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33
consolation of learning that Mr. Clarke's intentions of quickly procuring
a local Act for the sewage farm had been similarly upset by the inability
of Parliament to undertake fresh business.
Within the Board the curious stalemate dragged on over the winter;
routine business was being carried on in a desultory fashion but there was
now no chance of healing the breach over the sewage question at least until
the spring when the annual election was due, with a prospect of the
issues being decided by the ratepayers at the poll. But meantime the
ratepayers were not inactive; owing to the seriousness of the situation
from their point of view the vestry meeting, the ancient and lawful parish
forum, had come into its own again and was being patronised as it had
never been before. The great sewage question had become its principal
business: special meetings were being called to keep the inhabitants
abreast of the situation, at which both parties stated their points of
view. By the end of the winter public opinion had crystallized out.
Following a meeting which, according to the Herald "unorecedentedly occupied
two nights and was attended by a larger number than ever before, including
many of the principal inhabitants who never before attended," it
was agreed that a poll of the ratepayers (also unprecedented) must be
taken. The outcome was a substantial victory for the "non-irrigationists"'and
the Vestry was empowered "to appropriate up to £200 of the Parish
Fund to defend the parish against the sewage farm scheme should any
attempt be made to obtain a local act for that purpose".
There is no need to enlarge on the intense excitement which centred
on the next election when it fell due in March 1871. By coincidence both
Dr. Hall and Mr. Clarke were due to seek re-election and so was one of
Dr. Hall's "non-irrigationist" party. In addition there were six other
candidates for the three vacancies whose adherences were thought to be
equally divided between the two parties. Mr. Clarke, unmatched in the
, parish for political skill and ingenuity, was thought likely to head the
poll and by his influence carry two "irrigationists" in with him, for as
well as the support he had in the parish he was believed "to have in his
pocket the votes of 200 non-resident owners of property". The Herald
rightly predicted that "personal friendships would be likely to be sacrificed
in this exciting event: it will not be as heretofore a struggle
between old retiring members combined and new candidates but a bitter
struggle between retiring members". But even this election on which the
parish was counting so largely produced only an anticlimax; when the results
were made known it was found that the ratepayers had perversely
vitiated its real purpose by returning all three retiring candidates and
so had simply re-established the Board with precisely its former membership.
Moreover, a pure trick of fate had actually accentuated the problem;
one of the "non-irrigationist" members - upon whom that party relied
for, its fractional majority in the Board - had suddenly left the parish
to live elsewhere; instead of nine members the Board was reduced to eight
of whom four were staunch "irrigationists" and four equally staunch "non-
irrigationists".