A FRENCH ELECTION.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8168, 26 June 1906, Page 3

A FRENCH ELECTION.

If some Crown colony like Fiji ■desired representation in the Imperial Parliament, there would be an excellent ready to I hand. French India, whioh is territory of less than j TWO HUNDRED SQUARE MILES is represented in the French Parliament by one senator and one deputy. Consequently there was an election in Pondicherry early in May. The -candidates for the seat in th« Cham-! 'ber of Deputies were M. Louis Henliqne the sitting member, M. P. Lemaire, who was formerly Governor of Pondicherry, and M. Camps, who hardly counted in the contest. Up to 1889 every French citizen, INCLUDING EVERY NATIVE, •who was six months resident in any portion of French India, was entitled to vote, but by the enactment of that year the franchise was limited to Frenoh oitizons born Qf Frenoh parents, natives of French India b«ing recognised as Frenchmen "Bui generis," but without ■any right to votegoutside t heir own native country. The deputy elected must have AT LEAST A QUARTER •of the total number of vote cast. There was plenty of excitement over the eleotions, because the natives •aeeri to bo rather unbalanced voters, •and a correspondent of the Madras Mail relates that on polling d3y there was something like a reign of terror in the capital. Trouble at one booth led to an exchange of shots 'between the oolice and the crowd. Four persons were KILLED OUTRIGHT •and doaens wounded, and in the subsequent rioting so many were injured that the hospitals were fulj. Looting commenced in the bazaars, and for a day the population threatened to get entirely out of hand. The exoitement|seems to have subsided at nightfall, however. The provisional result gave the' Bitting deputy 18,600 votes, and M. Lemare 13,500, but there was some talk of a ••recount. The eleotions, it must be confessed, are not very strictly conducted. Some years-ago A CLEVER LOCAL AGENT managed matters that his candidate, an unknown man, was announced to have gained 40,000 votes, wDile the rival candidate, who had been deputy for seventeen years, received only nine. The position is sought after becauae the representative practically nominates men for e?ey vacancy 1 a th« colony, and can make and unmake even the Governor.