according to its words, to undermine the very
foundations of our politics. It told me that I must not "threaten a
voter with any consequence whatever." No doubt this was intended to
apply to threats of a personal and illegitimate character; as, for
instance, if a wealthy candidate were to threaten to raise all the
rents, or to put up a statue of himself. But as verbally and
grammatically expressed, it certainly would cover those general threats
of disaster to the whole community which are the main matter of
political discussion. When a canvasser says that if the opposition
candidate gets in the country will be ruined, he is threatening the
voters with certain consequences. When the Free Trader says that if
Tariffs are adopted the people in Brompton or Bayswater will crawl about
eating grass, he is threatening them with consequences. When the Tariff
Reformer says that if Free Trade exists for another year St. Paul's
Cathedral will be a ruin and Ludgate Hill as deserted as Stonehenge, he
is also threatening. And what is the good of being a Tariff Reformer if
you can't say that? What is the use of being a politician or a
Parliamentary candidate at all if one cannot tell the people that if the
other man gets in, England will be instantly invaded and enslaved, blood
be pouring down the Strand, and all the English ladies carried off into
harems. But these things are, after all, consequences, so to speak.

The majority of refined persons in our day may generally be heard
abusing the practice of canvassing. In the same way the majority of
refined persons (commonly the same refined persons) may be heard
abusing the practice of interviewing celebrities. It seems a very
singular thing to me that this refined world reserves all its
indignation for the comparatively open and innocent element in both
walks of life. There is really a vast amount of corruption and hypocrisy
in our election politics; about the most honest thing in the whole mess
is the canvassing. A man has not got a right to "nurse" a constituency
with aggressive charities, to buy it with great presents of parks and
libraries, to open vague vistas of future benevolence; all this, which
goes on unrebuked, is bribery and nothing else. But a man has got the
right to go to another free man and ask him with civility whether he
will vote for him. The information can be asked, granted, or refused
without any loss of dignity on either side, which is more than can be
said of a