A SPECTATOR 'S NOTEBOOK
THE term " a Pyrrhic victory " comes, I believe, from the exclama- tion of Pyrrhus after Asculum, "one more such victory and we are lost." Mr. Herbert Morrison probably thought, rather than said audibly, something similar after Edmonton. For in any average constituency such a drop in the Labour vote, combined with such a rise in the Conservative vote, would have the Conservative in with a thousand or two to spare. But Labour has been astonishingly fortunate in its by-election contests. Again and again where a seat has fallen vacant, through death or otherwise, it has been one which produced a Labour majority of eight to ten thousand at the General Election. A mere eight to ten thousand would not have saved Edmonton, but at Edmonton there was a majority of 19,000 to cope with, and to have pulled that down to less than four thousand was a remarkable achievement on the Conservative candidate's part. Peterborough, of the Daily Telegraph, has made an interesting calculation. He finds that in the 5948 by-elections as a whole the Labour vote has fallen by 9.8 per cent. and the Conservative risen by 3.8 per cent. If that record is maintained at the General Election, the next Government will be Conservative—easily. All sorts of things, of course, may happen before then, and no one would attach anything but a strictly limited importance to these figures—much less to those for Edmonton alone. But they do count for something. I should put the General Election chances on present showing at 50-50, bearing in mind that last time Labour, for all its haul of seats, got in on an actual minority vote.
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