Mr. Gladstone is too careful about electoral statistics. In the
Times of Tuesday there appears a letter from "Liberal Unionist" stating that the reaction against the General Election of 1886 is trivial when compared with the reaction which the by-elections of 1881 showed against the General Election of 1880, when within-fourteen months ten seats were lost by Mr. Gladstone's 'Government, against only four lost by Lord Salisbury's Govern- ment since the General Election of 1886. To this true and not very startling remark, Mr. Gladstone replies in a communi- cation to the Press Association, published in Thursday's Times, in which he insists that he did not rely chiefly on the four seats gained by his party, but on the gain of the Gladetonians at the polls, and the loss of the Government even where mo transfer of a seat was effected, and be insists that " Liberal Unionist" ought to give his name, as if his communication were of a kind which the name is needed to authenticate. Surely all this over-anxiety about electoral trifles is hardly worthy of Mr. Gladstone. We, on the whole, take the same view that he takes of his figures ; but even so it is a matter of the least possible importance, after all. By-elections are uncertain criteria at the best ; and the by-elections of one year are hardly any indication of public feeling, except as regards the particular events of that year. It would be well for statesmen, while they do not dis- regard " the signs of the times," to wait upon them lees. In that case they would probably control them more.
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