IMPERIAL POLITICS.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 806, 2 May 1910, Page 4

IMPERIAL POLITICS.

A LETTER FROM MR. WILL CROOKS. The "Otago Daily Times" publishes the following extracts from a letter received by the Hon. J. T. Paul, M.L.0., from out late visitor, Mr. Will Crooks, then M.P. for Woolwich, in the House of Commons: — "Things here are, to say tho least about them, very interesting. On tho whole Labour'did well at the'polls. I think I told you I thought we should lose a few seats. We did in fact lose

six, but gained three in othor plaoes. The miners coming into tho party has mado our fighting ranks up to 40)' as against 33 in the : last House. Tho strangeness of the whole situation .is that no one is happy about the result of the elections, and no party wants another just yet—tho expense is far too great. My own election cost my people £930 3s- Bd.—a big tax on Labour, and every body else for that matter. So all are a bit shy, but aro breathing things at'one another. My defeat by 295 votes on a total of 17,120 does not worry me. I have my hands fairly full, I can assure you. I was never in so much demand, and I am all over the; country, so wo havo. no time. to regret defeat. Every hour brings some new rumolir about mother election, but I take it with just a. grain of salt. Our men aro doing well in the House, and the way J. R. Mac Donald smashed up Austen Chamberlain tho other night on Tariff Reform is still tho talk of London. You need not worry on your side —there will bo no revolution; but it's good to be alive just now. I wont to the' unveiling of the Seddon Memorial in St. Paul's Cathedral, and I do think it would have mado you all feel proud if you had been present, whether you liked or otherwise R. S. A very fino tribute was paid to him as a statesman, and to you all as a fine peoplo. Wo shall never ourselvos bo able to topay you for the kindness you bestowed oil us at every stage of our journey. While wo are thinking and talking of our jour'ney round tho world our mind keops wandoring all tho time to tho many friends'we made and left in Now Zealand, and while folks say here, 'If you had stayed at Homo yon would never have been defeated,' to Mrs, Crooks and myself it seems that if the price of our journey was tho loss of my seat tlicn it was worth losing it, for the world is larger, thc'causc is greater, the horizon of life better for it all. I shall tro back to Parliament in good time. To use our London, nay English, cry—wo are not downhearted." ,