After a very severe struggle, in which the loiing candidate
polled upwards of 3,000 more votes than the winning candidate had ever polled before, Mr. Whitley, the Conservative candidate, was returned for Liverpool yesterday week, by a majority of 2,221. More than 50,000 ballot-papers were given in, though a few less than that number were accepted as valid. votes. Mr. Whitley received 26,106 votes, against 23,885 given for Lord Ramsay. Five-sixths of the constituency were; therefore, polled, and the Tories maintained their ascendancy, but with nothing like the proportionate majority of the last contest in 1874. The relative numbers are indeed almost exactly those of 1868. Lord Ramsay, though unsuccessful, obtained great popularity in Liverpool, where he will be asked to fight the battle again at the general election. His only mistake,—though that was, in our opinion, a grave one,—was his promise to vote for an inquiry into the nature and extent of the demand for an Irish Parliament, a promise which ought to imply that his judgment is still in suspense as to the expediency of submitting the domestic affairs of Ireland to the decision of a domestic legislature. A doctor whose judgment remained in suspense as to the expediency of performing a very critical amputation till a committee of doctors had instituted an elaborate inquiry, would hardly win the enthusiastic con- fidence of his patient.
