Page:Eminent English liberals in and out of Parliament.djvu/284

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EMINENT LIBERALS OUT OF PARLIAMENT.

at Southampton nor in the Tower Hamlets did the gallant admiral evince the smallest appreciation of these elementary campaigning truths.

In the Tower Hamlets, though personally an abstainer, he took strong ground against the Permissive Bill; and he would have nothing to do with the publicans. Both parties, of course, voted against him. Again: Liberal churchmen would have none of him because of his Strong advocacy of disestablishment; while the Nonconformists, to their everlasting discredit, threw him completely overboard because of his advanced views regarding the opening of museums on Sundays. The committee of the Tower Hamlets Nonconformist Liberal Association had actually the indecency to issue a manifesto during the contest, wherein, after premising that they had carefully considered the claims of the various candidates, they went on to say, "Captain Maxse, by his advocacy of the opening of museums on Sunday and his sympathies in favor of 'home rule,' precluded a consideration of his name." This being the enlightened verdict of Little Bethel, the defeat of the Radical candidate is not, perhaps, much to be wondered at, especially when it is added that only seventeen thousand electors took the trouble to go to poll for five candidates out of a constituency of thirty-two thousand. Some of these "fixes" the gallant admiral could never be put in again; the advocates of the Permissive Bill, for example, having themselves abandoned their measure, and in its stead substituted "local option," a change of front which will enable Admiral Maxse and many other genuine Radicals in future to render them willing aid. By way of equivalent it will be their duty to help to keep off the land-sharks that prey on