i 7 8 



The Review of Reviews. 



Febiaary 20, 1906. 



CAUCOCRACY VERSUS DEMOCRACY. 



" A Candid Candidate " reveals in the Grand 

 Magazine the inner working of " The Machinery of 

 British Elections. - ' He strips the paint and clothes 

 from the electoral fetich and shows how the wires 

 work. He says that the two large parties, as a mat- 

 ter of fact, through their central organisations in 

 London, are controlled and directed by some six or 

 twelve active and ingenious workers, who may often 

 take all their orders from one man. This man, al- 

 though his name is possibly not known outside a very 

 narrow circle, exercises an authority greater than the 

 Prime Minister. The writer then shows how it is 

 the caucus, local and national, rather than the 

 people, who select the candidates. !!'• says : 



A large majority oi the constituencies are either not rich 

 enough or not self-sacrificing enough to provide their local 

 organisations with sufficient funds to carry through the 

 great expenses of a oampaign. Take a town with - 

 fifteen thousand voteis. nearly all of them belonging to the 

 very poorest classes. Any section of them, desirous of 

 nominating a candidate, must find about i.126 a year for 

 regi- jes, £150 a year for an election agent, 



some £50 a year for miscellaneous expenses, and about 

 £1000 for every election. Now .t very active association in 

 such a constituency may congratulate itself on having done 

 very well if it contrives to collect £50 a year. Accordingly, 

 two courses alone are open. Kither the association must 

 find a candidate sufficiently rich and enthusiastic to pay 

 his own expenses, or else they must solicit the assistance 

 of the central caucus, which will take advantage of pos- 

 sessing the purse-atrings. 



" ADVICE FROM HEADQ1 \i:n . - 



When the secretary of the local association mi. s 



the London wire-pullers, he receives a letter of the 



following kind: — 



"Dear Sir, — We beg to acknowledge the receipt of your 

 letter, and are prepared to give favourable consideration 

 to your request for financial assistance at the coming elec- 

 tion, provided that you are willing to support a suitable 

 candidate. In the event of your not having made any 

 choice up to the present, we beg to suggest that you should 

 hear an address from Mr. Carpet-Bagger, K.C.. who is a 

 staunch party man and eminently suited to represent your 

 borough. — Yours faithfully, J. TADPOLE." 



Reading between the lines, he quickly understands that, 

 unless Mr. Carpet-Bageer be adopted, little or no financial 

 assistance will be forthcoming. 



THK GENESIS OF TEE CARPET-BAGGER. 



The carpet-basher is forthwith, with more or less 

 reluctance, adopted b) the local association. T 

 writer goes on to ask, How is it that Mr. Tadpole is 

 so eager to recommend Mr. Carpet-Bagger ? He 

 answers : — 



The secret history of the affair may he told in a few 

 words. Mr. Carpet-Bagger has made a fair competency at 

 the Bar by dint of soporific discourses on Chancery cases. 

 He has just taken silk, and he finds his practice is dwind- 

 ling away. A zealous political friend plays upon his am- 

 bitions and suggests to him that he would make an ex- 

 cellent Solicitor-General. He has never taken the faintest- 

 interest, in politics, but his experience at the Bar has 

 taught him to prefer the winning side. So he is easily 

 persuaded to consider himself a Conservative or a Liberal, 

 as the case may be, and he trots round with a letter of 

 introduction to the central agent in Parliament Street or 

 St. Stephen's Chambers. 



He is ushered into a luxurious office, where " after com- 

 pliments " (as the Orientals cynically express it), a very 

 polite gentleman inquires insinuatingly. " What sum, my 

 dear sir, are you prepared to subscribe'to the funds of the 

 Central Association?" Mr. Carpet-Bagger had had no idea 

 of subscribing anything. But it is pointed out to him 

 that, though he is so famous at the Bar, he is utterly 

 unknown in political life; in other words, to put it vul- 

 ua-iv, he must pay his footing. 



Then a process of haggling ensues. He had been led to 

 hope that the central office would nominate him and pay 



all expenses. The central office, ou the other hand, ccn- 

 siders that its nomination is a highly coveted favour; 

 indeed, almost a- marketable commodity. It suggests that 

 he should pay all his expenses and subscribe £1000 to the 

 central fund. Eventually a compromise is probably found. 

 Either Mr. Carpet-Bagger provides half the expenses and 

 subscribes £250, or he subscribes nothing and pays all his 

 expenses, or he subscribes £800, and the central agency pays 

 all his expenses, as the case may be, In any case, if he 

 is prepaied to pay the piper, he is foisted upon a con- 

 stituency with which he has neither acquaintance nor 

 sympathy. As to his political opinions, he is placed in the 

 position of a receiver of stolen goods on a basis of "No 

 questions asked," except, of course, the one question, "Will 

 you place yourself unreservedly in the hands of the party 

 Whips?" 



The rest of the article is racily written, but is 

 more apt to promote cynicism than respect for the 

 political conscience. 



THE PRINCE OF WALES CHARACTERISED. 



"Equerry" contributes to C. B. Fry's a sketch 

 of H.K.I I. tin- Prince of Wales as an outdoor man. 

 He says that the Prince is eminently the Prince of 

 the average Briton. He is solid, he is serious, he is 

 nt. 11'- adds that the leading quality in the 

 Prince'? character is " a certain watchfulness." He 

 has the attitude of mind of the investigator. He is 

 a long-headed, not a brilliant man. Hence among 

 his closest friends are the princes of science. The 

 Prince is said to be a slow reader, but an excellent 

 listener. He gets his information by talking with 

 the ablest men of the period. The writer states 

 that all the speeches delivered by the Prince during 

 his Imperial tour which made the greatest effect on 

 the world were his own. and even in other cases he 

 had revised them so as to be the expression of his 

 own personality. Of his ethics it is said: — 



In all things the Prince believes in science. He sees 

 that no nation can prevail in the struggle for existence 

 which is not scientifically equipped. He deplores the ex- 

 ve frivolity of Society, not because it appears wicked 

 to him, but because it is unscientific, a childish travesty 

 of real life. He has expressed his detestation of the money 

 standard and the general ethics of Mammon which prevail 

 so disastrously at the present time. 



The writer, however, says that, bred up a sailor, 

 the Prince has the sailor's appetite for the open 

 air and simple amusements. He takes no pleasure 

 in racing and seldom plays cards, but he is one of 

 the best shots in Europe and enjoys shooting above 

 all other sports. But — alas, for his open-air habits ! 

 — the Prince is said to be a continuous martyr to 

 indigestion. Nevertheless he is summed up as a 

 " plain, hard-headed and gallant Englishman — a 

 man absolutely unselfish, and, in his own English 

 manner, absolutelv devoted to dutv." 



The Girl's Realm for January opens with a series 

 of pictures from Kaulbach's Goethe Gallery illus- 

 trating the poet's life, and Mr. S. Ludovic adds 

 notes in explanation. The idea of the Goethe Gal- 

 lerv originated with Friedrich Bruckmann. and he 

 asked his friend Kaulbach, the Munich artist, to 

 draw them. Reproductions of them have been 

 made, and all the pictures are familiar to readers of 

 Goethe. 



