Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-02-09
POSTERS IN POLITICS
Unique Feature of the British
Canvass.
CARTOONS EVERYWHERE
Historic Preliminary Of Calling an
Election.
LORD ROSEBERY'S PLANS
Pageant of London to Be Central
Feature Of Festival of Empire
Next Summer.
PLANS
D RosEBERY's
pccial Correspondence Of The Star.

Special Correspondence Of The Star.
LONDON, February I. 1910.
The business of officially beginning a
British general election is a very simple
and common-sense affair, although some
grandly sounding names are concerned
in it. The crown Offices form a little nest
of rooms in the inner quarters OF the
mouse of lords. You reach them by long
Reorganization through Gothic corridors
that re-echo your footsteps. When par
lament is sitting this part of permanent
| offcialdom seems silent enough, but with
parliament away it is remote and for
gotten. You pass doors bearing such
Rod You feel anything might happen
there, but the lonely policemen. each in
his proper corridor between glass bulk
heads like a parliamentary sort of fish.
do not seem to think SO. They may not
pass through into each others compart-
ment. but sometimes they flatten their
noses against the glass doors out of sheer
ennui and friendly feeling to one another.
At the bottom of little iron staircase Is
the crown office. and beneath it are the
cellars where old election writs and pa
pers are matured.
About o'clock last Monday the proc
lamation dissolving parliament was
brought to these Offices in dispatch
box by privy council messenger and
delivered to Sir Kenneth Muir Mackenzie.
clerk to the crown. The 542 writs were
then promptly sealed and divided in two
portions. The 454 for constituencies not
In London or the home counties were
messenger of the great seal. For the 50
writs that remained a more extraordinary
course was reserved For the first time
in history the writs were to he served by
taxicab. The messenger OF the great
seal, grave, middle-sized man in a
blue serge suit. who. it is said, had taken
three days to mature his plans. then en-
tered a blue taxicab, and away they went.
They mingled with a stream of common
taxicabs. and no man could single them
out. and only the returning officers. each
waiting at his appointed place. could tell
that it was the messenger of the great
seal bringing round the writs and not a
motor car agent delivering circulars.
Triumph of the Poster
Whatever the issues at the present cleo
ton may be. there Is no doubt as to the
outstanding feature of the contest. 1t
is not the peers campaign, it is not
tariff reform. neither is it the budget
nor yet socialism Indeed. it is nothing
political in the ordinary sense. All the
triumphant party cries have been sub
merged in the triumph of the pictorial
poster The British general election Of
1910 ought to go down to history as the
poster election. England, for the time
being, has turned itself into an art gal
lery. The political cartoon is dominant
everywhere. walk through any town.
at the present moment, is like a walk
through the pictorial avenues of the
Royal Academy.
The beauties of nature are now
negatived by the beauties of electioneer-
ing. Every other tree seems to be burst
ing into posters; notice boards. which; in
ware of the dog, or to purchase de-
sirable building site. now tell you, much
more emphatically, how to vote. Cot
tagers' doors are screened by monstrous-
ly visaged dukes. or bold, bad Lloyd
Georges; whilst from their windows peep
the shining faces of candidates mounted
on blue, red or yellow cards. The notice
board of a wayside Nonconformist chapel.
when was in the country the other day,
looked, from distance. like ritual1stic
altar. Presently I sought refuge In an
old fashioned inn. but here I was ex-
beware Of the wicked radicals, who were
bent upon robbing the poor man of his
beer.
Since then I have become reconciled
to my fate. I no longer try to avoid
the poster. but, on the contrary. I sally
something new. The hoardings change
like a kaleidoscope, and I have grown
to like 1t. Announcements OF soaps and
cOcoas and concentrated extract OF beef
have almost passed out of existence.
crowded out by the astounding symbolism
of graphic political economy.
Cartoons Convincing.