One is apt, at any General Election, to be discouraged
by the lack of proportion displayed by the electorate in judging the relative importance of the issues involved. There appeared to be a sad indifference to, or unawareness of, such fundamental problems as the re-creation of our national wealth, the maintenance of our position as a world Power, the efficacy of the San Francisco Charter, or our future relations with the Commonwealth and Empire. It was depressing to have only two or three questions bearing upon the condition of Europe and Asia and at the same time innumerable questions upon such minor issues as the Catering Bill or the market, ing of tomatoes. It is, of course, inevitable that the main endeavour of those who attend political meetings for the purpose of heckling should be to discredit by any means in their power the reputation and record of the candidate whom they wish to embarrass ; but the irresponsibility of the accusations hurled at the platform and the actual ignorance of past events which was frequently displayed appeared to have been derived, not so much from any examination of the facts, as from a credulous perusal of those yellow-backed vo'umes upon which Mr. Victor Gollancz has expended so much of his paper-allocation. To the inexperienced candidate, moreover, it must appear as it he has suddenly become the object of hatred, enmity and suspicion upon the part of large sections of his fellow- countrymen to whom he has never consciously either done or desired any harm ; it is only gradually that he comes to realise that the tone of vituperation which his opponents adopt is merely a conven- tion, and that the heckler who during a meeting will hurl insults, and quite undeserved insults, at the unfortunate speaker will after the meeting discuss with him some minor point in a perfectly amicable and courteous spirit. Similarly, some of the questions which may seem meaningless, if not inane, are due, not so much to actual stupidity, as to the illegible manner in which the instructions given to the heckler have been written down. All too often he misreads the scribbled questions with which he has been provided.
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