The great blow of the week to the Unionist cause
has, how- ever, been the rejection of Sir George Trevelyan by the Hawick Burghs, by the narrow majority of 30 votes. For Mr. Brown, his opponent, there.polled 2,523 electors ; for Sir George Trevelyan, 2,493. Considering that it was Sir George Trevelyan who obtained for not a few of the electors of Hawick their vote,— for all at least who were not within the old lines of the group of Border Burghs,—and that by his exertions in Parliament he obtained that vote for all their neighbours in the county, it does, we must say, seem very hard that he should be rejected only because he holds in July the same political creed which he held in November. We do not expect much political gratitude from any constituency ; but when a Member as distinguished as Sir George Trevelyan has not only represented the same constituency for eighteen years, but has held staunchly to the same principles throughout all those years, has greatly advanced their recogni- tion by the State, and, moreover, has endured in the cause a Ireland such political torture as Mr. Trevelyan endured in his two years' Irish Secretaryship, it does seem to us peculiarly ungrateful for a constituency who know so very much less than he of the matter at issue, to dismiss him from their service solely on the ground that he cannot endorse the policy of the Prime Minister.
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