or even the post of relieving officer: people who do these things will not of course stop short at other doubtful practices. All this naturally tends to bring local government into deserved disrepute, and the whole system moves in a vicious circle; the discredit into which it has fallen becoming the chief obstacle to improvement. Meanwhile those who are responsible for these practices are frequently the very men who appear before the public at election time as the most ardent advocates of humanity, the foremost champions of the cause of the poor.
It cannot be a matter for wonder that the electorate, who over a succession of years have watched the sequence of promise and performance, should regard the situation with something more akin to dislike than indifference, and should abstain from taking any part in electing those whom they have learned to distrust.
The fact that local elections are decided by so small a number of votes places the control in the hands of political clubs and associations, and other combinations which may happen to be influential for the moment in any district. Candidates are elected because they are Conservatives, or because they are Liberals, or because they are Churchmen, or because they are Nonconformists. In Brixton, for instance, "four wards were swept by the Nonconformist churches." In Chelsea and other places the political associations controlled the election. In some places labour organisations are all-powerful. This was the case in Battersea and Hackney. But the smallness of the polls in every part of London precludes the idea that the results were really representative of public opinion, or that they really indicated "the voice of the people." When the associations take no part in these elections it is hardly too
