RECENT ELECTIONS.
TT is natural that the Tories should be elated at their successes in the recent elections. Their prospects on taking office were so gloomy, even in their own opinion, that any gleam of sunshine, however transitory, must have been grateful to them. We do not grudge them all the consolation which they can derive from the bye-elections ; but we must point out that their rejoicing is not only extravagant and premature, but that it rests on no basis of substantial facts. The Standard, usually sober and moderate, is almost hysterical in its delight at the reaction against Liberalism indicated, as it thinks, by the elections which have lately taken place. It goes so far as to affirm that if Lord Salisbury could only appeal to the constituencies at this moment, he would undoubtedly obtain a decisive majority. "It is the worn-out majority in the House of Commons," it tells us, "and not Lord Salisbury's Government, which is out of harmony with public opinion." Even "the Edinburgh Revietv, the great organ of moderate Liberalism," is calmly cited as a proof of the decadence of the Liberalism represented by the late Cabinet. As if the doleful prophecies of the Edinburgh Review were not invariably falsified by events! Now, let us look at the facts on which the Tories are building such inordinate hopes.
To begin with, bye-elections usually do go against the Liberals. Have the Tories forgotten their delusive hopes and short-lived rejoicing after the Southwark and similar elections on the eve of the dissolution of 18801 They had far better reasons then than those they have now for their jubilation ; and they know how it all ended. The reason why bye-elections generally favour the Conservative Party is obvious. They are the party of resistance, the party whose usual function is not to go forward, but to stand still. Now it is easy enough to stand still in line ; but it is not easy to go forward in line. In the party of progress there must always be some jostling. Some will be tempted to advance too rapidly, some will be disposed to lag" too much in the rear, and others may occasionally fall out of the ranks altogether for a while, yet may be too valuable to be abandoned to the enemy without an effort to carry them forward. All these disinte- grating elements in the party of progress come out in
full relief in bye-elections. They are suppressed in the enthusiasm of a General Election, when the party has a just cause before it and is fighting under a leader whom it cordially trusts. Local influences, too, play a far more important part among the Tories than they do among the Liberals in a bye-election. Liberals are not nearly so amenable to discipline as Tories, and local jealousies and aspirations are consequently not nearly so easily allayed among them as among the Tories, except under the electrical impulse of a General Election. Now this general apathy of the Liberals in bye-elections is, of course, much increased at present by the near approach of the General Election. For the present the Conservatives have a much stronger inducement than the Liberals to exert them- selves in bye-elections. The Liberals are in a majority in the House of Commons, and have the Government at their mercy. They can prevent any policy of which they may disapprove, and can turn the Government out if it prove recalcitrant. But there is no wish among the Liberals to turn the Government out, and their thoughts are directed to the next House of Commons, not to this. What is the use of fighting elections just now, when a victory can lead to nothing, while the decisive battle will be fought next November? If, indeed, Lord Salisbury could dissolve just now, the Standard would find that the Liberal apathy which has so enchanted it would speedily give place to an active crusade against the Tory Party. To leave Lord Salisbury undisturbed in office, but not in power, for four months, when a Dissolution must take place, is a very different matter from giving him a blank cheque for six years ; and to argue from the one to the other is obviously absurd. The Liberals have thus no motive to exert themselves in bye-elections at present ; and people do not become enthusiastic and energetic without a motive. The Tories, on the other hand, have had the strongest motives to put forth-all their strength in the bye-elections. Theirs is a Government on sufferance, and success in bye-elections gives
them some slight excuse for saying that the present consti- tuencies, at all events, are with them, and therefore they cannot be a Ministry of "caretakers."
These general considerations are alone sufficient to explain the Liberal defeats in the recent elections. But the joy of the Tories is seen to be still more groundless, when we pass from general considerations to particular eases. The triumph of Mr. Ashmead Bartlett at Eye has been trumpeted as evidence of Tory proclivities even among the agricultural labourers. But what are the facts ? The Liberals of the division in which Eye is merged by the Redistribution Bill had already chosen their candidate. This gentleman did not think it worth while to engage in a contest on the old register in a mere fraction of the area over which the battle will range next November. Thereupon another Liberal enters the lists, and, of course, gets no support from the chosen candidate of the party, or from his immediate supporters. Yet, under these circumstances, he makes a respectable fight against the Tory candidate. Surely the legiti- mate inference is that if the Liberal Party in Eye had been united and had really meant fighting, Mr. Ashmead Bartlett would have been defeated even on the present register. But they will be united and enthusiastic in the General Election. The infer- ence from the North Lincolnshire election is equally fallacious. Unquestionably a large section of the farmers resent the en- franchisement of the labourers.- This is evidenced by the bitter opposition of the farmers' representatives in the House of Commons, Mr. Pell and Mr. Clare Read, to the Medical Relief Bill. On the old register in counties therefore the majority of the farmers are probably at present on the Tory side. In North Lincolnshire, moreover, there is a lingering feeling, partly due to Messrs. Lowther and Chaplin, that if only the Tories get a majority the farmers will be rewarded with a duty on corn. The Liberals in the constituency, on the other hand, knew that the majority of the present electors were against them, and evidently thought it useless to exert themselves, especially when they hope to reverse the verdict of the majority of the farmers by the help of the new electors. The election of North Lincolnshire is therefore no sort of index to the judgment of that constituency at the Dissolution. Nor can we attach any conspicuous importance to Wakefield. That borough has never been a regular Liberal constituency. Tories of the, narrowest type have successfully wooed its suffrages. At the last General Election it was swept along in the Liberal tide which obliterated all local influences. The Irish vote, too, was cast solidly in the Liberal scale. In the recent election it was given wholly to the Tory candidate. In addition, Wakefield is one of the boroughs which has generally had a margin of voters open to corrupt influences, and these have naturally visited on the Liberal Government the substantial loss which they have sustained through the Corrupt Practices Act.
On the whole therefore we see no reason for the least dis- couragement in the recent elections. They afford no clue at all to the real feeling even of the present constituencies, and still less, of course, of the new voters. It is well that the Liberals should be on the alert, and should not allow them- selves to be caught napping anywhere. Their opponents are vigilant, and are evidently determined to make a desperate, per- haps not over-scrupulous, fight in November. But when all has been told, the Liberals have an exceedingly good record to show, both in foreign and domestic affairs, during the regime of the late Government, as compared with that of the Govern- ment of Lord Beaconsfield. Take Ireland alone,by way of crucial example. Lord Beaconsfield's Government found that country peaceful when he took office in 1874. After six years of Tory rule Lord Beaconsfield described Ireland, in the spring of 1880, as being politically in a condition "scarcely less disastrous than pestilence and famine." Mr. Gladstone's Government suc- ceeded, and after five years of Liberal rule and legislation, both remedial and repressive, the Tories return to office, and they—the fanatical advocates of coercion, the fierce revilers of the maxim that "force alone is no remedy "—declare openly that the condition of Ireland is so satisfactory that they can rule it without coercion. Liberals have nothing to fear, but everything to hope, from an early appeal to the country. With Mr. Gladstone leading the host to battle, Victory is virtually assured beforehand.
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