The Press. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1910. THE FIRST DAY OF THE ELECTIONS.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 13908, 6 December 1910, Page 6

The Press. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1910. THE FIRST DAY OF THE ELECTIONS.

Already more than one-sixth of the House of Commons has been elected, and the balance of parties is at present practically oven: 61 Liberals to 62 Unionists, Up to date there are no signs that the country shares the extreme views so violently expressed on Radical platforms. Tho Liberals have recaptured two cathedral qities—Rochester and Exeter—which, according to Radical writers, are the slaves of "feudal rule," but both of which voted Liberal in 1906. They have also won -back, by a majority of 41 votes, the Peckham Division of Camberwell, where in 1906 the Liberal majority was nearly 2500, and, lastly, they have gained Manchester (SouthWest)'. This last, however, was no real Conservative seat. It was a Labour seat, and was lost to Labour in January last* by a Liberal-Labour split, which has now been healed at the expense of Labour. Against these losses they who value moderation in politics and the retention of all that is of permanent value in the British Constitution, will note with satisfaction that the craze for a separate Labour group is banning to pass away, and that the English working man is beginning to return to the fold of the Conservative Party; in other words, that England ia reverting to th© ideas of 1885, when Mr Gladstone had not upset the political situation by his cbnversion to Home Rule, but had begun to lose his hold on the English boroughs, who had faithfully followed him for seventeen years. That this is no fancy can bo shown in a moment by comparing 1910 with 1892, when Mr Gladstone, by tho aid of the obtained a majority of 29 votes. The Conservatives have now sained Ashton-under-Lyne, Great Grimsby, King's Lynn, Salford South, Warrington and Wigan. The Liberals hold Manchester Oooth-WTest), Bristol (East and North), and Rea<lin_, This is just the 1892 position over again, viz., two strong British parties, the Liberal being in the minority—even with Labour votes —and succumbing to the temptation of an Irish Home Rule alliance. The money so ostentatiously showered on the constituencies in aid of Mr Redmond by Irish-Americans who hay© renounced their birthright of British citizenship, may drive thousands of moderate-thinking Englishmen to cast their votes against the AsquithRedmond alliance. That tariff reform still makes some headway i» showed by the results at Ashton-nnder-Lyne, Warrington and Wigan, manufacturing towns all outside the cotton free trade area. W r e are glad to note that those two shining lights among the Labour members —Mr Thomas Burt and Mr Charles Fenwick —have been returned unopposed by their Northumberland mining comrades. In January last desperate efforts were made to turn them out, as waa done to Mr Richard Bell, unless they signed tho constitution, since declared illegal, of the Labour Representation Committee, This is a gare indication not only that the force of the Socialistic wave ia abating, hwt Also that the fan**™ Osborne juds-

ment is not the power against Conservatism that tho Taff Vale judgment proved in 1906. For a first-day polling quite a number of Ministers have boen returned —Mr Mastennan for West Ham (North), the veteran Captain Norton for Newington (West), Mr Macnamara for Camberwell (North), and Mr Augustine Birrell and Mr Charles Hobhouse for Bristol, the latter by an absolutely record majority for Bristol. We do not suppose that Mr Lloyd George will particularly rejoice over the return of moderate Liberals like Mr tit. Maur at Eseter, Mr Needham at Manchester, Mr Lamb at Rochester, and Mr Richardson at Cambenvell. It is, indeed, a sign of the times that -Mr Rufus Isaacs, member for Reading, '.heablest counsel of the day, and a most popular member to wit, has only been just able to head the poll by 99 votes in a town ot 80.000 people, dominated by the huge biscuit works of Huntley and Palmer —Liberal Free Traders — and the large Great Western Railway repairing works. Everyone, except perhaps Mr Winston Churchill, will rejoice to see burly, jo/ial .Sir George Doughty once more returned by Great Grimsby, which he has so largely helped to make. Again, everyone must regret, and most of all journalists, the great loss to the House of Commons entailed by the rejection at Exeter of Mr H. E. Duke, the most popular West of England counsel, and one of the hardest-worked and hard-working men in the whole of England. We trust that, like Macaulay and many another great man rejected at the polls, Mr Duke's defeat may prove a gain to journalism and literature. To those who wish to see steady progress along constitutional lines, the sober stolidity of Anglo-Saxon Conservative England acting as a check on tho enthusiastic fervour of Radical Wales and Libera! Scotland, the Northern elections are particularly interesting. In January-, the Liberals got in at Ashton-undor-Lynoin spite of a Socialist third candidate. In 1900. at Wigan, the seat was only temporarily preserved to the Unionists by a similar Liberal-Labour split. At Warrington, in January, the old order of Conservative rule only just failed of accomplishment. Now, at these great centres, there have beon stand-up fights between Conservatism and either Liberalism or Labour, and Conservatism has tri-

umphed