COSTS OF AN ELECTION.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4506, 20 December 1922, Page 4

COSTS OF AN ELECTION.

(By an ex-M-P., in the Daily Mail.) ■ — The cost of a contested election in England to the individual candidate is a serious matter. The chief sources of expense are printing and advertising. Referring to the' accounts of my last election I find the former totalled £319. This sum was incurred over the issue of my election address to every elector in the constituency, the three original posters I had designed and scattered broadcast to hasten the discomfiture of my opponent, the portrait calrds for display in the windows of my supporters, a quantity of leaflets, and the poll-card that told the electors the polling stations where they were entitled to record their votes. Advertising cost me £l3O, which inchided the rent of hoardings. Salaries, as might be expected, came to a substantial figure. For the central office and the eighteen branch ones I paid out £423 ; 10 sub-agents received £66, 14 clerics £63 18s 7d, while messengers cost £4O. In addition, my head agent received £lOO. Public meetings, of which 34 were held at an average cost of 17s 6d, were cheap enough, as was'the hire of 26 committee rooms (15' on election day only) at 10s 6d apiece. Compared with these modest figures £l2 for telegrams was exorbitant. My personal expenses, comprising my .hotel bill during the three weeks’ campaign, amounted only to £34. The total cost of getting into the House of Commons came to £l4OO odd, but while I secured a tangible reward for the. outlay involved, my defeated opponent, whose expenses equalled mine, had nothing to show far his money.