THE BRITISH ELECTIONS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2745, 25 February 1910, Page 2

THE BRITISH ELECTIONS.

BEFORE THE BATTLE

INCIDENTS IN THE CAMPAIGN

(From tho correspondent *of the “Christchurch Press.”)

TENDON, Jen. 7. The ballads and nymns of the hour are many and diverse. Many weeks ago the Radicals circulated thoir war songs, and by the time the Budget was disposed of it was possible for large crowds to give throat to “The Land Song” (tune. “Georgia”) with something like' harmony. The songs for the other side were chiefly martial, calling the people to the trenches against the alien foe.

A POSTER DUEL. The* candidate who appealed to the electorate for brains (being liimself, of course) before title (being bis opponents) received full change the following day, wlion this poster was placarded on the walls of Hoxton:

DR. ADDISON ASKS FOR SUPPORT

On The Ground That He Is

USED TO CUTTING UP BODIES (See Dr. Addison’s report issued by tho Radicals.) WILL YOU LET HIM CUP UP THE EMPIRE ? DON’T VOTE FOR ADDISON, Who Cuts Up The Stomach, But VOTE FOR HAY. Who Will See That It Is Filled.

These are some extracts from the leaflet which was issued the same day:

"Not ‘Carpet Bagger’ but ‘Body

Cutter.’ ”

The Radical Candidate for Hoxtoii has issued a remarkable document. If begins by assuring you that lie was born. That is satisfactory, but not unusual. Claude liay was born, too, if it comes to that. Then you are told that he was married in 11)01, and has already two sons, and two daughters. 'That is good enough, but it hardly amounts to a “record.” Many Hoxtonians have done as well in as short a time. . . Does he tliin'k that the Hoxtonians want their stomachs cut open? If so, lie is wrong. They want them filled. And they have never been so empty as since his beloved Liberal Government came into power. . . lVhat the people of Hoxtoii want to know is not whether he is clean with his knife, hut what ho knows about lioxton, and what he has done far Hoxton. Dr. Addison, in his first letter to you, dated February 22nd, 1908, pledged his help to “those who still want doing.” Those that don't want to be “done” should vote for Claude Hay.

MR. REEVES IX POLITICS. Though he declined an offer to himself to stand in the Liberal interest, the Hon. W. Pember Reeves has thrown himself into the campaign on behalf of one or two candidates.

He spent a few days last week in Gloucestershire, where he delivered several speeches in support of the Right TTon. Russell Rea. M.P., who was, in 1900, Chairman of the Departmental Committee on the Eight Hours Law for Miners and is also Chairman of the Liberal Publications Department. In the course of a speech at Tredworth, Mr. Reeves, who was introduced as “one of the m<;st distinguished of our colonial statesmen, and one who was passing Labor measures before we thought of them,” said though he had lived now for fourteen years in England, he had never, until that night, had anything whatever t-o do with English politics. He had not only never triixl to make a political speech here, but ho had never heard one made except in the House of Commons, where he l ad listened from the gallery.

••One of tho Unionists said tho coun. try was plunged in a sea of revolution, and another that it was on the eve of an attack by some foreign Power. (Laughter.) Somebody else, lie thought it was Mario Corelli, said that they ware all trembling on the verge of a great abyss, that family life, property, law and order, were going to be plunged in the abyss of Socialism if somebody did not come to the rescue, and he supposed that someone was the House of Lords. (Laughter.) Then they were told that the Army and the Navy were not what they should be, and that if they would sleep well they must put the government of tlio country into the hands of that party who were so extraordinarily well-prepared on the outbreak of the South African War. (Renewed laughter, and a voice, ‘Let them have it!’) Never since he had begun to study politics —and he had been watching them for forty years now —never during that period had he known a national crisis to compare with the parting of the ways. (Hear, hear! and applause.) As a student of history ho told them that they iveve standing at the parting of the ways. (Hear, hear.) ft was no exaggeration of language to say it was a terrible crisis to which the people of the country were faced. (Applause.) It was a question of whether they were going to he a free, self-governing, democratic people, or whether they were going to hand over the key of government to a small unsympathetic privileged class. It was an awful thing to him, a colonist born and bred in one of the most democratic countries in the world to think that tilie Mother Country, that had stood in the van of progress, that had fought the lesson of liberty to the v/orkl, and given to the colonies their great democratic constitutions should 1)0 coolly asked to surrender its own right and power and freedom to manage its own affairs. (Applause.) At a later meeting Mr. Reeves remarked That they had had so many missionary addresses from peers of late that lie was constantly loq'king out for suc h advertisements as “Pink Peers lor Pale. People.” (Loud laughter.) For good, double-barrelled, copper-buttom-e<l Billingsgate, commend him to the speeches of the Unionists. In fact, he had come to the conclusion that- the difference between a baron and a bargee was really, not sufficient to make any fuss about. (Renewed laughter.)