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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 3, Issue 4 (August 1, 1928)

The Conundrums of Candidates — Platform Forming Extraordinary

page 8

The Conundrums of Candidates
Platform Forming Extraordinary

Cecil Jonquil, a candidate for Parliamentary honours meets trouble long before he faces an audience.

Told by Leo Fanning.

Hector Jaggs was chairman of Cecil Jonquil's Election Committee, and Horace Hawkins was secretary. Jaggs a gruff, burly man, fiercely bearded, was the boss of the district. He held mortgages over many people, including Hawkins and Jonquil. Jaggs could have obtained easily his party's selection of himself to run for the seat, but he preferred a concentration on the mortgage business. After many discussions in and out of bars Jonquil was chosen not for his strength, but for his amiableness. He was a meek, mild man, with no known enemies. He was the kind of man who walked warily on rainy days lest he should tread on worms. Jonquil was also completely respectable—beyond the reach of rumour. One would no more associate sin with him than with a periwinkle.

Mr. Jonquil: I haven't reached law yet in the Encyclopaedia, but I'll get to L soon. Mr. Jaggs: Bah!

Mr. Jonquil: I haven't reached law yet in the Encyclopaedia, but I'll get to L soon.
Mr. Jaggs: Bah!

It was the night of the first important meeting of Mr. Jonquil's General Committee. It was a night for the making of the platform. There was much raw material on the table—a Year Book, some volumes of Hansard, heaps of newspaper clippings, a litter of scribbled paper, a dictionary, a directory, and a cyclopedia of “Apt Quotations in Prose and Verse.”

Jonquil's brow was very corrugated. He was handling the pieces of scribbled paper, as if he was trying to sort them into some logical sequence. Apparently the “planks” of the prospective platform were slightly mixed.

“Of course,” said Hawkins, “you must understand at once that kissing the baby is a wash-out now, and so is helping mother at the mangle, and peeling the potatoes. But you must have a child plank all the same.”

“Assuredly, most certainly,” Jonquil replied. “I would be strongly against flannelette for nightclothes; I have the sad statistics of the burnings. I would also have ‘dummies’ suppressed. I don't believe in the gagging of infants.” He went on about malformation of palates, adenoids, and so on. He had read his Truby King.

“Bah,” ejaculated Jaggs.

“Jaggs is right,” commented Hawkins. “There are bigger dummies to suppress first. What about finance?”

“I believe,” said Jonquil, “that my most solid plank is Progronomy with Egress—I mean Progress with Economy. I am also strong on Public Health—mens sana in corpore sano, you know.”

“Bah!” said Mr. Jaggs.

“Jaggs is right,” Hawkins remarked. “Don't talk Italian or Greek. You might as well talk of men's pyjamas or pale pills for pink people. Take it systematically. Think of the man, the woman, and the child, individually and collectively, internally and externally, retrospectively and prospectively. What do they need? What do they think they need? What are they likely to think they'll think they'll need?”

“Starting with the child,” said Jonquil slowly,

“I believe I could win the mothers and many of the fathers and big sisters and aunts with a hurdy-gurdy policy—hurdy-gurdies in the public parks.”

“That would be all right for a municipal election,” Hawkins commented, “but this is a general election.”

“A hurdy-gurdy is a homely thing,” agreed Jonquil, “and I believe the people like homely things.”

“Bah!” said Mr. Jaggs.

“Jaggs is right,” Hawkins said. Life is a hurdy-gurdy. The people whirl daily among the same old things. I think they want to get away page 9 from all suggestion of hurdy-gurdies. “You'll have to say something against Prussianism. That will please the ruddiest Radicals; we must have something for those persons.”

“Most decidedly, gentlemen,” declared Jonquil. “That is my ploutest stank—I mean my stoutest plank. We must prush Crussianism—I mean we must crush Prussianism. We must hit it with a claw-hammer, a sledge-hammer, any kind of hammer; an axe, a pick, a brick—and that sort of thing. I'm a hundred per center in that line.”

“Good,” said Mr. Jaggs.

“We must have some slogans,” was the next remark of Hawkins. “The people like slogans. We must have some smart phrases, such as ‘Jonquil for the People and the People for Jonquil.’”

Mr. Jonquil looked dubious. “I have heard that people are a bit afraid of brilliant men,” he said. “Smart phrases are all right for Lloyd George and that fellow, Sir Something Smith. I don't wish to tempt the papers to head up reports of my meetings with ‘Junks of Jonquil,’ or ‘Jonquil—Jackanapes.’”

“Perhaps you are right,” said Hawkins. “We'd better run you as a quiet candidate. We can arrange for conversations in tramcars. Some of our supporters will talk like this in tones that people will be able to hear on both sides of the street: ‘I hear that fellow Jonquil is a very steady chap. He's solid; not a genius—but a plodder who gets there—reliable, respectable; doesn't use a toothpick in public; has his aitches right; not loud in ties or socks; not a gusher, not a musher’.”

Mr. Jonquil's corrugations increased.

“And we must have subtle strategy and tactics,” continued Hawkins. “We must arrange for interjections and questions at meetings to enable you to score.”

“Gentlemen,” said Jonquil, “would not that be—er—well, I don't know quite how to express it. You know I don't mean to offend any gentleman—but—er—wouldn't it be a sort of false pretence?”

Jonquil for the people! and The people for Jonquil.

Jonquil for the people! and The people for Jonquil.

“Bah!” snorted Mr. Jaggs.

“Gentlemen, of course, if any member thinks it is necessary—”

“Bah!” repeated Mr. Jaggs. “Also pooh! Also bull's wool.”

“Jaggs is right,” said Hawkins. “You must not be too tender in the conscience in a political campaign. You must do something to win. What about land?”

“I'm solid on land; I'm a great believer in land,” replied Jonquil with enthusiasm. “We couldn't get along without land. In a small way I have learned much about land. Last season I grew the biggest pumpkin within miles of my patch. I'll tell you how it was done. I—”

“But you can't have a Big Pumpkin and Parsnip Policy,” Hawkins interjected.

“No—o?” stammered Jonquil, in a tone of disappointment.

“Nor carraway seed industry,” sniggered Hawkins.

“Well, gentlemen, sign me on for what you think about land,” said Jonquil. I'm sure you'll do the right thing. To tell the truth, I haven't reached land yet in the encyclopedia, but I'll get to L soon. I'm up to J. If you like, I'll skip J and K for the present, and go back to them later.”

“Bah!” snorted Mr. Jaggs.

“Jaggs is right,” said Hawkins. “Don't go too much on the 'cyclo.’ Back-pedal a bit. The people don't like too much bookish stuff. You remember poor old—? He might have been a Minister ‘for duration’ if he hadn't stuffed himself so much with books. He became merely a paper-weight. Common-sense is what the people want.”

Mr. Jonquil looked a little bewildered. “Suppose I talk to them the same as I talk to you?” he ventured nervously.

“Bah!” said Mr. Jaggs.

“Jaggs is right,” said Hawkins. “There is common-sense—and common-sense. You must have the uncommon kind, which isn't common, but seems page 10 to be. You must be able to make the remarks which induce the hear to feel, as a vulgarism has it ‘Them's my sentiments.’”

Mr. Jonquil looked profoundly dejected. The corrugations were doubled. “I'm a little dizzy,” he said. “I'm not used to this—such a lot in one night. I'll feel better in the morning. I'll have an early sea bath; I've read that it's very good for the intellect. We might—we might,” he added pathetically, “we might put that in the policy.”

“Bah!” said Mr. Jaggs.

“Jaggs is right,’ said Hawkins. “You see—”

But at this stage the eavesdropper had not the heart to stay for more. He fled.

Women as Stationmasters

A dozen women perform the duties of stationmaster at small centres on the London and North-Eastern Railway Company's system in Scotland—and they are all most efficient.

An official of the L.N.E.R. made this statement to a Press representative recently, when his attention was directed to an announcement
An Historic Railway Event. Crowds lining the railway at the opening of the new extension to Tauranga and Taneatua.

An Historic Railway Event.
Crowds lining the railway at the opening of the new extension to Tauranga and Taneatua.

of the appointment in charge of the company's Eddleston station in Peeblesshire of Miss Margaret Cochrane “to succeed her father, who has completed 48 years’ service.”

“Most of them, he said, were appointed before the railway amalgamation, and their stations are mainly on the old West Highland Line and the North British. They are principally the daughters or widows of railway men who held the posts before them.

“Mind you, they are women, not ‘flappers,’ and they are efficient stationmistresses in every sense of the word. They are supplied with a uniform and on the collar and cap is the word ‘Stationmistress.’ They take complete charge. As a rule there is not much passenger traffic at their stations, but timber and other goods traffic is handled, and they give a hand with the manual work when necessary. They have porters under them and keep order about the place.”

The stationmistresses receive the same rates of pay as men in similar posts, and they are treated in every way as if they were men. There has been no difficulty with any unions about them.