The election in the Isle of Wight to fill the
vacancy caused by Sir Richard Webster's elevation to the Bench has resulted in the return of the Unionist candidate, Captain Seely, by a majority of 1,062 over his opponent, Mr. Godfrey Baring. On the last occasion the Unionist majority was only 445, and it is therefore more than doubled. No doubt the fact that Captain Seely is at the front with the Hampshire troop of the I mperial Yeomanry helped him enormously. When a candi- date's wife asks the electors to vote for a friend and neighbour who cannot plead his own cause because he is fighting for his country, the appeal is necessarily a very strong one. Still, we think that the figures show that the electors wisely con- clude that it would not do to swap horses just now, and also their belief that even if the present Government is not all that they desire, no alternative Government exists which could possibly do the work which the nation means shall be done. The Government, when discussed in cold blood and in isolation by the ordinary elector, is called many names and is declared incapable ; but the instant it is compared with the Opposition, as it must be at an election, it rises a hundred degrees in popular estimation. We trust, however, that the Government will not be tempted to trade on this fact. The one thing that would really damage them and rally their opponents would be the cry that they were trying to make party capital out of the war by snatching a Dissolution.
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