2. In the Boroughs as a whole they have gained upon 1885. 3. Without Birmingham, they would be practically even. The actual majority against them is 3,493. The following observations on this result will, I think, be allowed to be relevant and fair: 1. In the first period on the total of twelve elections the party of the Government gained 6,496 votes. In the second period, had they still held the same relative position, they would have gained, on forty-one elections, 22,500 votes. Instead of which the figures only show an improvement of 3,854 votes. 2. The whole of this gain may be said to be due to the election for Birmingham, which showed a change in their favour of no less than 3,833 votes. It is known that in that election, held almost on the morrow of Mr. Bright's funeral, Liberals voted in large numbers for his son Mr. Albert Bright, and other Liberals in large numbers abstained from voting. If Birmingham be not counted, on the rest of the polls since the 1st of July, 1887, and the Coercion Act, the Liberals may fairly be said to be abreast of the polls of 1885. But let the Birmingham election stand without deduction or further comment: and let us proceed in the light of the facts now ascertained to estimate the general situation as it is illustrated by the comparison of 1887-9 with 1885. 3. In 1885 the Tories obtained 249 seats, the Liberals 335, and the Nationalists 86. Were the Liberals at the next election to reach the standard of 1885, the House of Commons would be divided for the purposes of the Irish question, as follows: or, exactly twice the commanding majority now available for the triumphant support of the existing Government; and by far larger than any majority known to our history since the Parliament of 1832. 4. This is unquestionably a majority which will bear some deduction. Let us see what deduction it is likely to suffer if we apply to it exactly the same method of computation as has already been taken in comparing the recent polls with 1886. The data before us are as follows. A gain of say 3,850 votes has accrued to the adversary in a period which has embraced fifty-eight elections: and we take fifty-eight as something over one-tenth of 560, the number of elections to be held in Great Britain, without counting Universities, upon a dissolution of Parliament. Their gain on the 560 elections would be something under ten times 3,850, or about 37,300 voters. This majority at the polls, on the same basis of computation as before, would return a majority in Parliament of about fifty-six. Let us add seven University members, making sixty-three. But this number has to be deducted from the majority of 172 yielded by the polls of 1885: so that there remains a majority of 109 available for furthering Home Rule, and conducting a great Imperial controversy to its issue. Such are the results of the appeal to 1885: even when aided by the unusual circumstances of the last Birmingham election. Was such an appeal, all things considered, worth making? To conclude. This comparison of course throws an interesting light upon the electoral weakness of the Dissentient Liberals, who were allied with us in 1885, and with the Tories since that year. In Birmingham, and perhaps in Birmingham alone, they have some real hold upon the population at large. In places like Brighton or West Edinburgh, where the upper classes form a considerable residential element, they form a sensible force at the poll. Their chief numerical strength, however, lies in the service franchise and in the votes of dependents, given not necessarily under coercion, but in trust, and without strong individual conviction. Even with the aid of mansions and acres, of tenants, servants, and workmen, their numerical force is limited; for the facts are before us which show that we have done hardly less since July 1887 against the combined forces of Tories and Dissentients, than we did in 1885 with a Liberal party in which no open and general schism had come about. What is perhaps most interesting, in a retrospect now reaching over nearly three and a half years, is the evidence it affords of a steady acceleration in the rate at which the Liberal party has been and is regaining the confidence of the constituencies. Its momentum increases with every stage it covers on its journey. In this view it may be best that the Dissolution should not arrive too early. There is already in view force enough and to spare for carrying the next House of Commons; but, the longer it is allowed to continue its growth, the more able it will be to deal also with the House of Lords, or the more likely it will be, let us rather hope, to beget within that House itself the sagacious temper which eschews a hopeless and a disastrous conflict. W. E. GLADSTONE. The Editor of THE NINETEENTH CENTURY cannot undertake INDEX TO VOL. XXVI. The titles of articles are printed in italics. A ABE BERCROMBY (Sir Ralph) on the Ady (Mrs. Henry), Rome in 1889, 584- Aïdé (Hamilton), Noticeable Book: Air, on Change of, 194-207 Alligator, difference between the croco- America, Roman Catholicism in, 801- America, the critical period in the bis- Animals, the Comparative Insensibility Anspach (Margravine of) and Mlle. Army, unserviceable condition of the, Arnold-Forster (H. O.), Parliamentary Misrule of our War Services, 523- A Response, see Russell (George BAKER (Benjamin), (Sir John) see Fowler Birrell (Augustine), Noticeable Book: Blaze de Bury (Mlle.), The Théatre 6 Blind (Karl), Giordano Bruno and New Boar, wild, of India, 234-235 Books, Noticeable, 324-346, 984-1000 Bruno, Giordano, and New Italy, 106- 119 Buffalo, the Indian, 234 Butcher's Meat, Diseases caught from, Beaconsfield with, 70 NAIRNS (Lord), friendship of Lord Canary Islands as a health resort, 120, CAV Cavalry without horses, 535-536 Children, Mental and Physical Training Church, the English, under Henry the Church, the English, subscription to the Church (Rev. Alfred J.), Criticism as a Classical literature as a subject in the Clough (Arthur Hugh), 344 Collier (Dr. W.), The Comparative In- Collins (J. Churton), The Universities FACTORY and Workshop Act, the, in Contact with the People, 561-583 Contat (Mlle.), 76 Conversation, the Art of, 273-279 Country Houses, Old, 651-658 Crackanthorpe (Montague), The New Craddock (Charles Egbert), his 'Despot 354 Dilke (Mrs. Ashton), The Appeal against Female Suffrage: a Reply, 97–103 Diseases caught from Butcher's Meat, Dogs, wild, of India, 231 31-32 Fawcett (Mrs.), The Appeal agains The Venomous Snakes of India, 965- Federation League, Imperial, 897–899 Rejoinder, see Creighton (Mrs.) Fiske (John), his 'Critical Period of American History,' noticed, 324-327 Fitzwilliam (Earl), mission of, to Ire Fog, London, 195-196 Fog, London, in Praise of, 1047–1055 Franklin (Benjamin) on English govern- ment in Ireland, quoted, 7 Gaskell (Lady Catherine Milnes), Wo- men of To-day, 776-784 Geffcken (Professor), The French in Doyle (A. Conan), his 'Micah Clarke,' Gibbons (Cardinal), 810-815, 818-820, noticed, 330-332 823 GIF Giffen (Robert), A Problem in Money, 863-881 Giffen's (Mr.) Attack on Bimetallists, Gladstone (William Ewart), Plain 293 Journal de Marie Bashkirtseff, 602– The English Church under Henry the Noticeable Book: Mrs. Smedes' 'Me- Electoral Facts of To-day, 1056–1066 272 Classes in the Soudan (communicated Grattan (Henry), his retirement from Grievances of High Churchmen, the, - are they? 825-832 Griffin (Sir Lepel), his charges against ALE (Colonel Lonsdale), Das I. HGarde-Dragoner Regiment, 431- 434 VARUN river, opening of the, 170 Harrison (Frederic), A Breakfast-party KAROats, tomb of, at Rome, 595-596 in Paris, 173-185 The New Trades-Unionism, 721-732 120-135; see also Air, on Change of Hewlett (Henry G.), Noticeable Book: High Churchmen, the Grievances of, Reply to, see Grievances Hill (Miss Octavia), A few Words to Home Rule and the desertion of attitude of the masses towards, 189- Hyæna, the Indian, 229-230 Hyderabad, condition of, 546-560 Kidd (Dr. Joseph), The Last Illness of a Reply, see Church (Rev. Alfred Koch's investigations of the tubercle- LADY Toad, 668-680 Lama, the Grand, 688-690 Lambert (Sir John), Parliamentary Land Programme, Notes on the Latest, Las Palmas, 126, 203–205 Law (E. F. G.), The Awakening of |