Another important constituency has deserted the Liberal party. Renfrewshire, which
gave the Liberals a majority of over 100 in the last election before Mr. Disraeli's Reform Act, and which has never since that Reform Act,—which fully doubled its consti- tuency,—been contested by the Conservatives, has now returned Colonel Campbell, Conservative, with a majority of 178 over the Liberal candidate, Colonel Mure, after a poll in which, for a county, a very large proportion indeed of the constituency,- 3,532 out of something more than 4,000--was polled. Colonel Mure, however, is a converted Conservative, and is regarded by the Scotch Radicals as still too tepid a Liberal to excite any enthusiasm in their breasts. Still it must be admitted that this only tells us the pretext assigned by the Liberals for failing zeal, not why they are failing in zeal,—the main fact, that faith in the Liberal leaders is actually ebbing at the present moment, remaining just as marked as ever. We believe that the ebb must run on for a time before the flow begins, and perhaps nothing but a trial of Tory Government will break the spell. Distance will not only dwarf those petty administrative failures of the Government of which so much has been made, but will bring out the long chain of legislative achievements in their full magnitude.
