If you vote for Sandars you sanction the right of Lord Ward to choose your Representative.—You abandon your right of selecting one that is independent.
If Sandars be elected he dare not vote in opposition to his Lordship’s will, if he did he would soon cease to be Member for Dudley, under such circumstances he will be Lord Ward’s and not your Member.
How has Lord Ward treated Sir Stafford H. Northcote? Most shamefully; there is proof in this town that Sir Stafford did not go to North Devon as a matter of choice.—He abandoned Dudley because Lord Ward abandoned him for Voting honorably on the China question in opposition to the Ministry which has the support of Lord Ward, on that ground his Lordship sent us Mr. Sandars.—Now this Gentleman told us at his first Meeting that he had his Lordship’s support, that his Lordship spent a quarter of a million annually in ‘this Borough’ (we suppose this was a mistake, and that he meant ‘the world’) and that therefore his Lordship had a right to be represented.
The meaning of this could not be mistaken, but let us ask why does not his Lordship act and vote for himself in the House of Peers? Let him use his hereditary privileges for the protection of his rights and not rob us of ours.—We would not ask by what means his ancestors became entitled to the Estates the income whereof enables so large an expenditure; but we will tell his Lordship that were he alone upon those Estates, and had not the assistance and labor of the surrounding inhabitants, he would have no income to expend—Thus it is clear that his Lordship is indebted to the people, and not the people to him. Shall he then hold us in hereditary bondage with the very means the people create for him? Shall he put a veto on the use of our intellects and nominate his as our Representative without a struggle on our part? Could our ancestors arise they would be ashamed of us, they would weep to see us licking the dust upon the heels of power without an effort to be free.
This nominee tells us he is a supporter of Lord Palmerston on the China question, which means that he, Sandars, will back the murder and wholesale butchery in China of thousands of innocent men; he will support the Government in burning and destroying the houses of the rich and poor at Canton; he is the man to aid and abet the breaking out of war on the part of the English, without the knowledge or assent of the people, or of the Parliament: he is the man to uphold the Government in setting the vote of the Peoples’ Representatives at defiance: he is the man who talks of assisting in the reduction of the Income Tax, and yet will afford facilities for the expenditure of our money in war without our knowledge or consent: he is the man who on the hustings at Bewdley alleged that he was a follower of Earl Derby, and now comes here in opposition to that Nobleman on the very question which has broken up the present Parliament.
ELECTORS “awake, arise, or be for ever fallen.” Men of all shades of Politics, Whig and Tory, buckle on your armour, go hand in hand, beat back the foe that would rob you of your franchise. Shew your independence, let cowardice be distant. It is not a question between Whig and Tory that we have to decide, (Sandars is neither Whig or Tory,) but between Independence and Mental Slavery. The days when Lordlings treated Villagers as Serfs and Vassals have passed, and it is only history that should remind us that such things were.
Shall we return to serfdom and vassalage?—No.
Is the Lord of our manor to nominate our man, and say as of old “to hear is to obey”?—No.
Stir yourselves, put an end to your lethargy, rally round the standard of the worthy, independent, and intelligent Mr. SHERIDAN; go forth to the battle determined to defend your rights, even as our ancestors would have done with their blood, and Victory shall be yours.
AN ELECTOR.