MR BALFOUR'S DEFEAT.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLI, Issue 51, 13 March 1906, Page 4

MR BALFOUR'S DEFEAT.

HOW MANCHESTER HEARD THE NEWS. Mr Balfour left the Manchester Town Hall on Saturday night just as the offi- tl cial Screen at the mairi entrance announc- v ed the news of hie dofaat to the enor- o mous multitude in Albert Square, and the roar oof ttriumph burst from 30,000 throats and flung itself at him like a - missile. He paused a moment on his n way to the Waiting carriage, and a faint a smile of many memories flickered a moment on his calm, grave face. E He had passed out as the others had, t: by a side door, instead of the great' n main entrance, so that the massed crowd did not see him. Had they done so it is a matter of opinion whether they would have directed at him any individual demonstration. For a 1' moment the individual did not ji exist. The crowd was itself a unit, -lio-ting Its triumph to the skies, to the whole universe to time and history and futurity, and for the moment was as careless as the mighty forces of nature for any individual It was the supreme and culminating c moment of acumulative series of sensa- _ tions. The crowd's emotions, excited \ by repetitions of Liberal victories, had s grown and acted and reacted until now p that final stroke came, that the absolute- t ly unbelievable had bocome tho absolute ly indisputable, that the whole of Manchester and Salford had en masse gone •; . over from complete Conservatism ter I complete Liberalism, the pilled up [ emotions expressed themselves in a roar _ {of unanimity that seemed to shake the { city. . i In that moment, as someone said, j thero were no Tories in that vast crowd, t A moment before there had been de- s ; jected, wondering Conservatives hoping against hope that one victory might remain to reconcile them to their beliefs, ( and to be the rallying point for their < hopes ; a moment later, and thero were * once moro excited, exasperated, deter- ] I mined Conservatives facing the future ' i with clillchod teeth ; but in that instant J ' the individual feeling was absorbed and i lost in the psychology of that mass, and the hoarse- shout that shook the skies seemed all triumph. The few individuals outside the crowd who saw Mr Balfour as he passed to his carriage made a curious contrast to the mass. Thoy neither shouted, jeered, nor cheered. To them perhaps, as they watched him silently pass, the magnitude of the defeat which had been sustained tnade Hlorß ftpfioai than the magnitude of the victory which had been gained. The crowd was recalled to its individuality as its .shout died down by the appearance at the main entrance of the Town Hali of tho Lord Mayor in his robes of office. From* a cloth-covered sort of pulpit he made the official vocal announcement of the already known results of each of the six city elections. A few moments I saw a spectacle in strange contrast with the crowd's overwhelming manifestation of emotion. It was the spectacle of Mr Balfour, calm, cool, deliberate, expounding to a flushed audience at a Conservative Club the philosophy of the earthquake that had just engulfed them. He pitched his pleasant vibrant voice in level tones of reasoning, searching as he went on for the right thought and the right word with which to convey ait. It was and admirablo speech for the purely party gathering, dispassionate but strangely impressive, the perfect expression of a balanced intellect and an unshaken belief Angry, wounded, smarting partisans of the past, apprehensive of the future, unable themselves in the intensity of their emotions to find either the thought or the word for the occasion, marvelled as they listened at the perfect artistry of the orator and the noble mind of the man. It was, they said, the finest speech which Mr Balfour ever made.