The Unionists carried the Bassetlaw Division of Notting- hamshire on
Monday,—the division which includes East Retford and Worksop,—by a majority of 728, Sir Frederick Milner (Conservative) polling 4,381 votes, against 3,653 polled by Mr. Mellor, the Gladstonian candidate. The division was not contested in 1886, Mr. Foljambe, the defeated Liberal candidate of 1885, being opposed to Home-rule ; indeed, he has given very valuable support to the Unionist Party in this contest. In 1885, the Conservatives obtained a majority of 295 over the undivided Liberals, and the increase of the majority from 295 against the whole Liberal vote, to 728 against the Gladstonian section of Liberals alone, is not an occa- sion for triumph, though it is one for moderate satisfaction, especially as a good many votes were lost to the Conservatives by Mr. Mellor's adoption of the eight-hour day for miners, of whom there are a considerable number in the constituency. The total poll was not so heavy as in 1885 by 405 votes ; but then the morning was the coldest in the year, the snow fell heavily at one part of the day, and the register qualifying can- didates was the register of 1889, instead of that of the present year, which does not come into operation till the New Year. The result is evidently due in part to the damper which recent events have thrown over the confidence of Gladstonians in Mr. Gladstone's Irish policy, a good many Gladstonians abstaining from the poll, and not to the enthusiasm of the Unionist Party, which only gained 14 votes on the purely Conservative poll of 1885.
