HOW TO VOTE.

Mataura Ensign, 17 January 1910, Page 4

HOW TO VOTE.

THE BRITISH ELECTIONS. Reference has been made to typical examples of Liberal posters bearing upon the impending British elections. An excellent series issued by the Unionist Party has since come to hand (says the Christchurch 'Press'). While those designed to promote the Ministerial cause, almost without exception, sought to convey political impressions at the point of the bludgeon, and appealed only to the pocket, via the stomach, the selection of Unionist posters removes the controversy to a " much higher plane and combines subtle suggestiveness with humorous allegory. One pictorial argument that must have proved immensely effective gives a representation of Trafalgar Square. Nelson has descended from the tall shaft forming part of the monument to his illustrious memory, and bears in his hand a scroll emblazoned with the demand "Eight Dreadnoughts at Once!" This is entitled 'England Expects." A working man, wide-eyed with astonishment and profoundly chagrined, is depicted by another poster turning scornfully from a pint pot billowing over with froth which falls into a pool of "Radical Promises!" The meance to Britain's supremacy is humorously set fortJr'by a brace of striking cartoor)°.—one showing John Bull soundly asleep in a sentry-box while an American, a German and a Russvan are stealing out through the unprotected gate of "British Industries," with prodigious bundles of "British capital." Perhaps the most pungently suggestive of all. however, is the poster in which John Bull is drawn 10 a most truculent attitude, .administering a severe caning to Mr LloydGeorge and declaring between the showers of blows (apropos of the Bud-, get): "I'll teach you to rob hen-roosts, my lad! A jack tar in the background implores, "Give 'im one forme, guv'nor 'e's robbed the Navy, too!" And last scene of all is John. Bull, Gulliver-like, straddling his distressful country dotted with ruined factories, crippled dockyards, idle tin mines, and overrun with masses of Socialists and armies of unemployed. John himself is wearing a hat made in Belgium, a shoddy coat and vest thrown together by aliens, battered breeches made in Germany, and boots manufactured in America. He has nothing in his pockets save holes and a pawn ticket, and he stands disconsolately beneath the tattered folds of a Free Trade banner, "made in Austria." Altogether it is a most vivid conception of fiscal possibilities. Judged by the excellent samples available the Unionists unquestionably have made out mush the better cause on Whether their pictorial politics will have found a place in tho hearts of the majority of the electors remains for the events qf the next few days to finally determine. %