The Sun.
London, England, 1852-07-13 00:00:00

EAST SURREY ELECTION.

TEE NOMINATION.
The nomination of candidates for East Surrey took
piece yesterday on Croydon Common. The contest
bids fair to be unusually severe, there being four can-
didates in the field, two Conservatives and two Whigs,
and the party feeling among the,plectnrs,sran extremely
high, though it was satisfactory to oteArre that both
sides appeared desirous to carry on the fray in a"good-
humoured spirit. The friends and supporters of the
various candidates met their respective favourites at
given spots, and escorted them to the hustings, headed
by bands of music, and attended by a tremendous re-
tinue of banner and train-bearers. The hustings were
erected in the centre of the common, and a number of wag-
gons were arranged before the erection in the form of an
amphitheatre, and while the Conservatives took up their
position on the left, the Whigs quietly took possession of
the other side. Some little merriment was created by a
respectably dressed elderly man, who displayed a penny
loaf upon one stick and half of one upon the other.
The full loaf was decked out in the colours of Alcock
and Locko King, and the half with those of Antro-
bus and Cleasby, and the eccentric individual who
exhibited these emblems of the two high contending
parties occasionally harangued the assembled multitude,
but in so disjointed a strain that it was difficult to catch
what he meant," " This is the long and the short of it,
gents," he once remarked, "you'll hear a good deal of
lip to day, but it will all come to this, and in the end
you'll have to decide which you'll take, the big loaf or
the half of it; you'd better decide at Once, and go the
whole hog for the whole tommy."
Shortly after ten o'clock the candidates made their
appearance upon the hustings, and were greeted with
vociferous cheering from their different admirers. Messrs.
Alcock tind King were attended by Lord Dudley Stuart,
Sir Edw. Colebrooke, Captain Fitzroy, Mr. J. IL Palmer,
Mr. Samuel Gurney, and many other influential re-
sidents in the county while Messrs. Antrobus and
Cleasby were supported by Mr. Trotter, late M.P., and a
numerous retinue of tenant farmers.

The HIGH SHERIFF (Mr. G. R. Smith) said it was his
duty to open the proceedings of the day, and it was for
the electors to select two gentlemen who should repre-
sent them in Parliament.—(Hear, hear.) It was an im-
portant privilege that they were called upon to ex-
ercise; and when they recalled to mind the fai-
lures which had taken place upon the continent in
reference to the right of legislative election, it behoved
them to guard well the privilege which the constitution
conferred on them.—(Hear, hear.) Impartiality was
the characteristic of an Englishman, and as this
was one of the first of the counties that had to
pronounce upon the great question which was
now agitating the country, he hoped the eastern
division of the county of Surrey would -set an example
of peace and good order which other counties would
have no hesitation in following.—(Cheers.)
Mr. J. H. PALMER came forward to propose Mr.
Locke King, who was a tried candidate, and bad
never swerved from the principles which he had
professed to the electors.—(gear, hear.) Indeed
he had surpassed what he had promised, and had proved
himself one of the best of representatives in the House
of Commons.—(Hear, hear.) The English people were
remarkable for their attachment to those who showed
themselves to be their friends, and as Mr. Locke King was
now a tried and a certain friend, he could not doubt that
the electors would honour him with a renewal of their
confidence_—(Bear, hear.) He need not recal to their
recollection the measures which Mr. Locke King had
propounded to the House of Commons, but thuro was
one which he could not omit noticing.—(Hear, hear.)
He referred to his motion for conferring upon 101.
householders the privilege of
the county franchise;
and although that measure failed for the time it went
far enough to convince the country that the period was
rapidly approaching when an extension of the franchise
could no longer be withheld from the people.—(Cheers.)
There was, however, another principle in which Mr.
Locke King had always been consistent, and that was
free trade.—(Loud cheers.) The electors were aware
that the Earl of Derby
was at the head of the
Government who dissolved the late Parliament; but it
I was somewhat unusual to find a Government dissolving
the Legislature without propounding the question which
the people were called upon to decide.—(Hear, heart)
It would not do for them to profess free trade at the list
moment, for then they were not to be trusted, and he
hoped •the eastern division of Surrey, which was the first
county called upon to decide between free trade and pro-
tection, would unhesitatingly pronounce in favour of the
former policy.--(Cheers.)
Mr. SAMUEL GURNEY seconded the nomination., of
vMerry. Lmo
uc
much
he
reform
pleasureK i
nn ga, andd
ina
doing
d te
ao sianhgveosco was
_o
as( favourable
of freeeers trade,
Capt. FITZROY next rose to nominate Mr. Alcock.—
(Hear, hear.) Mr. Alcock had represented Bag Surrey
so.—(Cheers.)
.) t o Parlia-
mentary
hehad
in Parliament for five years, end as he had the honour
of proposing him in 1847 he was rejoiced to know that
his Honourable Friend had never deserted his principles.
—(Hear, hear.) His Honourable Friend was a sup-
porter of Parliamentary reform, free trade, and an up-
holder of civil and religious liberty, and if the electors
had the good of their fellow.beings at heart they would
again return him as one of their representatives.—(Hear.)
Lord DUDLEY STUART seconded the nomination of
Mr. Alcock with confidence and pleasure.—(Cheers")
Mr. Alcock was no stranger among them, for the Hon.
Gentleman had lived all his life amongst them, and had
served them well in Parliament for the last five years.—
(Hear.) In the last Parliament t e Hon. Gentleman
ii
ranked amongst the most honest, th most independent,
and the most uncompromising of he members of the
House of Commons; and never had Ihe allowed an op-
portunity to slip whn his vote could advance the in-
terest of the people.—(Cheers.)
Mr. JOSEPH WILSON proposed Mr. Antrobas as a fit
and proper person to represent the ceunty, bathe was re-
ceived with so much disapprobation that it was soiree time
before he bould obtain a hearing. When silence was re-
stored, he said they had been asked what Lord Derby's
Government had done, and if the electors would allow
him, he would answer the question.—(Hear, hear.) Lord
Derby's Government had carried measures which Lord
John Russell was four years trying to pass, and failed in
the end.—(Hear.) Those measures had extended law
reform, and were highly calculated to promote the social
welfare of the people, and the men who would press
such measures were the men for him.—(sear, hear.)
They had heard a good deal to-day about the ballot,
civil and religious liberty, and all that sort of thing, but
nothing about the constitution.—(Hear.). He was for
'upholding the prinoiploa of the eonstitutton, and there-
fore it was that he proposed Mr. Antrobus, jun.
Mr. R. W. BYLES seconded the nonsination of Mr.
Antrobus, as an old elector and a staunch Conservative,
believing that Mr. Antrobus would be found, if returned,
to be an honest and faithful representative.—(Cheers.)
Mr. SELWYN, of Richmond, proposed Mr. Cleasby,
who was a resident farmer and a barrister-at-law, as a
fit and proper person to represent them.—(Hear, hear.)
Mr. Cleasby was not for reducing the constituency of
England to the situation of that of France, but Was in
favour of sound and constitutional reforms.—(Hear,
hear.) They had to decide between an imbecile Whig
Ministry, who could only exist with the aid of the
Irish Popish party, and a staunch constitutional Govern-
ment, which would be firm to the dictates of reason,
and they could have no difficulty in deciding for the
latter.—(Hear, hear.) Protection, he admitted, was
dead, but the agricultural interest . had been and was
suffering, and something must be done to remove the
distress.—( Hear, hear.) 1
Mr. BYRON seconded the nomination of Mr. Cleasby.
There being no other candidate to be proposed,
Mr. LOCKE KING presented himself, to the electors,
and was received with great cheering. He said he
had little to explain to the electors of East Surrey, as
his views were well known to them, and he had nothing
to retrace—(Hear, hear.) He stood there as an honest
man, unchanged, and he hoped unchangeable, in his
principles. He was the same Locke King who in
1847, with his Honourable Friend Mr. Aleock, sue-
ceoded in carrying free trade to victory in East
Surrey.—(Cheers.) He was born a free-trader, for
long before the renowned advocates of freedom of com-
merce, Villiers and Cobden, agitated the repeal of the
corn-laws, his own father had strenuously, although
alone, struggled to convince the people of England
that a tax upon bread was unjust.—'(Cheers.) Well, then,
those who now came forward to oppose him and his lion.
friend Alcock were men who had sacrificed their own
political consistency.—(Cheers.) But the farmers would
rather vote for the honest Free-trader than for parties
who had so recently and so mysteriously changed their
political views.—(Hear, bear.) They were now
alive to their own interests, and they felt with
him that the only way to secure all that was valu-
able in our free institutions was to extend the basis
of Parliamentary representation.—(Cheers.) He Was
OppOSed to the grant to Maynooth, and was anxious to
see the franchise udiciously enlarged, and if they would
return him to Parliament he would do his best to pro.