ELECTION AMENITIES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19976, 18 December 1926, Page 13

ELECTION AMENITIES

THE SMETHWICK CONTEST. EXCHANGE OF PERSONALITIES. (Tress Association —By Telegraph Copyright.) LONDON, December 17. (Received Dec. 17. at 10 p.m.) Election scenes of the old-fashioned sort continue in Smethwick. The Conservative candidate, Mr Marshall Pike, who is described in the nomination paper as a secretary, says that he has done 11 years’ coal shovelling, while Mr Mosley has been loafing in Mayfair drawing rooms. The candidates held a prolonged and angry cross talk from their respective motor cars, which nearly ended in a riot. Mr Ramsay MacDonald addressed a crowd of 15,000 persons in Southwick Park in freezing weather, and during the proceedings a poorly-clad woman handed a baby to Lady Cynthia Mosley, who was on the platform. One report says that she sheltered it in her fur coat and crooned happily. Another says that 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 the Labourites say that she fell accidentally in a crush. The real issue of the election is impossible to gather from the reports.—A. and N.Z. Cable.