In the English county elections which last week remained to
be decided, and in which we ventured to hope against hope that the Liberals might achieve some success,—West Surrey and Mid- Somerset,—the Tories achieved a very decided victory. In West Surrey Mr. Pennington, who laboured under the disadvantage of being little known in the county, while his rival, the ex-Liberal, Mr. Briscoe, has been long respected there, and has, in addition to other qualities, the special merits of great wealth and great age (he is seventy-seven), polled little more than half the votes of Mr. Cubitt, the Conservative, who headed the poll. Mr. Pennington's votes were almost all plumpers, while Mr. Briscoe's support came hiefly from Tories, who felt that they could trust him quite as one of themselves. Mr. Cubitt obtained 3,000 votes, Mr. Blare 2,826, while Mr. Pennington obtained only 1,757. As at air last con- test in 1857, Mr. Briscoe, then a staunch Liberal, headed the poll, it is obvious that the enlarged county register is either much more favourable to the Conservatives than the old, or that the Irish .Church question has operated very unfavourably. In Mid- Somerset the matter was still worse, Messrs. Tagart and Free- man being almost 1,500 votes behind their opponents. The foundations of the Irish Church are clearly laid in the English counties. No more conclusive proof that it is an alien Church than the vindictive vigour with which the English rural districts -support it against Irish hostility, could be desired.
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