AMERICAN DOLLARS AND ENGLISH POLITICS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVI, Issue 2, 11 January 1911, Page 44

AMERICAN DOLLARS AND ENGLISH POLITICS.

A TAME ELECTION. LONDON, November 25. OyT STRANGE air of unreality per4 I vades the general election cam- , J paigti into which the United Kingdom is plunged. One A strange air of unreality pervades the general election campaign into which the United Kingdom is plunged. One can find no real enthusiasm in all this ■war of words. The campaign provides a marked contrast to the election of February last. That (w<as contested with tremendous verve on all sides, and the whole country was aroused. But the election now forced upon the country excites but languid interest. The faet is that nobody wants it. A December election plays havoc with trade at what, would otherwise be the best shopping season of the year. The interminable wrangles about the constitution of the House of Lords appeal chiefly to politicians, and leave the public cold. And thus it is that the “state of war” to which the great political parties have reverted is mainly a paper war. The battle cries have a hollow ring about them. Leading articles pour forth a mighty stream of words, but the general reader calmly stands clear of the cascade, and lets it shoot harmlessly by. I hear nobody talking politics in circles where a brief year ago everyone was an excited politician.

The election is being fought on a register which was made up 18 months ago, and which includes the names of only those who had been at their then addresses for twelve months. In other words, the man who is to vote now’—at the end of 1910 —in any given constituency, must have moved into it by the 15th of July, 1908. A new register is in existence, made up to August last; but it doe* not come into force till January, and therefore cannot be used in a December election without a special Act of Parliament to authorise its use. Evidently the Government thought it better tactics to go in to battle on the old register, but the situation thus produced is certainly anomalous.

It is left to the suffragettes to impart any enthusiasm or excitement into the political crisis. Their energy takes the form of open lawlessness. it was their intention to flood the prisons with women by means of a series of raids on Westminster. Hundreds were arrested in the first raid last Friday on charges of obstructing the police; but to their amazement Mr. Churchill, as Home Secretary, declined to prosecute them, and they were discharged. Determined to get into prison, the suffragettes have now started-what is apparently m systematic campaign of window-breaking, and their riot of Tuesday last was the most violent of any. that have occurred. Numbers of them were sent to prison, where, no doubt, they have begun a “hunger strike.” The public are tired of hearing of these scenes, and have no sympathy with them; but it is certainly embarrassing for the Liberal Government, and to embarrass the Government is apparently the suffragettes’ main object.