UNDERGRADUATE PAGE
Student Election
UPERFICIALLY, General and Rectorial Elections have much in common. There is the, preparatory softening-up process. Loud-speaker vans cruise round the university precincts, wooing the. electorate ; posters and painted slogans appear on hoardings, disfigure the Augustan dignity of the Old Quad, and help to brighten the Victorian drabness of the science buildings ; glossy pamphlets are distributed at lecture- room entrances by eager enthusiasts ; students• hurry by with that earnest, worried expression common to those who serve on committees. They are all, for a brief period, part of the electoral machine. Once every three years the student body of Edinburgh elect their representative to the University Court, and outwardly this " State within a State " displays all the electioneering apparatus peculiar to a Parliamentary Election.
The more acute observer will notice, not the similarities, but the differences. He will see a franchise that is more democratic than Athens was or Westminster is likely to be, where there is no restriction of age or sex, no privileged section, no compulsion to vote, no irksome deposit to be forfeited by unsuccessful candi- dates, no interference by university authorities. Police do not stalk the polling booths on Election Day, nor is the voter besieged by inquisitive party canvassers. The electorate, greatest of all blessings, are not troubled by the candidates. They don't suffer lengthy, prosaic speeches, the mixed jargon of platitudes and promises.• By tradition, more than for reasons of personal safety, the candidate is allowed to take no part in his election.
More distinctive than these outward differences is the manner in which the campaign is conducted. If a parallel is to be sought, it is necessary to turn back to the rotten boroughs and jobbery of the eighteenth century. Rectorial Elections are characterised by their lack of morality. Power and cunning are the virtues most practised. It is the Machiavellian ethic which prevails. Theft of another faction's posters, and bruises inflicted in gaining the possession of them, are matters for self-congratulation. The conflict resolves itself for the parties concerned, if not for the electorate at large, into an exercise of ingenuity, resourcefulness and even stupidity. The character of the candidate takes a very minor place. If the aim of one party is to put up imaginative and attractive posters, that of the other party is to remove them, and thus a struggle develops to see which party can put its posters in the most inaccessible positions. The poster-sticking is, perforce, clandestine, and takes place at night, like an under- ground movement in an occupied country. Parties, armed with rope-ladders, banners, buckets of paste, brushes and posters, patrol the deserted streets, lurk in alcoves and crouch in shadows and behind pillars. While the rest of Edinburgh is asleep, banners are being slung from parapets, posters slapped on windows and doors and Doric columns, and entrances and exits effected by means of windows and fire-escapes and skylights. Sticky but happy, the student returns to his digs in the early hours of the morning, conscious of a job well done. If he is lucky his posters will greet the electorate in the morning. But he has to be very lucky. Marauding parties can appear later and destroy a night's work. Sometimes 4' ignorant armies clash by night," when one faction comes across another in the process of bill-posting. Then the stillness of the air is broken by cries of " Scrag him!, " with ladders falling on the pavement, the tinkle of broken glass as a brush flies through a window, and then further cries of " Hook it chaps ! " as the police appear. Duffie-coated bodies rise quickly from the gutter, and the police are left to view the debris, some torn posters, a comb, paste trickling out of an over-turned bucket, fragments of broken glass. If the campaign has its rough side, it is not without, humour. Pamphlets, being less destructible, are more imaginative, artistic and even amusing. They are more honest than political leaflets and party pledges. One candidate, like Uriah Heep, 'umbly sub- mitted his claims to our suffrage, whilst another haughtily con- fessed he had never voted in a Parliamentary Election ; one claimed to be a Scot of the diaspora, whilst another made no claims at all, but relied on what " the greatest " people said about him. One candidate promised to work hard and 'conscientiously for the students, whilst another relied on his Third Programme audience. The respective parties did their best to " dress up " their candidates. One candidate's claim to fame was that he had " saved thousands of lives by being vaccinated many times." Another thought his photograph sufficiently impressive—the philosopher in his dressing-gown, sitting amongst his books, smoking a pipe and awaiting the collapse of Western civilisation.
Stunts prevent interest from flagging, and by far the most im- pressive stunt is to kidnap the secretary of the rival faction. But gone are the days when organisers were shanghaied and put on board trawlers for a week's fishing in the North Sea or taken to remote bothies in the Highlands and left trouserless. Now the kidnapped connives with his captors and meekly allows himself to be led away. The Press are informed and ready at the station to take the crucial and dramatic picture. More authentic were the last-minute dashes to London and Northolt airports to collect the signatures of two of the candidates. Cars hurried down to Berwick-on-Tweed to prevent their arrival on time by kidnapping the couriers. The usual excuses were offered : the train didn't stop long enough ; the courier was in the dining-car ; the letter of acceptance was carried by a decoy. The electorate had to be satisfied with the more commonplace stunts, the musical pro- cessions, the festooned supporters, the improvised sketches. One party was more sophisticated, and allowed a supporter to im- personate a lecturer: he had his audience taking notes before they were -enlightened.
All activity, however, is subordinated to that which takes place on Polling Day. The university have prepared for this by removing seats, which are liable to feed the bonfire, and all things movable or breakable. At an early hour factions have established themselves in what they hope are impregnable posi- tions in the Old Quad, the main scene of battle, armed with fish- heads and bags of soot and flour, buckets of paste and boxes of squibs. Skirmishes and sporadic affrays do take place on the outskirts of the university. One student was sufficiently foolish and brave-hearted to confess that he had no ammunition in his loud-speaker van.- •He was armed only with a good cause and a good candidate, whilst all his enemies possessed were bags of soot and flour (powerful arguments on Election Day). Cars soon disappear, however, or else are removed by the prevailing power. But power is very brief and transitory. Numbers and tonnage tell in the end. What were once impregnable positions-surrender under the combined onslaught of rugby forwards, armed with the essential ammunition. Pockets of resistance do exist, and lonely snipers make it dangerous for voters to approach the voting polls by accurate shying of cods' heads. Elsewhere hasty non-aggres- sion pacts are signed between parties, the weaker sheltering under the wing of the stronger, to meet the fresh attacks of " the armoured cars." Lorries of other factions appear, and are pelted by the increasing crowd ; but not without delivering some telling blows themselves, covering Life's photographer in soot. As the afternoon wears on, the melee increases, and parties and indivi- duals become less recognisable. No one is victorious, no one cares about the result ; all are dirty and happy. The general feel- ing is that it's over for another three years, but it was good fun while it lasted.
The results showed the wisdom of the electorate. They were entertained intelligently by the novelist's supporters. They very nearly fell for the rumour that one candidate was to bestow a swimming-pool on the university. They remembered through it all—the posters, the stunts, the grime—that the discoverer of penicillin should receive their highest honour. If the country at large should frown on such high spirits, they would do well to remember how the students behave in Tehran and Cairo, and how politically minded they are in the French-universities, and how preferable such innocent effervescence is compared with the American university confraternity initiation ceremonies.
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