, however, undergone little change. The number of voters, though largely increased during the last fifty years, is still restricted as compared with tho system of universal suffrage of the Lnited States, and the efforts to obtain votes are proportionately more energetic. The hand-shaking goes on with vigor from tho nomination until polling is ended, and many a tin ) lady, eager fog the success'Of her favorite candidate, condescends to solicit in person the favor of men on whom at other times she would not deign to bestow a glance. In a close election the canvassing is carried on with a vigor of which the people of this country know nothing, for in a district where the antecedents of every man for generat ous are perfectly well known to ail, tho only hope of success lies in inducing voters of the opposite political faith to change their minds; and the difficulty of doing this can be imagined only when the rugged se'f-reliance, not to say obstinacy, of the British.voter is laken into consideration. The time was when votes were sold and bought almost openly, but that time has gone by; if there is bribery now it la so carefully hidden as to be invisible even to tho shrewd guardians of public order. But the voters are not the only persons subjected t > moral pressure while the canvass is in progress. In every British community.'as in every part of the United States, there are men and women who imagine that the world is on iheir shoulders, and that, should they remove their support, the moral universe would tot'erand tall. These are the men and women who form societies for the purpese of bringing about what the rest of the world calls impossibilities. Sometimes they succeed, sometimes they fail; in the former case they are placed on the pedestal of fame as i benefactors, leaders of the world’s | thought, and persons to whom after ages will po’ nt with pride; in the latter, they are denominated cranks, and are pronouneed lit for the lunatic asylum. Whether cranky or philanthropic, how- : ever, taey are equal v troublesome to an anxious candidate when they copie to demand what policy he intends to pursue in regard to the idea they have made it their business to fo9ter, and j the unfortunate maa is often put to not i a little une&s.ness when a woman’s- ! rights delegation or a temperance j committee calls upon him to express himself explicitly in regard to these questions. To oppose them is to lose the support of all on their side; to favor them is to suffer a certain loss, probably much greater, among those who regard their pet theories as lolly; to, be noncommittal' is to run the possibility of loss in lot directions. To steer j clear of ih«e difficulties is no easy mat- : ter, particularly as the people who con-

stitute themselves a committee to elicll the candidate’s’views are not usually disposed to tolerate evasion, but demand an unequivocal statement; and the example of the candidate in the last

Parliamentary election, who, whenevei informed that a delegation was on its way to his house, hid in the garret, leaving word that ho gone to London, would be followed by more than one unhappy contestant, did he not fear the consequences of such evasion even more than the results of an interview. But from one kind of pressure, that for appointment to office, the candidate for Parliament is almost entirely free. There are, to be sure, in Great Britain as in the United States, numerous patriots who are’ willing to serve their country at a fixed and liberal salary, but the incoming of a new administration with a new policy, does not mean there, as here, a general exodus of Government officials. Civil service has, in Great Britain, passed beyond the experimental stage, and is as firmly grounded as any other principle of administrative government. With the defeat of the administration, the ministry and a few heads of departments go out, but the great body of English publio servants, after being appointed, are secure in their places no matter how great the political unht avals that from time to time take place in the nation. Prime ministers may come and go, but the clerlpn a government department, the country-postmiaStorf stays on, unaffectedby the Wi»tigi ; ’’iii ! ttomesttc or foreign policy that may be involved In the election. Mention has already been made of the comparatively restricted number of English voters by whom the candidate for Parliament is confirmed in his election. Small as are these numbers compared with our unlimited suffrage, they are large when compared with the classes of voters who exorcised the franchise before the reform bill of 1868, which was passed by the Conservative Government of Disraeli. Under this document voters in counties' comprised 40 shilling freeholders, or those owning property in fee of that annual value, Ihose possessing a life estate of the annual value of 40 shillings, which, if not occupied, must have been possessed before 1833, those possessing a life estate of the annual value of £3, lessees for not less than sixty years of the annual value of £■>, or for twenty years of the annual value of i. 50, and occupiers of lands rated at £l2 a year. In boroughs the voters ■ comprise the rated .ocupiers of dwellings who have paid their poor ra’tes, occupiers of premises, not dwelling houses, of the annual value of £lO, and lodgers occupying premises of the annual value of £lO. The bars of suffrage were thus let down to a very low notch, but in spite of this fact great numbers of the Queen’s subjects are still disfranchised, and have neither part nor lot in the election of their representatives in Parliament.

THE CHAIRMAN.

TRYING TO MAKE UP HIS MIND

THE CANDIDATE'S FAMILY.

WINNING THE [?]CHER'S NOTE.

A BAD SELECTION FOR SANDWICH MAN.