Lord Randolph Churchill addressed his constituents at Paddington last Saturday,
but was a little dull. He returned to Mr. Disraeli's text, " Sanitas Sanitatum," and, as in Mr. Disraeli's own case when dealing with that text, his oratory became a little flat. He was rather livelier when he undertook to prove that, so far from winning the Election of 1886 by only seventy thousand votes, the Unionists had really won it, if you take into account the uncontested elections, by at least half-a-million of votes. The argument is sound enough ; but, unfortunately, it is perfectly possible for a party to have a popular majority in Lord R. Churchill's sense, and yet to be in the minority in Parliament. Suppose the Unionists retain their full majority in all the uncontested seats, and increase it in the largest constituencies where they are repre- sented at present, but that two or three scores of thousands of votes pass from the Unionists to the Gladstonians in the polls of constituencies where the Unionists won in 1886 by only very narrow majorities. The result would be that the next Parliament would be Gladstonian, n, in spite of the popular majority for the 'Union. If the popular majority be squan- dered, as it were, on safe Unionist seats where no Gladstonian has a real chance, the Parliamentary majority may easily be returned by the minority of the people.
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