impossible to obtain the actual figures. In the remaining twenty-two unions, out of 296,725 electors upon the register in the contested wards, 69,385 voted, or rather less than one-quarter. We may take it therefore that, in the whole metropolis, in round figures, half the wards were polled, and that in that half a quarter of the electorate only made use of their votes.
These figures, however, do not represent the whole truth. It is, of course, well known to everyone who has been concerned in local elections that those immediately interested spare no effort to secure the return of themselves and their friends. The support of political and other associations is enlisted. Election Committees and bands of canvassers are organised. No means that human ingenuity can devise are left untried in order to induce people to vote. In Lambeth, according to a local paper, "seven out of eight of the voters were whipped to the poll by party organisations." In Islington it was "a matter of the candidates drumming up such of their private friends and neighbours as would go outside their doors to oblige them." In Lewisham "what excitement there was was limited to the candidates and their friends." The same story comes from all parts of London. In Marylebone "little enthusiasm"; in Shoreditch "deadening lack of interest"; in Camberwell "colossal apathy"; and so elsewhere. But it is hardly necessary to elaborate the point. The figures speak for themselves. In the individual polls it is rare indeed to find one which runs into four figures, though the voters upon the register in the wards are usually from 3000 to 5000. Local elections have been "democratised," but the democracy, after many years' trial, still stands aloof. What voting there is, is organised by the efforts of candidates themselves. There is no spontaneous interest.
