Sir Henry James threw the constituency of Leicester into a
great state of embarrassment by writing a letter to the Times, published on Tuesday, August 28th (the day before the election), questioning the validity of the mode of election adopted for filling the two seats just vacated by resignation at the same time, in the manner in which a borough with two Members elects its Members in a General Election. The writ directed the election of one Member in the place of Mr. Pioton resigned, and another Member in the place of Sir James Whitehead resigned ; but that did not at all imply that they were both to be elected by one process as they are at a General Election, each elector giving two votes. That involves a quite different electoral machinery from that in which single seats are filled np, and it might well happen that a candidate might be elected at such a contest who would not be elected in either of the two by-elections for a single seat, where each elector has only one vote. It is true, Sir Henry James argued, that if both elections had been voided by an election Judge for corruption or any other irregularity, the new election would have been taken in exactly the same fashion as in a General Election, because in that case it would be intended as a substitute for the machinery used in the General Election. But when each Member had been duly elected, had resigned, and an election had been ordered to fill the seats so resigned, Sir Henry James held that though they happened to occur together, they should have been filled up by separate by-elections for a single seat each. No one knows whether he is right or wrong ; nor can it well be determined unless the doubtful validity of the present election is tested by a petition.
