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THE BATTLE.

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I LOCAL & GENERAL NOTES. J

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LOCAL & GENERAL NOTES. J The Radical party in Chester have done that absurd; thing which we- bad half anticipated. This week they have- "adopted" Mr. Mond as their candidate for a second- time during the- present campaign. We have it ort the authority of tho "Times" that at a meeting of the Liberal Three Hundred, on Tuesday evening, Mr. Alfred Mond was "adopted as Liberal candidate for Chester," and the inspired paragraph added, "Mr. Mond is a strong Free Trader and a Home Ruler. If there bo any virtue in adoption, what. earthly reason can the Radicals have- for going through the solemn ceremonial a second time? The roaeon, of course, as we have shewn before, is that the Radicals found, when they adopted Mr. Mond two and a half years ago, that they had committed an egregious Dlunder. because the moment a candidate is "adopted" his election expenses, which are rigidly limited by law, com- mence to count. Mr. Mond may possess the wealth of Croesus, but he durst not spend a penny more than the Act of Parliament allows, and the statute is not too liberal in its allowance- either. Had Mr. Mond lived a hundred years ago, before any nasty Corrupt Practices Act was dreamt of, ho could have spent thousands of pounds in the prosecu- tion- of his candidature, but a wise law now de- crees that seats in Parliament cannot be bought in that way. The pickle in which Mr. Mond finds himself may result in this, that he has epeait already a. goodly sum in his candidature, and that before the polling day his allowance will run out, if he has- not over-run the constable by this time. The farce of "adopting" Mr. Mond this w'eek again is seemingly a flimsy attempt to whitewash him in the eye of the law, and to let him begin counting his election expenses "de iiovo." Needless to say, this is too clumsy an act to escape the consequences of premature adoption, and it is surprising Mr. Mond's sup- porters should have lent themselves to it.. Of Mfl. Mond's original adoption there can be no possible shadow of doubt. In the Delphic oracle of local Radicalism we read that on the 27th July, 1903, at a meeting of the Liberal Three Hundred, at the Liberal Club in this city, the following proposition was made:- "That this meeting of the Liberal Throe Hundred, having heard Mr. Mond's ad- dreas, hereby formally adopts him as their candi- date, and while recommending him to the elec- tors at large as a fit and proper person to repre- sent the city of Chester, pledges itself to do every- thing in its power to return him as member of Parliament for Chester at the next election." If ever there was a case of .definite, formal adoptioo., here it is in black and white. We must not be taken as associating- with the gram- matical blunders that will be found in the fore- going resolution, but our intelligent readers probably will agree with us in thinking that this confusion of the plural and the singular all through the long sentence rather affords cor- roborative evidence of its genuineness. This proposition was made by Mr. R. H. Lance- ley, was seconded by Mr. Donald .Sullivan, sup- ported by Mr. John Griffiths, Dr. 'Stolterfoth and Mr T. Mills. "The resolution," our contem- porary adds, "on being put, was carried unani- mously and by acclamation. Mr. Mond was then re-called into the room, and informed by the Chai.-rnaii tha, he had: been adopted- Unless Mr. Mond is prepared to libel his organ in the Press, by describing the whole report as a malicious concoction, it is difficult to show he is sro ng to get out of the entanglement Politics are not tlie same as child's play, where one can say one did not really mean a certain thirtg. It Y/iil scarcely serve now for those leaders of Radicalism in the city to say that this solemn and clumsy resolution; was intended only in a Pick- wickian sense. The. law does not recognise Mr. Pickwick and his ideas of humour. We leave Mr. Mond and his friends to wriggle out of the diffi- culty as best they may, but. they have to thank this journal for giving them timely warning of the grave risks they are running in the matter of clectioin expenses. The Radicals are fond of calling the Unionists the party of muddle, but here is a pretty kettle of fish over such a simple business matter as the adoption of a candidate, Nothing infuriates the Chester Radicals more than to lemind them of the antecedents of their candidate, Mr. Mond Last week we recalled to the public that Mr. Mond, as the pro-Boer candi- date for South Salford, at the last, General E'cc- t'on, was defeated by the thumping majority of 1,227 votes. Before Mr. Mond's advent, South Salford had been a rather shaky constituency. At the 1885 election the Radicals held the seat with a majority of 55 votes. Next year the Unionists ril 1892o how- ever, the Uniomst majority dwindled to 57, and in 1895 Sir H. H. Howarth was able to retam the seat for the same party by a. bare margin of only 74 votes. Then, in 1900, appeared Mr. Mond on the scene, and the electors of South Salford ex- pressed their opinion of his qualifications as a candidate by increasing the Unionist majority to 1,227. This being the record of Mr. Mond's election- eering performances, it passes the wit of man to understand how the .Chester Radical party can profess to believe that tho candidate who con- verted. South Salford from a wavering constitu- ency into a Unionist fortress should be likely to defeat Mr. Yerburgh, who has won and kept the Chester seat with steadily increasing majorities Because we recalled Mr. Mond's disastrous elec- tioneering experience, Mr. Milk at Handbridge accused us of Hooliganism. That Mr. Mond was a pro-Boer at the South Salford election there can be no doubt in the minds of those who re- member the circumstances. For all we know to the contrary, he is a pro-Boer still, for we have not. heard of his public repentance. If Mr. Mond is aslhamed of the part he played in the South Sal- ford election as a supporter of the pro-Boer policy and as a humble adherent of the states- man who described the warfare canicd on by British soldiers as "methods of barbarism," why does lie not come forward frankly and avow his error? Mr. Lancaley evidently has no gratitude for benefits hitherto given. It is nothing to him that the King's School has been maintained by Church of England people in the past, and that Noncon- formists have received the advantage of the edu- cation given there. Now that it is proposed to make a grant to the school he complains of tho rule which requires- the headmaster to be a mem- ber of the Church of England. But the head- master has always been a member of the Church of England, and nobody can assert that there has been the slightest attempt at proselytism. As for the question of representation which Mr. Lanoeley raised, the Tbwn Council have four out of eighteen governors, whereas the Oldfield trustees, who have given seven or eight thousand pounds to the school, have only one. The King's School and Queen's School are doing an excel- lent work, and' we feel sure: the Corporation will approve of the Education Committee's recom- mendation that a donation of JB200 00 made to each, with an annual giant of £100 also to each. Mr. Tomkinson has cabled from India, where lie has just arrived, stating that he is returning at once to England to take up his candidature- for the Crewe Di-srisiexn. This hurried ietarn rather destroys that amusing picture of complacency which was the creation of our Radical contem- porary when he set sail. Said that newspaper: "He can confidently rely on the chivalry of his constituents to re-elect him. So strong, indeed, would the feeling be in his favour that he would probably receive some hundreds of addltiofaal votes." etc. Then why is Mr. Tomkinson catch- nig the next homeward ship? He is not the man to throw away "some hundreds of additional votes." The truth is he has a fuller appreciation, of Mr. Welsford's progress than our contemporary1 pretends to have, and, like Mr. Lever, he realises the necessity of hard work and the disadvantage- of absence abroad at election time. In a character sketch of Mr. Lloyd-George in the "Daily Express," Mr. Foster Fraser says: —: Here is a. story he tells himself-with a twinkle in bis eye: He was addressing a meeting at Flint, and his chairman said: "I haff to introduce to you j the member for the Carnarvon Boroughs. He bass come here to reply to what the Bishop of St. Asaph said the other night about Welsh Disestab- lishment. In my opinion, gentlemen., the Bishop of St. Asaph is oae of the biggest liars in creashon; but he hwsshis match in Mr. Lloyd- <?* targe JPublic authorities will watch with great in- terest the arbitration proceedings which ajo in progress at Abergele concerning the improvement and staintenance of main roads within the urban area. A nice point is involved as to the liability of the County Council in respect theloof, and the Local Government Board, for wbom Col. Stroke is conducting the inquiry, will be obliged to settle an important principle in decidiog this par- ticular case. Flintshire, too, has its road di&- pute, although the circumstances are different. The point of the Flintshire problem is whether the County Council are under statutory obliga- tion to pave footpaths in an urban district An eminent counsel has given en opinion which is sufficiently wide of the mark to permit two competent lawyers to interpret it differently. The j matiesr therefore still remains a problem.

LOCAL NEWS. -I

IYERBURGH FOR CHESTER. I

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

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