From Justice, Saturday, 9th July 1892, p.1. [1] [1*]
Transcribed by Ted Crawford.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.
But the great subject for congratulation in the recent election returns is the discomfiture of Stanley in North Lambeth, though we could have wished he had been rejected by a larger majority than 130. A protest manifesto, anent Stanley and the British East Africa Company, to which was appended the signatures of advanced Radicals and Socialists, was placarded all over Lambeth the day before the election. Unfortunately, owing to a misunderstanding, the name of our comrade Hyndman did not appear. This is the more to be regretted as the pamphlet published some years ago by him, in conjunction with the late Colonel Yule, did yeoman’s service in the present emergency. The salient points in it were republished in Friday’s Daily Chronicle, and doubtless influenced many voters.
Anyway, the result is significant. The Tories have lost an otherwise “safe” seat, not certainly owing to the strength or popularity of the Radical candidate but simply and solely because their own candidate was the notorious nigger-shooter and pioneer of civilisation in the dark places of Africa. Should “the great explorer” again seek re-election he must be run to earth again in the same manner, and this must be repeated as often as he has the effrontery to thrust himself forward. He will probably soon get tired of it.
1. Anonymous but apparently by Bax. I suspect other parts of this front page were by Bax as well.
1*. This article refers to the electoral defeat of Henry Morton Stanley, who had was Tory MP for Lambeth North until the election of 1892. This is the Stanley of “Dr Livingstone, I presume” fame. He was an unashamed imperialist who played a major role in opening up central and east Africa for European colonialism. One of his more obnoxious services was opening up the Congo Basin on behalf of King Leopold of the Belgians, who then made it his personal fiefdom subjecting the African population to unspeakable horrors which provided the subject matter of Joseph Conrad’s novel, Heart of Darkness, and were later revealed to a shocked public through the consular reports of Roger Casement.
Last updated on 17.10.2005