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SPIRIT OF THE WELSH PRESS.

THE CHOLERA.

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- BOARDS OF GUARDIANS. -

THE CHARGE AGAINST A SHREWSBURY…

ROBERT OWEN,

FATAL 1 ACCIDENT AT ABERYSTWYTH-I

THE MEANING OF HEREFORD BYE-ELECTION.

Newyddion
Dyfynnu
Rhannu

THE MEANING OF HEREFORD BYE- ELECTION. Before dealing with the character and lesion of Sir Joseph Pulley's detent we take leave to affirm that no mm could liare fought the battle with mor, unflag- girig z !wi and ability tban and that no ri- au could have received more loyal and energetic service from hit, party. Whilst Sir Joseph Pulley b»ers his oefeat wirJi unsurpassable dignity aud rnogna,:iirr,itv, we entirely agiee witii him that it would be invidious and ui jii^t to single out any familiar names for recognition and praise, when the truth is that the wholit py.rty have betn bonded together aud worked together like one man. As to tae defeat itself, we rnu,t bo; caietul to <;L-Ciiminate bs-tween the national and the st-ctional interests which Lave been con- c rned in the content. It we were compelled to think thac th-i contest had been determined upon the political merits of the questions and individuals in- volved, aud that the seat had been thuti lost for Liberalism, Home Ruie, smd Mr Gladstone—the grandest statesman, morally and intellectually, the world has ever seen then we should be dis- h, arteneù in no common degree; for that would be equivalent, in our estimation, to a lasting blot upon the ancient city. But we do not for a moment be- Jic, ve th"t the battle has been lost on these grounds, and therefore we are not driven to the conclusion ttiat the men of Hereford have repudiated their prin- ciples, and ceased in a short twelve months to be politically sound and generous. We are not over. whelmed with fears of this kind, because it is notorious, and it will not be denied even by our suc- cessful opponents, that other causes than Home Rule for Ireland have led to the return of Mr Radcliffo Cooke. We make io mystery about the matter, for th"re is noi e. Sir Joseph fulley has polled 1,460 votes, as against the 1,136 which he polleu in the year 1886. This me ins that we had on Tuesday last 324. more coavincdd Home Rulers in Her, ford "than we had nine years ago. It is true that we hid another 47 Home Rulers last year when Mr Grenfell's poll was 1,5U7. But now comes the question,—How were th-. se 47 voters, who would have been enough to win the eiecnon, subtracted from our side, and carried over to the side of the Conservatives? Was it be- cause th-y have lost their faith in the justice and necessity of Home ltu!e P We iio not believe it for a moment. It is because every art and device were employed by the backers of Mr Cooke to appeal to the private interests of the voters becau»e the ch-rgy of the Establishment is the supposed interest of the Church and the publi- cans in cue professed interest of their trade, did not draw the line even at intimidation and boycotting to gain their end because other men, one Liberal and loaded wii.h Liberal favours, exerted the same kind of pressure, following tradesmen in their sliors and working men in their daily occupation with the fear or being denoullced and ruined: and because at the last moment a deputation of railway men in the in- terests of the Railway Companies came into the town, confused the issues, and menaced the local men with the withdrawal of the Company's subscriptions. We merely state weil-known facts, and leave our readers to judge how far these methods were legitimate. All we are concerned to show is that the City of Herpford as a whole is not blackened by these foreign and sectional appeals to the ftars of the poorer vo era, or by the ihteats of impoverishment scattered broad- cast by a few wealthy canvassers of both sexes. Dia* credit there is but it is not the discredit of a con* stituency deliberately throwing its principles to the winds, and treacherously turning from truth to false* hood, from light to darkness. Let the 1.460 good men and true-e, eryone of whom is a convinced Home Ruler, proof against intimidation and corrup- tion—take fresh courage and consolation from these facts. There it. another battle to be fought at the General Election for Liberalism, Home Rule and Mr Gladstone and that battle we shall win, because the unscrupulous tribe of strangers and Orangemen from afar, who, with subscribed money in their' pockets, thronged our streets for days for combined.. noliday and corrupting purposes, will have to remain at home in order to bribe and corrupt their own par- ticular constituencies. It is not altogether unsatisfactory, that if there are to be constant changes in the politics ,of Hereford, Liberal following Conservative, and Conservative following Liberal, the recent bye-election should have been thrust upon us in order to give the Conserva- tives their short spell of gratification, and to prepare the way for a much more impor:ant and decisive vic- tory of Liberalism at the General Election. We have no fresh oiij-ction to take to this irrational" in-and. out" method. What we do object to, ai.dwhat we shall never cense to denounce, 1<1 the corrupt influ- ence exercistd by the rich on the poor, and by thoae in authority on the humble and dependent. When women plastered over with Union Jacks do r ot hesi- tate to tempt poor men to barter their consciences; when common foik are not ashamod to display lumps of coal decked with blue streamers, meant to recall and perpetuate tormer acts ot mean and cowardly bribery long since exposed and punished with the approval ot every patriotic man of both parties when ministers of religion enter tbops and loudly withdraw their custom from respectable tradesmen; when quondam Liberals, on the morrow of receiving marks cf public esteem from men of all parties, throw themselves into bitter party conflict with a screwing spirit characterise of the worst pre- Reform da)s-then it seems to us high time to make a, public protest; for this is neither fair nor decent fi/hting. Apart from questions of undue influence and intimidation, and from other questions of direct corruption, on which thero are more than a few rumours afloat, we have no desire to keep ihe contro- versy alive. The Liberals of Hereford must meet their tern" porary reverse with undaunted breasts, and in the conviction that the masses are sound for it is by a. spirit such as this in moments of defeat that the greatest campaigns have always been won by the people. If a tew of our followers have been tempted away by hollow threats and still more offensive bribes, we must labour to bring them back and con- firm iheir faith. The victory of the future will rest beyond all doubt with the 1,460 staunch Home Rulers, not with the 1,504 who have been strail.ed and whipped and tempted together by snch acts as we have exposed in the mildest language at our eiul- mand.-Herejord Timet. The Westminster GezeUe says None of the humour of by-elections is more absurd than the treatment of the candidates by their respective partisans as soon as the result is known. The defeated party throws all the blame on its own champion, and extols the virtues of the champion on the other. The victorious party, in order to extract the greater political capital out ot the victory, damns the wining individual with faint praise, and lauds the defeated candidate to the skies. In the case of Hereford, the losers have- abstained for once from this familiar exercise, and. have thrown all the blame upon some wicke 1 railway men instead; but on the victorious side, the good old trick of magnifying the issue by miuimising the in- dividual has been very freely played. It is neither ohivalrous nor scientific; but it is, we suppose, part of the game. At last, however, a candidate has arisen who will not submit to be denounced by his own allies as a noodle or a nobody simply because he has bad the good fortune to win a seat for them. Mr T. w- Russel will have it that he, and not the Unionists candidate, won Hereford. Sir Joseph Pulley, he gives us to understand, is an archangel from Heaven, against whom nothing except the extraordinary cogency of Mr T. W. Russell's arguments could poa- sibly have prevailed. As for Mr Radcliff Cooke, ber as the Spectator puts it, ''is a barrister and is only known on cirouit." Now this is more than Mr Cooke cm stand, and he writes to the Times on August 19th to complain. He is barrister, but he does not go cir- cuit. What he does do is to play the local man -I have resided in the county, where I was born and bred, for more than 12 years. Ten years ago I was- invited to contest the country. I was president of the Chamber of Agriculture, chairman for two' years of the Ledbury Highway Board, and am and have long been a county magistrate and deputy-lieu- tenant. The gentlemen who were good enough to, approach me some months ago on the subject of my candidature for the city at the General Election left me with the impression that one reason why they asked me to come forward was that I was well known to the electors. To magnify the popularity of the Glad* stonian candidate and depreciate that of the Union- ist may, from a tactical point of view, be good policy, but I cannot allow my position in my native country and in its capital city, to be so completely, though no doubt unintentionally, misrepresented. We must say we like this frank revolt of the natural man against the party manipulator.

NEW RADNOR.

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