A letter in the "Clapham Observer" (16th April 1904) analyses the voting in the huge union of Wandsworth, containing a population of more than 400,000, and points a moral. The writer states that, in the three years of office of the outgoing Board, a total of £642,620, showing an increase of twenty-seven per cent, in the three years, "had been spent by the Guardians." He goes on to say that, at the three elections out of twenty-four wards only eight polled. "The total number of voters in the union is 73,340; of these only 5086 voted, or not quite seven per cent. In the eight wards contested only 21.66 per cent., or not one-quarter of the ratepayers, took the trouble of voting. Upon whom does the blame rest if the expense of Poor Law administration goes up by leaps and bounds?"
What, then, is the cause of this? The answer probably is that there are many contributory causes, but that the main cause is the little credit which local government enjoys in popular estimation. The average citizen looks on it with something like contempt: he will neither take part in it himself nor will he trouble himself to vote, or even to learn anything about it. He has a<vague idea that Guardians are "Bumbles," and borough councillors not much better. He has no clear ideas as to the functions of a multiplicity of local bodies, and he resents the frequency of elections. This is the case with the "well-to-do" class of voter; the poorer voter, in addition, has the grievance that he has been repeatedly promised all sorts of benefits without any result, and his constant dictum is that "one lot is as bad as the other, and that he won't vote at all." The discredit into which local government has fallen affects unfavourably the class of candidates who offer themselves for election. The average citizen sees in it no outlet for honourable
