A VERY CLOSE ELECTION.

Press, Volume X, Issue 1144, 9 July 1866, Page 2

A VERY CLOSE ELECTION.

Elections are often funny affairs, but we have seldom heard of one so funny as the pending election of a member of the Provincial Council for the Lindis district in the Province of Ofcago. It seems there are but four electors, and as one of them is away at "Wellington, attending the session of the G-eneral Assembly, the number for the purposes of this election is reduced to three. For this exceedingly limited constituency there are three candidates in the field, and as we may presume that no one would have stood without the promise of some support, it follows that each of the three candidates has his one enthusiastic backer. Mr. Bright was very smart upon Messrs. Lowe and Horsman about their supposed party of two, but here we have three parties of one. We wonder how they carry on the struggle. Do they form themselves into three committees, as Punch's Brook Green Volunteer used to practise forming himself into a square to resist cavalry, and pass their time in furiously canvassing each other ? Or does political feeling so highly concentrated exert a repelling power and keep them sulkily apart ? Any how the results of this singular equality in the number of voters and candidates must be very amusing. Of course all the usual forms of an election are strictly preserved, for where the loss of a single vote would be ruin no candidate dare treat the electors with anything like neglect; so we suppose public meetings are held, and the policy of each candidate in turn explained and defended before an audience of three. But as at every meeting there would be one elector in favor of the speaker and two against him, and aa the hostile majority would of course silence the solitary supporter by voting him into the chair, it would follow that every candidate would have a unanimous vote of want of confidence carried against him. Then again on the nomination day. Tbe three candidates will be proposed by the three electors, and, no one else being left to do it, each will second himself. The show of hands will be perfectly equal; and it must be observed that the show will be taken with the most unexceptionable fairness, for no one will have the face to stand forward before his brother electors and deliberately hold up both his hands. The Returning Officer will then give his casting vote, and some one will demand a poll. We should like to know whether the poll must necessarily be kept open from nine a.m. to four p.m in order to record the; three votes, or whether the Returning Officer may close it when the third vote has been taken, and the voting power of the constituency exhausted. At four o'clock another dead heat of three will be announced, and the Returning Officer will again have to decide by his casting vote which is to be the member. It is hardly right, by the way, under such peculiar circumstances that this unlucky official should be compelled to undertake duties so invidious and responsible. It will involve him in trouble of all kinds and make his life a burden to him. Perhaps he is on friendly terms with one or more of tbe candidates ; if so, what painful suspicion he will be exposed to. He will not be able to show the slightest civility to his friend, to nod to him even, still less to take a glass of wine, without insinuations being thrown out of undue influence, treating, &c. If he makes a remark about the weather it will be held to contain some mysterious and most reprehensible allusion to the <»ming election. In one respect however he is fortunate. The election is not in Ireland, and fifty years ago. I If it were, however he, gave his casting | vote he would infallibly have two duels on hand before the name of the successful candidate had well passed his lips. Tbe whole affair reminds us of a story we heard a long time ago of an election iv some up-country

district of Victoria. There were three electors in the district and twu candidates, one ot' them, if we remember rightly, being Mr Fellows. Each had secured one vote, and the question was which could get the third and place himself in a triumphant majority of two to one. The third elector was at his station, 100 miles off, and both the candidates dashed off riding for their lives to get first to the spot. Mr. Fellows won the race, but great was his disgust on finding the elector laid up with a broken leg and quite unable to be brought down to the polling place. We forget how the election ended, but suppose the Hβturning Officer was in this case also the deus ex ■machlnd who solved the difficulty. Of course we do not imagine that the electors of Lindis are not men of scrupulous integrity, but the proceedings of election committees in Euglaud, as reported in our latest file of the Times, suggest some speculations as to what might happen were their honesty less assured. At Totness, at the time of the last general election in England, there were 200 electors and five candidates, and votes were bought and sold at an average price of £30. Assuming that as the fair market rate, a short calculation will show what ought to be paid for a vote in a constituency of three electors, with three candidates ; to which must be added a large allowance for the fact that a single vote would settle the election. In fact the value of a vote could only be measured by the value of the seat —whether the honor of a seat in the Provincial Council of Otago is a thing to be valued very highly we must leave to those concerned in the matter to decide. Supposing, however, all three voters to be open to a douceur of the kind delicately veiled at Totness under the emblematic title of " sugar," another ver} curious result might ensue. All having sold their votes, and all honorably giving their votes in return for the consideration, the election would turn out in effect precisely the same A's man would vote for B, B's man would vote for C, and C's man for A, so each candidate would get the vote he bought but lose his first vote which had been bought by some one else. The candidates would lose their money (a very fit retribution), —the electors make a good thing of it, —and the result be just the same as though there had been no bribery, or "sugar," at all. Several other minor points occur to us as likely to have a comical effect, but we have said enough to point out the leading features of this very quaint election. In conclusion, we can only hope our contemporary, the Times, will give a very full report of the proceedings, as ifc is possible that some hints may be derived which may be turned to account at our next elections in Canterbury. It is seldom that a chance offers itself of observing the workiner of representative institutions under such strange, and in some respects, embarrassing circumstances.