ELECTION STREAMERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18297, 13 January 1923, Page 11

ELECTION STREAMERS.

AN ILLEGAL PAYMENT. .. EAST DORSET INCIDENT. In the King's Bench Division, in London recently Mr. Justice Sankey granted . relief to Captain G. R. Hall Caino, the successful Conservative candidate for Easfc ■ Dorset, to Mr. Risdon Bennett, his election agent, .and to his sub-agent, to Mr. Jonathan Eustace Tydeman, and other members of a special committee of the Poole Conservative Qtub, who . applied under section 23 of the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Act, 1883, to be relieved from the consequences of an illegal payment, oh the ground that it was, due to , inadvertence.' The application,', was unI opposed. * Sir Hugh Fraser, who appeared for the applicant, said that Captain Hall Cain a - was adopted as Conservative -candidate'' on October 31 for the East Dorset Divi-.,, . ! sion. On; November 4 he appointed Mr. -.'■ Risdon Bennett his election agent. Mean- . while, Mr. Tydeman and others, who were appointed as an emergency committee of. the Poole Conservative Club, ordered 12 calico streamers, six of them were about 20ft. long and six about ,4ft. long. On them was painted " Vote for Hall Caine, the Conservative candidate." One of the large streamers was stretched " from the Conservative committee rooms to a pole - ma garden across the road, one was .exhibited on the front of the Conservative Club, and one was stretched across the High Street. The election agent of Captain .P." E. Guest, the Liberal candidate, wrote complaining of the posters, saying that they were illegal, and that :he had drawn the iraturning officer's attention to them. Mr, Tydeman and the other members of the committee had no idea that there was, any illegality, but they consulted a solicitor, who advised them -that they might possibly be held to be illegal. The three which had been exhibited were at once removed, and the other nine were never used. It was true that they were,' paid for after the protest, but again nobody concerned had any idea that there was anything illegal;in paying for goods which had been ordered and delivered. '• Mr. Justice Sankey reviewed the facts' already set out and referred to. the affi-.'„.-. davits filed in support of the application. • He read section • 23, and said that 1 there had been a number of cases decided by the Court" to interpret that section. They turned "chiefly on the word " inadvertence," but he would deal first with the words "and did not arise from any want of good faith," for the purpose of eliminating .them. Everyone here had acted in perfect faith. >" Inadvertence'' Was . not an easy word. Murray's Dictionary ■* defined it ae " failure to observe or pay attention." He did not propose define . or lay down what was inadvertence. ..lift ' thought that it was very dangerous to attempt to do so, and that' a Judge ought not to bind his successors by such a do- ':■'. finition. Looking at the whole of facts—(l) . The fact that the election" had', been conducted on perfectly proper and ■ fair lines; (2} the fact that all concerned had acted in perfectly good faith; (3) \' the fact that very few of these banners were made; and(4) the fact that as soon;, as attention was drawn to them they were taken down —he came to the conclusion.. that this was a. case in which relief -might be granted; he did grant it, and'.he made.... the order applied for.