Death and promotion have been busy among Members, and five
constituencies are undergoing the anxieties of an election,— West Suffolk, Exeter, Abingdon, Dartmouth, and Cambridge. The last depends on the chance of Mr. Fitzroy Kelly's appoint- ment to be Solicitor-General ,• Sir Frederick Thesiger having been promoted to the post left vacant by the death of Sir Wil- liam Follett. The prospects of the elections are not very de- cidedly favourable to any party : a Liberal will stand for each, and as all the vacancies occur in the Conservative majority, any change must be favourable to the Opposition. Ministers can as- suredly reap no profit : the only candidate in the vacant county is a high Protectionist ; at Exeter, the Conservative candidate comes forward as an " independent Member" of Anti-Maynooth sentiments ; Cambridge talks of selecting a Young Englander. The leading Whig journal augurs prompt disruption of the Pre• mier's forces : but the real meaning of it all seems to be not ad- verse to his policy, in a broad sense; for it indicates the absence of any distinct party feeling. The worst of it is, that there ap- pears to be no other principle holding paramount sway. Opinion among electors is in abeyance, or oscillates in unstable indif- ferency between the two sides of a " moderate course." Men have grown sick of party, but have not yet learned to set up some practical rule of political conduct in its stead.
