THE MANCHESTER ELECTION.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 136099, 25 April 1908, Page 8

THE MANCHESTER ELECTION.

Few election , contests in England in recent times have created livelier interest, not only at Home but throughout the Empire, than that in -which Mr Winston Churchill ie now engaged. J Compelled, on his elevation to the Cabinet, to resign his seat and submit himself for re-eloctkm, he has been plunged into a struggle keener and ■more fierce than that by which two year* ago he captured the fiea-t from the Unionists. For twenty years, ever since tho constituency was created, it had been one of that party's strongholds, and then, after a stout fight, Mr Winston Churchill, exUnionist and fierce anti-Liberal, won it for the Liberal party. His victory was one of the many heavy' blows sustained by the in the campaign that resulted so disastrously for them in January, 1906; it eeeme as if tho present contest would result in the severest reverse that the Liberal party has suffered since it swept the country two years ago. The Government are obi»>usJy straining every nervo to retain the seat. It io not so much that they are afradd' of losing Mr Churchill's services; there is no doubt that if ho were de- } feated some loyal Liberal member would resign in order to givo the newly-appointed Minister an opportunity of getting back into Parliament. But a defeat in North-West Manchester would severely injure the prestige of the Government, which has already suffered by the remarkable roverecs it has met at several recent byo-elections. Its effect in this direction -would be intensified by the fact that it would be the first defeat sustained by the Government since it was reconstituted under Mr Asquitb's leadership. It is to avert this disaster that Mr LloydGeorge has hurried down to Manchester, to lend his powerful aid to his young coUeaguo, and that while one section of the voters is assured that an effective old age pension scheme will be passed into law within a year, the Iriah section is being promised that, m the event of a dissolution, the question of Home Rule shall be submitted to the electors. The result of the present bye-election appears to depend very largely upon bow the.lrinii vote

is cast. Only 1241 votes separated Mr Churchill in 1906 from Mr Joyneon. Hicks, who is again l opposing him, and if a majority of the Irish voters decide to support the latter on tine occasion—an event which seems at least probable—they may be the means of bringing ebout Mr Churchill's defeat. The special correspondent of "The Times," who is studying affairs on tho spot, is convinced that the latter wiQ lose the seat and the efforts that axe being made by the Government certarnJy support this belief.