Evening Post. FRIDAY, MAY 7, 1909.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVII, Issue 107, 7 May 1909, Page 6

Evening Post. FRIDAY, MAY 7, 1909.

BRITISH BY-ELEGTiONS. . « Captain Kincah'd-Smith, formerly M.P. yior the Stratford-on-Avon Division of Warwickshire, has taken a quixotic, not to say foolish, step which has resulted in disaster for his party and a cruel humiliation for himself. He had the luck to win at the general election, by a narrow majority, a seat which for twenty years had been an easy prey for the Conservatives. In 1895 their majority was 1771 : at a by-election in 1901 it was 1778; and at the "Khaki" general election of 1900 the Liberals did not even put up a candidate. At such a time as this, to risk such a seat was, on the face of it, an act ot supreme folly, and the attempt to make compulsory military training the issue o£ the election made it still worse. We can only suppose that j Captain Kineaird-Smith felt morally bound to throw away the seat by some j incompatibility between his present views on this question and those on which he I was returned three years ago. Even so, one might have supposed that he could < choose a more appropriate time than the present for returning his trust to his constituents ; but his conscience was presumably too strong to take counsel iof the party Whips. The result is a knock-down blow for himself, the Liberal pnrty, and the policy for which he dopired to testify. HU general election poll

of 4321 votes is reduced to 479; the Unionist total 'is- increased; from 4173 to' j5374; and the RadicaJ..'-/cajididate, who ; probably had the -offteK^i- support of the 'Liberals, only scoL-ed The net, f,gain of the Unionr^s- over their opponfents is no less t^y'.n 2296 votes. To r crown the latejraernfoer's misfortune, the, electors natuupjfty' declined to make the,, question on i\yh.r c h l le resigned the dominant issue. Tariff Reform and the Navy. -ißevitably t^'k precedence, and combined to give thev/^overnment one of the nastiest knocl A^ they have received. Almost simultaneously the Liberals 'sufferexlf another equally serious disaster at th&. hands of an urban constituency. '"The /-Atfcercliffe Division of Sheffield had hit'/rerto proved one of 'the safest Liberal* rS'jats in the United Kingdom. From " ZBBS to 1892 it was won by the present /Lord Coleridge three limes in succes- ' by 'majorities exceeding a thousand. ' 'On his elevation to the peerage, his sue- ■ t cessor, Mr. Batty Langley, did almost equally well at the by-election in 1894, ' and he has been returned without a contest on two out of the three subsequent elections. Mr. Langley 's retirement, from ill-health, brought four candidates into the field. The democratic forces were divided by the running of a Labour candidate against the official choice of the Liberals, '-while, fortunately for them, there were also two candidates flying the Unionist colours. The result •was an evonness of voting which is very rarely seen when there is a superfluity of candidates. On a poll of nearly 13,000, only a little more than 700 votes separated the winning candidate from the lowest of his rivals. Mr. Pointer, the Labour man, "got home" with 3531 votes; the official candidate of the Unionists was only 151 votes behind ; while at' intervals of 205 and 372 respectively came the Liberal and the Independent Unionist. The victory of Labour, which has naturally caused the Liberals much chagrin, is attributed to the serious extent of unemployment in Attercliffo and to Mr. Pointer's advocacy of the Right to Work Bill. This instalment of crude Socialism, which proposes to establish the principle of the right to work and the obligation of the Stato to provide it, and would, ultimately, in .Mr. Asquith's words, "make it necessary for the State to assume the complete control of the machinery of production," has been twice defeated in the House of Commons by large majo.itks. But one cannot wonder that the closing of all the other avenues of 'hope should drive large numbers of the sufferers from one of the most terrible of social diseases to tho support of a measure which on paper to. offer them all that they need. Labour,, which suffered in common with. Liberalism from the reaction at the polls last year, is entitled to rejoice over ite success, and for the Liberals it is at least better than another win for Tariff Re- ■ form. If the votes polled for Liberalism and Labour be added on ono side, and those of the two Unionist candidates oa tho other, tho totals will be found to be 6706 and 6183 respectively, as against •Liberal and Unionist totals of 6523 and 5736 respectively at the general election. •Regarded in this light, the result would not be a very serious one for the Liberals, were it not for the fact that their breach with Labour Jooks more like widening than closing up as time, goes on. Labour has now won three seats and the Unionists eleven seats from the Liberals since the general election, and - the Unionists owed at least two of their wins to the splitting of votes between Liberalism and Labour. The most gratifying feature of the successes of the 'Unionists at Croydon and Stratford is that they have owed as much to the public concern for the supremacy of the 'British Navy as their victories at Beckham and elsewhere last year owed to concern for tho beer trade.