NEWS OF THE WEEK.
AS we write on Friday, enough Election results are known to make it almost certain that the present Government will continue to bold power owing to their alliance with the Irish Nationalists. It is of course impossible to give exact figures, but in all probability the majority of 336 in 1906 will be reduced to about 100. This majority, as we have pointed out elsewhere, will be in no sense homogeneous. Not only will it be mainly derived from the difficult and precarious alliance with the Irish, but, further, it will rest on . the support of some forty Labour Members, who may be expected to prove anything but easy partners when they realiSe their capacity of putting the Government in a minority. No doubt it will be said that a section of any party -can always do this, but remember that in ordinary cases the power of dissatisfied groups to rebel is kept in check by the 'sense of party discipline and party loyalty. The Labour Members have always given us to understand that they owe no loyalty to the Liberal Party, which from many points of view they distrust and despise. The notion that they should submit to party discipline—that is, the discipline of the Liberal Whips—is of course scouted by them as an insult.
