BRITISH BY-ELECTION

Taranaki Daily News, 18 December 1926, Page 13

BRITISH BY-ELECTION

THE SMITIJWKJK CAMPAIGN

MUCH ILL-WILL DISPLAYED

WOMAN SPEAKER INJURED

Mearsidi—Press Assn.—Copyright. Received Dee. 17, 8.66 p.m. London, Dee. 17.

Election scenes of the old-fashioned sort continue in the Smethwick by-elec-tion campaign. The Conservative Mr. Marshall Pike, who is described in his nomination paper as a “secretary,” saya that he has done eleven years’ coal shovelling, while Mr. Mosley has been loafing in Mayfair drawing-rooms; The rival candidates held a prolonged and angry eross-talk from their respective motor-ears, which nearly ended in a riot.

Mr. Ramsay MacDonald addressed a crowd of 16,000 iu a Smethwick park in freezing weather, and during the proceedings a poorly-clad woman handed a baby to Lady Cynthia Mosley, who wae on the platform. One report says she sheltered it in her fur coat and crooned to it happily. Another says the baby cried and Lady Cynthia promptly returned it to its mother.

The Conservatives complain that an elderly woman speaker was roughly handled and injured, while Labourites say she fell accidentally in a crush.

The real issue of the election is irn possible to gather from the reports.