STRONG LANGUAGE AT ELECTIONS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] SIR,—It would add considerably to the dignity of the present Government, to say nothing of the decencies of public life generally, if all the members of the Cabinet would read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest your note on Mr. Spencer's letter in last week's Spectator, particularly some of the younger and more exuberant members. Last week Mr. Winston Churchill spoke several times at Poole, Parkstone, and elsewhere on behalf of Captain Guest, the successful candidate for the East Dorset division. In the course of one of these speeches the following passage occurred :—" You do not require the blackguardly gutter-scrapings which the Conservative candi- date has been licking up, of which he has made himself the sewer." The same evening, at a meeting in the Skating-Rink at Parkstone, at which I myself was present, he also spoke of the Conservative candidate as a " sewer-pipe." Owing to the applause which greeted this sally I could not catch the further embroidery which he added to the above telling phrase, but there was no doubt about the expression which I have quoted, and the first passage set forth above is copied verbatim from the Poole Guardian of January 29th.
The excuse for such language was, I believe, that Colonel Nicholson, the Conservative candidate, had authorised the circulation of a pamphlet which Captain Guest considered scurrilous and libellous. The moment that the issue of the pamphlet came to his notice Colonel Nicholson repudiated all
171,:rwleolge of it, and this repudiation was accepted publicly .after the, declaration of the poll by Captain Guest. But it • ,struck one who.for special reasons has stood apart from the
recent campaign, and has done his best to take a moderate and impartial view of all the, questions at issue, that it would have been better if, before a personal attack was made on 'colonel Nicholson, some endeavour bad been made to verify bis supposed connexion with the issue of the pamphlet in ,question; and in any case the application of such epithets to an honourable opponent who has won distinction fighting for his country, and the use of such language generally by a Cabinet Minister, no matter how great he imagined the provocation to be, cannot but strike all lovers of decency and moderation as degrading both to the speaker and to the dignity of the high office which he holds.—I am, Sir, &c.,
ONLOOKER.
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