By-Election The result of the Twickenham election was declared last
week as follows :- Sir J. Ferguson (Conservative) .. .. 14,705
Mr. T. J. Mason (Labour) • • .. 14.202 Mr. F. G. Paterson (Liberal) 1,920 Conservative majority 503
The fact that only half of the voters went to the poll cannot be wholly due to the holiday season, or to regrets among the Unionists for the loss of a popular candidate in Lord Brentford, who two months ago received 6,382 more votes than did Sir John Ferguson. Sir John handicapped himself by tying round his neck, against the advice and wishes of Mr. Baldwin and the Unionist organiza- tion, a mill-stone heavier even than the old one of Colonial Preference, which has dragged others under since Mr. Joseph Chamberlain first tried to bind it upon the party. The new undigested and indigestible doctrine which has so nearly -lost to the Unionist Party one of the safest of " safe seats " rests upon taxation of food and raw materials which no party will dare to recommend even if they believe in it, and upon the notion that the Dominions will let our manufactures enter freely. To risk damaging our trade in all our nearest markets by putting them outside an Imperial Zollverein seems to us crazy enough, but to preach a Zollverein here is a futile effort at the wrong end. Sir John should begin, not by blandishing Twickenham or arguing at Westminster, but by carrying his fiery cross Of Free Trade through the Dominions.
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