Boomerang Electioneering

New Zealand Tablet, 24 December 1908, Page 9

Boomerang Electioneering

me too eager greyhound ofWli overruns his hare; the impetuous politician rmis the risk of o'ervaultiug his purpose; and the precipitate assailant meets at times with pootic justice, and gets laid up for alterations and repairs. During the election campaign of 1905, for instance, there was published -in Dunedin 3 in the columns of a short-lived little ' yellow '. gutter-journal, a coarse attack upon NewZealand Catholic womanhood .that was clearly intended to steel the stalwarts of the lodges/., and others of -their way of thinking, to vote in particular way at the approaching contest. The article in question produced, however, a result which the writer probably neither foresaw nor intended. Copies of- the journal in question were eagerly sought for and circulated among Catholic women voters in one of the electorates. The indignation aroused among them brought to the polls on that occasion ■■probably the

largest Catholic women's vote ever Registered there, and exercised, we understand, an effect- upon the result that the article writer could not well have desired. , Catholics in this Dominion exercise their parliamentary vote pre^ cisely as their political, preferences and leanings suggest, without either, guidance or dictation of any sort from their ecclesiastical leaders. And this is but right, arid proper. The mortgaged Catholic 'block vote ' is one of the fictions of electioneering that are pressed into electioneering purposes. There is only one way of organising a Catholic 'block vote' in any particular; constituency. And that is, not by organisation or dictation f rom ' within "(for such a course would neither he adopted nor tolerated), but by coarse and vehement attack from without, such as that which aroused the just indignation of Catholic womanhood in a Dunedin electorate in 1905. A similar story of anti-Catholic attack and- Catholic resentment was told to the London Timers a few weeks ago by its Ottawa correspondent. An attempt (similar to one that found a strident voice in a Wanganui paper before the recent general elections) was made by some Canadian Orangemen to inflame religious passion against the brilliant and versatile Liberal leader, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, at the late parliamentary contest, on account of his profession and practice of the Catholic faith. The Toronto Sentinel (the organ of the lodges) raised the editorial clamor against Sir Wilfrid on religious grounds. It was reprinted, for circulation among voters of ' the right sort ' only! "To Liberals,' said the Toronto Mail and Empire, ' ' this production was a honanza. It was the very thing for which they had been looking. The demand for the pamphlet became flattering to its author. It was impossible to fill all the orders. The Liberal managers, unable to secure the large numbers of copies they needed, printed more for their own use. They even- had the "production translated into various languages. There were German copies for Germans, and French copies for the Trench. Condensed issues were also circulated for those who merely wanted to get at the pith of the argument.' The too eager Sentinel, in fact, grievously overshot its purpose. ' The effect of a pamphlet of this kind,' says the Ottawa correspondent of the London Times, ' placed in the hands of wavering Roman Catholics at the last moment can well be understood. Thousands of votes were lost to the Conservative party. I have,' adds he, ' reports from fully a dozen ridings where it was effective iii electing Liberals, and where, under ordinary circumstances, the seats -would have gone to the Opposition. The lesson is obvious.'