Mr. PAKINGTON asks who is Mr. CALTHORPE, and how dare
he presume to intrude himself upon the Electors of East
Worcestershire? I would reply by asking what claims of
pre-eminence Mr. PAKINGTON possesses in thus questioning your
right to select for yourselves that person you consider most
fitted to represent you, and upon what ground does he base his
expectations of obtaining your support? Certainly not upon
the exhibition he made at the Lancasterian School on Monday
Evening, when he either had no principles to explain, or they
were so antiquated that he lacked the power or ability to
make them understandable to his audience! Can it be upon his
desire to _dole_ out to you the very smallest modicum of Reform
which may be possible, or that you must be pleased to wait
a little longer, until you are more capable of appreciating
it? I am quite willing to give Mr. PAKINGTON all the credit
he so eloquently pleaded for on Monday Evening, to which his
efforts on behalf of education fairly entitle him; but I
cannot understand how it is that he should deny to the people
a fair participation in those rights and privileges which that
education so properly qualifies them to exercise. Is it that
he would continue that animosity and those heart-burnings
which the exaction of Church Rates has so long occasioned,
or does he still desire the dominance of an Ecclesiastical
authority which, since the reformation, the Protestant spirit
of the people of England has declared shall not exist in this
country? Does he think that you will support him on account of
the resistance of himself and his party to the establishment
of those great commercial principles which have tended so
largely to develop the prosperity of this Country, and so
materially to increase your own happiness and comforts? How
dare Mr. PAKINGTON sneer at Staffordshire men representing
you, when all so well recollect the insidious attempt of Sir
John to transfer you to that County, and which, had not your
timely and generally expressed indignation prevented, Mr.
PAKINGTON would not now have had the honour of soliciting
your suffrages; Mr. CALTHORPE is a progressive, consistent
Liberal--one whose principles are adapted to the spirit of
the times in which we live; he comes fairly before this great
County constituency with stated opinions, and soliciting from
it a Seat in Parliament. He does not attempt to get there by
the exercise of an influence Mr. PAKINGTON so magniloquently
talked about, and which we all know is so kindly exercised in a
Borough with which he is connected. Is it not that Mr. JUNIOR
PAKINGTON is put forth as a feeler against the time when, very
probably, that Borough may find itself in Schedule A of a New
Reform Bill, and your votes may then be asked for a Senior
member of the family? I will venture to answer that as Free and
Independent Electors of East Worcestershire you will not thus
be dictated to, but will return Mr. CALTHORPE TRIUMPHANTLY AT
THE HEAD OF THE POLL!
I am,
Yours respectfully,
A FREEHOLDER.
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