22 NOVEMBER 1873, Page 2

Three very important School-Board contests have taken place in the

last week, in Birmingham, Manchester, and Liver- pool. The result in Birmingham put the eight Leaguers at the head of the poll ; the Catholic came next ; and last came the six Denominational Churchmen, who had been holding prayer-meetings and using every other device in their power to carry a seventh candidate of their own party, which, with the Catholic, would have given them a majority of one on the School Board. Exciting as the contest was, only sixty-three per cent. of the electors polled ; while in Manchester, where it was suffi- ciently hot, but went the other way, i.e., for the strict Denomina- tionalists, only about 43 per cent polled. In Liverpool, where a still smaller proportion of voters seem to have voted, the Denomina- tionalists have carried everything before them, the result beirig the election of five Roman Catholics, five ultra-Protestants, two liberal Wesleyans, two liberal Protestants, and a moderate Churchman. In such a Board we should hope to see the Liberals holding the balance of power, but no one can call it a satisfactory Board. We have commented elsewhere on the character of the two former elections, and on the abuse of the cumulative vote for small sectarian purposes, which seems likely to interfere with its useful- ness and power as an improvement on the old representative machine. To use it properly requires a due subordination of pre- possessions to principles. The enlarged power of choice conferred may be anything but a privilege, if it is wasted in the service of esprit de corps of a petty kind.