demanded a recount, and, further, the number of votes did not correspond with counterfoils. The result of the recount left us as before. Still, there were four papers short. At this stage the keen eye of my colleague detected four papers under the looking-glass, and these four votes were mine. None knew how the ballot papers got under the glass, but they were there and were mine, and I was declared elected. My opponents were indignant, and protested that when the general election for the Council came their candidate would fight again. But this the poor man was not allowed to do, for within three months after this contest he was taken seriously ill and died. At the yearly meeting in March 1909, when the election of the committees took place, I was put on to the Small Holdings Committee, Public Health Committee and Old Age Pensions Committee. These committees I felt more deeply interested in. The first was a movement which the Union had made a part of its object. On squaring up the accounts of the election I found that it had cost L3 19s., which was caused by hire of rooms, printing and postages. I was the first direct Labour representative elected on to the County Council, and, being free from any political ties, I felt myself free to take any action I thought was best in the interest of the class I directly represented. I devoted most of my energies to the working of the Small Holdings Act. I soon found, however, we were up against a big problem and that land was not so easy to get as I had thought it was before I was a member of the committee. The Act was surrounded with so much red tape and the landlords' interests were safeguarded at every turn, which enabled them to put obstacles in the way and make it most difficult to obtain land that we could let to the men at reasonable rents, and our progress was very slow. Hundreds of applications for land were sent in, varying from five acres to fifty, especially after my election, as they apparently thought I, being a Labour member, would carry everything before me. Apparently they thought that we had nothing to do but to go and take the land and buy it in the same way as we go and buy any other article. Hence hundreds of men got tired of waiting. But we made good progress, and by October 1909 we had obtained over a thousand acres of land and put over 115 men on to the land.