It has been arranged that on the opening of Parlia-
ment Mr. Balfour shall have a seat found for him in the City,—where a majority of 10,000 makes his re-election certain. We understand that resignations in several other constituencies were contemplated, but only in Birmingham and the City could an absolutely safe seat be found. Though we have little or no hope that Mr. Balfour will come forward and frankly admit the mistake he made in encouraging Mr. Chamberlain's policy, or in formulating his own, and will insist that the party must accept the verdict of the electors in favour of Free-trade as final, we do not, of course, wish to see him excluded from the House of Commons. Since there must be one hundred and fifty anti-Free-trade Unionists in the House, we desire to see him one of them. What we fear we are about to witness is a strict working affiance between Mr. Chamberlain and Mr Balfour. Mr. Balfour, as nominal leader, will exercise all his powers of Parliamentary tactics in tying to embarrass the Government, while Mr. Chamberlain 1411 make fierce Tariff Reform speeches and endeavour to get together as large an Opposition as possible, no matter how heterogeneous its composition.
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