The Coalition Unionist candidate, Mr. F. Wise, won the Ilford
by-election with great ease, polling 2,520 votes more than his Labour and Independent Liberal opponents combined. The figures were : Mr. Wise, 15,612; Mr. King, Labour, i,577; and Major Thompson, Independent Liberal, 6,515, Mr. Wise's poll was only 258 less than that of his predecessor at the General Election. The Labour and Liberal polls were larger than before, but there has evidently been no marked change in the political views of the constituency. Inasmuch as Ilford is inhabited mainly by City clerks and workmen, who have felt the burden of high prices and heavy taxes, its steadiness deserves to be noted. Mr. King, the Labour candidate, confessed that his cause had suffered through the unpopularity of the miners' threat to strike. Mr. Smillie's promise of cheaper coal had not deluded the Ilford electors, though most of them are Poorer than the average miner.
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