THE WINDSOR ELECTION.
New Zealand Tablet, Rōrahi XVIII, Putanga 8, 20 Pipiri 1890, Page 29
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THE WINDSOR ELECTION.
" What," says the Times, has happened to the flowing tide 1 We admit tbat such a result as that ot the Windsor c lectio a is highly satisfactory and encouraging," and so on, and so on. There are places where the tide has bean made so muddy, that no matter how impetuous it may ba, its waters cannot fl >w. Windsor is one of them. For many a yeai it has bean a Tory stronghold As a town it is a nice enough place ; as a political unit, it is about as important in estimating the flow of the tide as would ba the kitchen of a palace, or the purlieus of a college. Lord BeacoQßfield added to it Ktoi and Olewer, with a view to make certain of having a sort of city of refuge for Tory sentiment, to which that sentiment might batake itself when the tide of Liberalism was rising. For long it seat to Parliament Mr. Richard Gardner. Tnat gentleman built above 400 cottages in a place which the river generally swamped oace a year. He usually let his tenants off their rent on this ssore. The waters of the Thames thus kept down the waters of politics. I (Truth), who know sometHng about this borough, smiled when I saw in the newspapers that Mr. Grenfell had a chance. At any momant I would have bet long odds against him, and, had I done so, I should have considered my bet as won as soon as it had bsen made, Some twenty-five years ago the free ani enlightened of Windsor did me the honour to elect me as one of their Members. The constituency was a small one, and the borough returned two Members. For about one month I passed six hours each day in canvassing ; and weary work it was, for Lord Palmerston was then Prime Minister, and there was very little diffarence between him and the Conservatives. So I had to kiss the btbies, pay compliments to tbeir mothers, and explain the beauties of Liberalism to their fathers, who never could be got to say how thay would vote, On the day of election everything turned upon half a dozen vote*. I remember one Tory went out to fish in a punt, and the boatman who accompanied him was induced to keep him well in the middle of thu river until the polling hour had passed. Another aged and decrepit Tory was kept in his house by the cabs being put to run at him whenever he tried to issue from his ( door, Finally th 3 Libarals woa the day. Oa this the Tories petitioned. The committee decided that there had been no bribery, but unseated my colleague and myself, because they thougnt that we had hired a somewhat excessive number of com. mittee-room?. The number was, if I remember rightly, a little over thirty. The polling day happened to l>9 very fine, consequently few went into these committee-rooms, and my judges declined to accept my reasonable explanation, that the climate of England is variable, and that I had to make provision for tha electors' comfort, on the assumption that it might possibly rain. I do not exactly recollect what that election cost me. If I did, lamby no means sure that I should say. Nowadays the constituencies are a good deal larger, and the expenses are a good deal smaller. Before the committee a man swore I had given him a £10 note. It wap, he said, in his kitchen, and he gave a number of circumstaniial details. The committee-room was full, and I was standing close by the late Lord George Lennox, who rejoiced, as I did, in a beard. I threw my counsel over a piece of paper, on which I begged him to ask the man to point me out ; at tne same time I stepped behind Lord George. The man at once pointed to Lord George as the person who had bribed him. The late Windsor election, however, has its lesson, by which I hope we shJl profit. We must not imagine that our flowing tide will sweep all before it unless it be prop&rly directed. Speechmaking is all very well; but it does not win a general election. That can only be won by organisation, and, ?b I said last week, our organisation leaves much to be desired. Local forces are too much ignored ; local men are not sufficiently brought to the fore. We must build upwards. Each county should have an organisation selfsupporting, and it should see that there is a Liberal Association in every village in the country. The central association of the entire couDty should be merely the connecting link between all these county associations ; it should be their emanation, and should not seek either to replace the county association or dictate to it. The Holy Father has, says the Weekly Register, caused to be Bent to all the representatives at the Vatican a denial of the report that the monument be is erecting in San Giovanni Laterano is hiß own image. It is really that of Pope Innocent 111., Bculptured by a noted Perugian, a colossal statne, and two allegorical figures representing Faith and the Crusades. Stanley has found a race of African dwarfs, who, he says, are monogamous, the most moral people in the country, highly intelligent, olive complexioned and " the oldest aristocracy in the world, as they trace their lineage back for fifty centuries." He tried to bring home some specimens of the tnba, but they all died on the way Perhaps it was just as well. Intelligent and moral aristocrats would feel very lonesome in England.— Pilot
