ELECTION SCENES

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 72, 18 December 1926, Page 11

ELECTION SCENES

feeling running high AT SMETHWICK

CANDIDATES’ ANGRY TALK

BY telegraph.-Pbess association. Copyright. (Rec. December 17, 8.55 p.m.) London, December 17. Election scenes of an old-fashioned sort continue in Smethwick. The Conservative candidate, Mr. Marshall Pike, described in his nomination paper as a secretary, says he has done eleven years’ coal shovelling, while Mr. Mosley has been loafing in Mayfair drawingrooms. The candidates from their respective motor-cars held a prolonged and angry cross talk, which nearly ended in a riot. Mr. Ramsar MacDonald addressed a crowd of 15,000 in Smethwick Park, in freezing weather, and during the proceedings a poorly clad woman handed her baby to Lady Cynthia on the platform. One report says Lady Cynthia

sheltered it in her fur coat and crooned to it happily, but another says the baby cried and Lady Cynthia promptly returned it to the mother. The Conservatives complain that an elderly woman speaker was roughly handled and injured, while Labourites say she fell accidentally in the crush. The real issue of the election it is impossible to gather from the reports.