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of this nature. As Your Grace is no doubt aware it is the essiest thing in the world in a community such as this to obtain the signature of any body to a petition for anything, to which he does not actually object. It is easier and pleasanter to consent than to refuse and if A signs one petition to oblige B, he can expect B to do the same for him if he wants in the future to secure signatures for something in which he is himself interested, I have very little doubt that if any body would take the seme trouble as was taken by the promoters of this petition to induce people to sign, he would be able to obtain quite as long a list of signatures to e petition against any change;-and the list would probably contain a good many of the same
names.
3.
The list in the present case is remarkable not for the names that it contains but for those that it does not, i.e. those of the principal business men of the Colony. Moreover it is within my own knowledge that some of those who signed the petition did so because they agreed with part of it though not with all, they wished for the election of members but not for an unofficial majority and would not have signed if they had believed that this latter
request would be granted.
4.
So far then as the present petition is
concerned I see no reason to alter the view expressed in
my Confidential despatch of July 29th, 1920, that there is
no real demand for any change. Had there been 80, there
can be no doubt that there would have been an agitation for an answer to the petition before now. There has not been
even a shadow of such agitation and the natural conclusion
is that no real interest is taken in the matter.
5.
It remains then to consider the substance
of the petition on its merits. The requests which it
contains are three in number.
1. The substitution of election for nomination in the
case