ELECTIONS IN £ S. D.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 7336, 14 January 1911, Page 12

ELECTIONS IN £ S. D.

WHAT BEITISH CANDIDATES DISBUKSE. • FROM OTTR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT. LONDON, December 2. What does an election cost? The only answer possible is "Heaven alone knows. According to official figures the total cost of the election in January last was JE1,28G,353, but this total is merely made up of the disbursements admitted by candidates and returning officers' expenses. Tho amount of money spent pnratoly by such bodies as the Tariff Reform League, the Free Trade Union, tho Budget Loague and other auxiliary political organisations is, and will remain, a dark secret. We know that all of these bodies spent money like water, and those who were intimately concerned with tho conduct of the elections know also that thousands of pounds were spent by private individuals in furthering the interests of candidates in whom they, were interested. According to the official figures the average cash per vote at the last general election was 3s lOd in England and Wales, '4s 5d in Scotland, and 2s lid in Ireland. The cost, howvaried tremendously in different districtsj for whereas in some constituencies the electors were. polled at less than a shilling a head, in Orkney the cost was 29s Cd a head, in Ross 16s 2d, in Peebles 10s sd, and in one division of Dublin lis 9d. Expensive as elections are to-day they nro run cheaply compared with a hundred years ago. The great contest between the Lascellea and Wentworth Fitzwilliam families for the County of York lasted fourteen davs and its total cost was not far short of 4300,000. In tho same year Wcllesloy Pole expended .£BO,OOO in contesting Wiltshire, his bill for ribbons and favours alone amounting to over .£44)00.