380 APPENDIX. [No. XXXV. 



and State. (Applause.) I have given you some of your difficulties, but now 

 comes the difficulty of that vis mertim which many in your city have been 

 affiicted with. (Hear, hear.) Working men know what this inertia is ; if 

 they have a block of stone, they know how difficult it is to set it in motion. 

 They know how difficult it is to move a steam-engine in the first instance, 

 but once set going it roUs on. Now some hundreds of persons who call 

 themselves Conservatives in this city had this inertia, that they could not 

 roU out of their arm-chairs on the day of the poll and cross perhaps one 

 hundred yards to record their votes. (Hear, hear.) That is the difficulty 

 you have to cope with by argument and by persuasion ; but in counting 

 your forces you must say that everyone who is not with you heart and soul 

 is against you. (Hear, hear.) Tou must count them against you, for it is a 

 very dangerous thing to rely upon the vote of a man who will not rise out 

 of his chair simply to deliver it. (Hear, hear.) 



Now, gentlemen, these are great difficulties, but there is a greater 

 stiU — a difficulty which it is customary not even to whisper from one 

 person to another — that the person who dared to do it should close his 

 ears that they might hardly hear what he had to say. And yet I think 

 it is desirable that the whole case should be put before you ; for I never 

 will appear as a candidate for this city without being thoroughly above- 

 board and telling you all the circumstances of the case. (Applause). 

 The question to which I have to call your attention may be called the 

 money question of an election. Now you know as well as I do that 

 the working men have thought it right to ask for a day's pay if they 

 lose a day's work in going to the poll. To give that day's pay is an act 

 of illegality which renders the donor liable to serious consequences, the 

 receiver to equally serious penalties, and might forfeit the franchise of the 

 borough itself. Now I have taken this thing most carefully into my 

 consideration, and I advised at the last election that you should throw up 

 this day's pay at once for your vote, and show that you will be free men, 

 and that you will esteem the privilege of electing any person you like to 

 Parliament, independently of any smaE monetary consideration. (Applause.) 

 Now what does a day's pay amount to ? A day's pay for the city of 

 Kochester, for those who are likely to take it and think they are fairly 

 entitled to it, would amount to about 7s. 6d. per man ; and that will not 

 amount in the whole to above £100 or £150— a sum too insignificant for a 

 candidate to think worthy his attention when he has to pay for the 

 printing, advertising, the parliamentary fees, and the many other things 

 which are connected necessarily with a powerful contest. This £100 or 

 £160, 1 say, is immaterial to the candidate except that by giving it the 

 election may be lost afterwards and the borough may be disfranchised. 

 But what do you think is the price asked for this borough in the London 

 markets ? The price is £2000 a candidate, or £4000 for the two. (Shame.) 

 Now, are you ever likely to get that money ? In the annals of the city has 

 it ever been divided among the people ? (No, no.) I say not. Then who 

 has received it, and where has it gone to ? (Hear, hear.) Now this is a veiy 

 serious question indeed, for you may depend upon it, if there is any man in 

 this city who looks forward to receive his £100, and if when a candidate 

 comes down to the borough and offers himself he does not come down with 

 that money, it will be that he is not quite the proper man for the place. 

 (Laughter and hear, hear.) Now I wiU tell you plainly that that insinuation 

 has been put forward in Rochester, and it is your duty to find out who is 



