Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 19, 1910. THE GREAT ELECTORAL CAMPAIGN.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIX, Issue 15, 19 January 1910, Page 6

Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 19, 1910. THE GREAT ELECTORAL CAMPAIGN.

The results of the second day's polling in the United Kingdom general election are much the same as those of the first. Of the 89 seats wlose fate was decided on Saturday, the Unionists had won 41, the Liberals 34, Labour 8, and the Nationalists 6. At the time of writing, 173 polls have been declared, and the seats are apportioned as follows :—: — Unionists 81, Liberals 64, Labour 14, Nationalists 14. The Unionists have thus improved their position slightly, but not materially. The balancing of the respective gains of the various parties tells the same storj. On Saturday the Unionists won 17 seats against a total of 4 to be credited to Liberalism, and Labour combined. In the nrst 83contests, decided on Monday, they had won 18, while their opponents had again 4 to their credit. The almost exact reproduction on Monday of Saturday's figures is very remarkable. In this connection it is right to point out that the figures which we give ( here for the Liberal and Labour gains do not correspond with the analysis appearing elsewhere, because the latter necessarily credits the Liberals with the seats "..hey have wob fvoin Lgbsiu- mi yjse gem,.

As in these cases there is merely an exchange of one supporter of the Budget for another, they are, of coarse, excluded from our present calculation. The net Unionist gain in a little more than a quarter of the elections is thus 27, which would give th«m a total of about 100 on the whole. If the Irish seats are excluded for the reasons which we gave yesterday, the Unionists have effected a net gain of 27 in 158 of the 567 English and Scotch seats, • and at this rate they will fall a little short of the 100. But the counties 'are yet to come, and who shall say how the rural voter will be affected by his hopes from the Budget on the one head and his hopes from Tariff Reform and his fear of the squire and the landlord on the other . The advance of the Unionists is shown almost as much by the increase of their own majorities, or the reduction of the Liberal majorities in cases where the seat has not changed hands, as by the number 'of constituencies which they have induced to reverse the previous verdicts. The reduction of Mr. Birrell's majority for Bristol North from 2942 to 1346, and Mr. John Burns's majority in Battersea from 1600 to 555, is typical of the tendency throughout. The latter case is rendered the more remarkable by an increase in the total number of votes polled by more than 3000. Mr. Burns has indeed been for some time under a cloud, mainly, it appears, through over-confidence and rashness in his administration ; and the slenderness of his share in the great Budget fight suggested at one time that he was being actually shelved. With Mr. Burns it is natural to associate Mr. Will Crooks, whose ' defeat for Woolwich will be greatly regretted by the hundreds of friends that he made during his recent visit to New Zealand. But while the set-back of the Liberals, as compared with their triumph of four years ago, is conspicuous, they are doing much«better than the by-elections promised. Two remarkable examples of this fact are furnished in to-day's returns. In Croydon, where Sir R. T. Hermon-Hodge secured a majority of 3948 over the Liberal candidate, and more v than 3000 over the Liberal and Labour candidates combined, in the byelection in March last, he has now only 996 votes to spare. In Haggerston the Liberals have actually recaptured a seat which they lost at the by-election eighteen months ago, and this although the Socialist candidate polled 700 more than on the previous occasion. In the one case the naval scare, and in the other the Licensing Bill, had stampeded the electors at the by-election, but they have now returned to something more like a normal frame of mind. The results which have come to hand since our first paragraph was written do not require much special comment. They illustrate the same general tendency as the previous figures, but do not give the Unionists the same proportion of actual wins. Of more interest are the comments of the London press — which substantially j confirm the view of the position taken by us yesterday. The Daily Mail makes a strong appeal to the "moderates" to I save the position for the Unionists by coming to their assistance, acknowledging that at the present rate Mr. Balfour cannot reckon on a working majority or even on any majority at all. The Daily Chronicle anticipates a Liberal majority such as Gladstone had in 1885, which would be a very uncomfortable position for all parties. Would not the moderates be well advised to make the majority i larger ? !