THE VALUE OF A GENERAL ELECTION

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 24, 23 October 1917, Page 6

THE VALUE OF A GENERAL ELECTION

Sir, —Sir Joseph Ward was reported in your columns some days ago as saying that "to have a general election wh'ilo men aro dying at the front, while sorrow is in hundreds of' homes . . ,

would be a crime. Tho man who wants an election should 1m hung." It may interest your readers to know what a great democrat had to say on this very subject. It will be- remembered that an election was held in America when the great Civil War was at it 3 height—was, indeed, in many respects in its worst phase. jS T ot only was there suffering and death on al vast scale in the land, but there was great war weariness and even treachery itself was beginning to ehow its head. After this election Abraham Lincoln made the following remarks upon it:—

"It has long been made a grave question 'whether any Government not too strong for tho liberties of its people can bo strong enough to maintain its "xistance in great emergencies. . . . lint we cannot have a free Goyprnment without elections; and if tho rebellion could force us to forego or postpone a national election it might fairly claim to Lave already conquered or ruined us. But the election, along with its incidental and undesirable strife, has done good, too. It has demonstrated that a people's Government can sustain a national election in the midst of a great civil war. Until now it has not been known to 'he world that this was a possibility. But tho rebellion continues, and now that the election is over may not all havo a common interest to reunite in a common effort to save our common country?" —(Lord Charnwood's "Abraham Lincoln," page 422).

Unless I am much mistaken thero is a feeling throughout the country that a general election might help us -cry much to "reunite in the common effort to save our common country," and to give us a Government commanding such confidence throughout the land that it could carry on its duty without the doubtful expedient of Tesorting to secret caucuses.—l am, etc., ' C.R.F.