4 OCTOBER 1935, Page 2

The Memel Elections It is too soon to assume that

the danger at Memel is over. The elections on Sunday were got through not without incident, and not without a last-moment extension of the polling through the whole of Monday, but there were no disturbances greater than normally mark a general election in any Eastern European country, and in some further west. Here, as so often, breakdowns ascribed to some devilish malignity were the fault of nothing more or less than incompetence. Anything more cumbrous than the election procedure, under which each elector was given a booklet containing on separate sheets the name of each of the 187 candidates, and required to tear off and deposit in the ballot-box the sheets bearing the names of the 29 for whom. he chose to vote, it would .be next to impossible to imagine. But over 90 per cent. of the registered electors duly performed the feat set them, and as the count is expected to reveal in about a week's time a majority calculated to satisfy all German aspirations, little opportunity for trouble should present itself. The presence of observers repre- . senting the* powers which guarantee the Memel statute— Britain, France and Italy—was of value, and it will be well that the Powers in question should take steps to remain cognisant of developments in the local situation.