Since our last issue the deaths of three Members of
Parliament have been announced,—Mr. Orr-Ewing, who represented the Ayr Burghs ; Sir Harry Bullard, Mem- ber for Norwich; and Sir William Allan, Member for Gateshead since 1893, whose death removes one of the most picturesque figures in the Parliamentary arena. Sir William Allan, who was born in Dundee in 1837, and lived for some years in the States as a young man, ran the blockade in the early "sixties " before settling down as an engineer in the North of England, where he was the first employer to establish an eight-hour day for his workmen. In the House he was best known for his stentorian criticism of the Admiralty and the War Office, and his uncompromising denunciation of the water-tube boiler. The group of by-elections now in prospect will afford a more interesting test of the hold which Mr. Chamberlain's policy has gained on the country than those recently decided, seeing that one of the four constituencies is an industrial centre, and in two—Gateshead, and the Ash- burton division of Devonshire—the Protectionists will be attacking and not defending the seat.
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