The king, of course, is very well known, very favourably known, in Mariposa.Everybody remembers how he visited the town on his great tour in Canada, and stopped off at the Mariposa station.Although he was only a prince at the time, there was quite a big crowd down at the depot and everybody felt what a shame it was that the prince had no time to see more of Mariposa, because he would get such a false idea of it, seeing only the station and the lumber yards.Still, they all came to the station and all the Liberals and Conservatives mixed together perfectly freely and stood side by side without any distinction, so that the prince should not observe any party differences among them.And he didn't,--you could see that he didn't.
They read him an address all about the tranquillity and loyalty of the Empire, and they purposely left out any reference to the trouble over the town wharf or the big row there had been about the location of the new post-office.There was a general decent feeling that it wouldn't be fair to disturb the prince with these things: later on, as king, he would, of course, have to know all about them, but meanwhile it was better to leave him with the idea that his empire was tranquil.
So they deliberately couched the address in terms that were just as reassuring as possible and the prince was simply delighted with it.Iam certain that he slept pretty soundly after hearing that address.
Why, you could see it taking effect even on his aides-de-camp and the people round him, so imagine how the prince must have felt!
I think in Mariposa they understand kings perfectly.Every time that a king or a prince comes, they try to make him see the bright side of everything and let him think that they're all united.Judge Pepperleigh walked up and down arm in arm with Dr.Gallagher, the worst Grit in the town, just to make the prince feel fine.
So when they got the news that the king had lost confidence in John Henry Bagshaw, the sitting member, they never questioned it a bit.
Lost confidence? All right, they'd elect him another right away.
They'd elect him half a dozen if he needed them.They don't mind;they'd elect the whole town man after man rather than have the king worried about it.
In any case, all the Conservatives had been wondering for years how the king and the governor-general and men like that had tolerated such a man as Bagshaw so long.
Missinaba County, I say, is a regular hive of politics, and not the miserable, crooked, money-ridden politics of the cities, but the straight, real old-fashioned thing that is an honour to the country side.Any man who would offer to take a bribe or sell his convictions for money, would be an object of scorn.I don't say they wouldn't take money,--they would, of course, why not?--but if they did they would take it in a straight fearless way and say nothing about it.
They might,--it's only human,--accept a job or a contract from the government, but if they did, rest assured it would be in a broad national spirit and not for the sake of the work itself.No, sir.
Not for a minute.
Any man who wants to get the votes of the Missinaba farmers and the Mariposa business men has got to persuade them that he's the right man.If he can do that,--if he can persuade any one of them that he is the right man and that all the rest know it, then they'll vote for him.
The division, I repeat, between the Liberals and the Conservatives, is intense.Yet you might live for a long while in the town, between elections, and never know it.It is only when you get to understand the people that you begin to see that there is a cross division running through them that nothing can ever remove.You gradually become aware of fine subtle distinctions that miss your observation at first.Outwardly, they are all friendly enough.For instance, Joe Milligan the dentist is a Conservative, and has been for six years, and yet he shares the same boat-house with young Dr.Gallagher, who is a Liberal, and they even bought a motor boat between them.Pete Glover and Alf McNichol were in partnership in the hardware and paint store, though they belonged on different sides.
But just as soon as elections drew near, the differences in politics became perfectly apparent.Liberals and Conservatives drew away from one another.Joe Milligan used the motor boat one Saturday and Dr.
Gallagher the next, and Pete Glover sold hardware on one side of the store and Alf McNichol sold paint on the other.You soon realized too that one of the newspapers was Conservative and the other was Liberal, and that there was a Liberal drug store and a Conservative drug store, and so on.
Similarly round election time, the Mariposa House was the Liberal Hotel, and the Continental Conservative, though Mr.Smith's place, where they always put on a couple of extra bar tenders, was what you might call Independent-Liberal-Conservative, with a dash of Imperialism thrown in.Mr.Gingham, the undertaker, was, as a natural effect of his calling, an advanced Liberal, but at election time he always engaged a special assistant for embalming Conservative customers.
So now, I think, you understand something of the general political surroundings of the great election in Missinaba County.
John Henry Bagshaw was the sitting member, the Liberal member, for Missinaba County.
The Liberals called him the old war horse, and the old battle-axe, and the old charger and the old champion and all sorts of things of that kind.The Conservatives called him the old jackass and the old army mule and the old booze fighter and the old grafter and the old scoundrel.
John Henry Bagshaw was, I suppose, one of the greatest political forces in the world.He had flowing white hair crowned with a fedora hat, and a smooth statesmanlike face which it cost the country twenty-five cents a day to shave.
Altogether the Dominion of Canada had spent over two thousand dollars in shaving that face during the twenty years that Bagshaw had represented Missinaba County.But the result had been well worth it.
