* * * The Parish Council elections at the end
of last week seem to have produced a curious and very unusual outburst of public interest in certain regions—though only in certain regions, and only in parts of those regions. From a Northern county, for example, I hear that the usual thinly-attended meeting which commonly elects councillors by show of hands rallied the astonishing number (for so small a place) of 15o, who demanded a poll, and at the poll defeated the squire's gamekeeper, who had been chairman for ten years or more. In a Home County the candidates ranged demo- cratically from peer to plasterer, but the peer failed to secure election at all. Party politics seem to have entered into the matter very little. In the first case I mentioned, for instance, the leading issue seems to have been opposition to any nationalisation of road- haulage, and on that Conservatives and Labour were at one. What- ever the cause, any revival of interest in parish politics is to be warmly welcomed.
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