Uie candidature of another Liberal, but he likewise declined to supply 'sugar,' and was disastrously beaten. The same thing occurred again this year …hellip; The leading Liberals are now looking forward to their old Whig member standing again, not because they have any confidence in his principles, but because he would comply with^the indispensable and time honoured custom of supplying sugar."
I need hardly tell you that sugar is a euphemism for cash.
Stroud is a medium sized borough; it cannot he called a large town. It has 6,000 Electors, and returns the same number of legislators as the Tower Hamlets does with 33,000 Electors. We are so accustomed to Parliamentary insult that this sounds like a minor grievance. What the character of this provincial borough is we have had ample opportunity of learning. Here, says Mr. Baron Pigott, speaking of the last contest, "Bribery begat bribery of the worst kind … and perjury followed in its wake;" yet such is the deference shown to provincial politics, that Mr. Gladstone accepted the decision of Stroud as final evidence of the feeling of the country, and dissolved Parliament upon its adverse vote.
Many small boroughs are in reality nothing more than mere camps of the retainers of adjoining landlords. You are doubtless familiar with their appearance: you know that long street of shops, it is generally called High Street, owned by obsequious tradesmen, who watch like spiders for the appearance of the carriages of the gentry, and dart out and humble themselves lowly and reverently for orders. These were the people who mobbed Mr. Odger at Reading, and who killed Joshua Davidson. No man of spirit can remain long in one of these places; he is a marked man. Yet these are the places which return members by the score to overwhelm the great borough representation.
It is one of the many illusions of Reformers, to suppose that, because the ballot affords protection to timid voters it must produce an independent vote. The Ballot cannot create convictions. Where there are no convictions the ballot is useless. Now political convictions are rare among the tenants of large estates, and camp retainers in general. Politicians do not sufficiently consider the emasculating effect of our system of land tenure. It is almost a condition of rural tenancy that the occupier is a Conservative or a non-politician, which is much the same thing. By this means the rural districts become peopled by political dependents, and Conservative journalists triumphantly exclaim—see how Conservative the country is! Do we not often read of some county election, where the nominee of a, few great land-owners is brought forward and elected a
