ELECTORAL FACTS.

IT has not been common to dispute with tenacity, or even to examine with minuteness, the statistics of what are termed in this country bye-elections. The reason probably is, that the movement of the public mind, in one direction or another, has usually been not only deliberate but slow. The life-term of a single Parliament never exhibited, between the epoch of the first Reform Act and the year 1868, the notes of a decisive change in national feeling and opinion. It took three Parliaments (1835-41) to overthrow the Liberal majority which followed Earl Grey and Lord Althorp; and three more (1847-57) to reestablish it in decisive numbers. But the Parliament, chosen in 1868 on the important issue of the Disestablishment of the Church in Ireland, exhibited an unexampled phenomenon. The election had given to the Liberal party a majority of 112, larger than any recorded since the year 1832; and the first byeelections of that Parliament, occurring while the impetus was yet unspent, showed a balance still slightly favourable to the Administration. Soon, however, a change had become visible; and, at the commencement of 1874, the turn of the wheel had become so decisive, that the Ministry was supported, in lieu of a compact majority of 112, by a majority, very far from compact, and rapidly diminishing, of 68 members. In this novel instance, the public did not at once measure with precision the significance of what had occurred. It was not a mere gain of present strength by the Opposition. It was a probable indication, exhibited in the trustworthy form of arithmetical calculation, indeed of a simple rule-of-three sum, as to what was pretty sure, in the absence of any facts which might produce a counter-change, to happen at the General Election. This probable indication became in due time an accomplished fact; and the Conservative party returned to the House of Commons in a majority nominally of 48, but really of much greater strength. For the first time the mind of the nation, as tested by the constituency, had decisively altered during the course of a single Parliament; and the bye-elections, as we now see in retrospect, had previously supplied sufficient means of prognosticating the alteration. It is

evident that, under such circumstances, bye-elections had, so to speak, received promotion in rank: they had acquired a new significance, and had gathered, not only an increase of interest, but a new kind of interest.

This numerical account of the disaster inflicted at the General Election, serious as it is, does not exhibit the whole measure of the calamity suffered by the Liberal party. The Liberal majority reckoned to have been returned from Ireland was at once found to be illusory. In truth, out of the 105 Irish members, the Liberals were little more than a dozen. The period immediately following the Church Act and the Land Act had been chosen as one appropriate for a formal severance of the Irish National party from the general body of British Liberals. Their number was no less than 58, an actual majority of the Irish representation. They assumed the name of Home Rulers; and established a separate parliamentary organisation. On some questions of Liberal opinion, cooperation was still continued. But, as regards the party, the weight of the Home Rulers has clearly told more in favour of the Ministry, than of the Opposition; and the Liberal party would have been stronger, not weaker, had the entire body been systematically absent. The real majority of the Government, therefore, should be measured, at the least, by a comparison with the Liberals alone, reckoning the Home Rulers neither way. Consequently the total of Liberals returned falls from the figure of 302 to 244: less than the Conservative phalanx of 350 by 106. Thus, through the double action of gain by their opponents, and abandonment by their friends, the Liberals were left in a minority nearly equal to the majority with which, basking in the smiles of Fortune, they had begun the Parliament of 1868-74.

The members of the party, which suffered by this heavy crash at the last General Election, may not unnaturally inquire, by the aid of all such materials as are at their command, whether the latest years have exhibited any symptoms, analogous to those of 1871-73, of a revulsion in the electoral mind of the country. For, whatever adverse anticipations the most saturnine among them might have entertained of the workings of a Tory Parliament under the present regimen, these have been far surpassed by the reality. A very few measures good in the judgment of Liberals have been passed; especially the Act amending the law of contract for workmen, of which the subject had become ripe for legislation at the epoch when the late Ministry were driven from office, and which it became the duty, privilege, and honour of their successors to place upon the Statute Book. But, speaking generally, we are at the present moment remote, beyond all expectation and beyond all experience, from what we should now probably have been under a Liberal Administration, in our condition both domestic and foreign, in the state of our legislation, our expenditure, our taxation, and our foreign policy.

Every Liberal may look with desire for the signs of a change, except the few whose duty it will be, when the time arrives, to assume on our behalf those responsibilities of office which have been so heavily aggravated by the policy of the present Ministry; and, it is but fair to add, perhaps even more by the policy of the present Parliament, which has checked them in nothing, and has ordinarily urged them onwards to every mischief of their career. It would be difficult to exaggerate the gravity of the issues, legal, constitutional, financial, and international, which will be decided by the vote of the constituency at the next General Election. None of such magnitude have been involved in any election since the first Reform Act. It is most material that, before the time comes, they should be thoroughly exhibited, sifted, and understood. I do not now enter upon them, because the object of this paper is to expose facts, in an atmosphere unclouded by those passions which might be raised by the discussion of matters of political opinion. I will only say that which may be plainly seen from the language held on either side alike that never, within living memory, has the separation of parties been so wide; never has the stamp of irreconcilable tendencies and opinions been so clearly impressed on their public action. Who is to be responsible for dealing with those issues is a question which does not admit of doubt. This is a self-governing country; and the people, now somewhat widely enfranchised, have to decide upon what principles, and by what party, they will be governed. They have also to be responsible for their decision. If they like the method in which their affairs have been and are now conducted, they have only to prolong the Ministerial existence, soon to be placed at their command, by granting it a new lease. Whether they are thankful for the past, and hopeful of the future, or whether they are the exact opposites of these, the matter rests with them. It rests with them in the mass, and with every voter in detail. England, as at Trafalgar, expects not merely men in the lump, but every man, to do his duty. Even those who may most dislike the verdict ought at once to acknowledge it when given as authoritative, and as definitive. But they must not thrust the consequences of that verdict upon others: for good or for evil, it is theirs. My present purpose is not to discuss what it ought to be, but to gather such indications of fact, as may throw any light upon the question what it will be.

With a view to clearness I will set out, in the first place, for the purpose of illustration, a very succinct sketch of the facts as they stood in the last Parliament, to which I have already made a brief allusion.

Parliament of 1868, in December 1868.

Number of Seats gained during the Parliament of 1868.

Balance of Conservative gain; in seats, 22; on a division, 44.

In this statement I have taken it for granted that the facts are undisputed, and have, in consequence, ventured to waive details. But, in the field upon which I now enter, although I believe the truth to be indisputable, I cannot say that it is undisputed. During the whole of the present year, in particular, the Ministerial press, active everywhere, and in the metropolis very largely preponderant, has stoutly and incessantly asseverated that the nation was favourable to the Government, and in particular to its Turkish policy; and that only the whisper of a faction' was audible on the other side. The manifestoes of Ministers have again and again acknowledged, in terms of gratitude, that this was a true account of the support which they were enjoying. Various manifestations, especially in London, have served to lend support to this doctrine. The House of Commons reflects, in ordinary times, the opinion of the country; and, whenever its opinion has been challenged in 1877 or 1878, it has supported the Ministers by majorities unusually large and perfectly unwavering. A meeting in the Guildhall, the historical head-quarters of the City of London, was held under Lord-Mayor Owden, and declared itself in favour of their policy. Such meetings, at the central point of the kingdom, have an importance not altogether easy to understand, but bearing some analogy to that of the prærogativa tribus in the Comitia of Rome. This being so, it is the more material that integrity of proceeding should not be tampered with. On this occasion, the stroke was struck, and produced its full effect. At the moment, little heed was given to the allegations of the Liberals, very grave in their character, and evidently capable of confutation if untrue. They were such as these: 1. That this meeting was assembled by the Lord Mayor, in defiance of custom, without any previous notice to the inhabitants at large. 2. That the bulk of those who attended it were men brought up by a plot from a suburban borough, to do duty for the City of London. 3. That, immediately before this peaceful performance, they had rendered a service, more active and not less signal, by what is termed sacking the Cannon Street Hotel, in order to break

up a preliminary assemblage, appointed to be held there, of a few scores of gentlemen, who had hired a room in order to make arrangements for a large meeting in favour of peace. 4. That the same body, by like forcible means, frustrated or broke up a meeting at Greenwich, appointed to be held on the same side, and in the evening of the same day. 5. That all the operations were performed under directions given to these worthies upon tickets describing the succession of places and of hours; several of which I myself have seen. But whether these allegations, published at the time without contradiction, can or cannot be confuted, the fact remains, either that there was a true expression of metropolitan opinion on behalf of the Ministry, or that the Liberal party of the City, without any energetic and authoritative effort, permitted a false expression to pass for true. And it is unquestionable that, throughout the season, indications of violence, but just kept down by a strong and energetic police, were given in the interest of a warlike policy; that the Ministers supposed to be pacific were denounced upon placards for the offence; and that large and peaceful demonstrations, as for example at the Agricultural Hall, were waived by their promoters: waived, as they, I think justly, considered, under threats of violence; and waived, not from fear of being worsted, but lest the public peace should be disturbed, and lives or limbs endangered, by a set of persons who had already given such an earnest of their dispositions and performances.

This being so, there has naturally arisen a difference of opinion as to the actual state of public sentiment upon the policy, not less marked than upon the merits of the policy itself. Pointing to the indications of the streets of the metropolis, and not to those only, the, party which has been in power' has exulted in what it describes as national support. Those on the other side, who, from pride or other motives, do not love the unprofitable game of bandying asseverations, have commonly been content to say that the conclusive test of public sentiment provided by the Constitution would only come into full operation at the next General Election; and that, in the meantime, the best probable evidence as to that sentiment would be found, not in rhodomontading assertions, but in the results of the local elections occurring from time to time, when they should have reached such a number as to form a fairly appreciable fraction of the entire country.

In a state of affairs so peculiar, we must not, then, disdain the humble task of examining statistics. At no time of our history has it more evidently fallen to our lot as a nation to wield, for good or evil, the power of determining the balance in the councils of Europe. It is of vital importance to the Eastern populations, it is of great moment to every continental State, and of much greater moment to ourselves, that we should possess the best evidence, which the case admits, not only of the present state of public opinion, but of the form in which it may be likely to be exhibited at the expiry of the brief period, after