The recent shower of by-elections has encouraged the Liberals and
implanted some dismay in thoss Unionists who are too susceptible to suggestions of ult... mate defeat. The Unionists' have not lost an ShUniing number of votes to either the Labour Party or the Liberals. The tendency has been rather for Unionists to abstain from voting. Whether they did this because the General Election is so near that it seemed hardly worth while to elect new members, or out of mere lethargy, or because they wished to warn the Government that they were not altogether satisfied, cannot be known with certainty. The most striking of the elections were those at Holland- -with-Boston, where the Liberals had a triumph over the Unionists, and at North Lanark, where the Unionists were beaten by the young Labour candidate, Miss Jenny Lee. After five ' years of office, however, the Unionist majority over all parties. is 185 as Compared with 215 at the opening of the Parliament. • This is satisfactory for the Unionists, as there have been sixty-three by-elections since 1924. Every Government suffers from a certain attrition and loss of popularity, but the present Govern- ment has not come through badly and we are confident that if Mr. Baldwin issues a sound progressive programme, without delaying too long, and does not enter into an inverted Dutch auction with his rivals by out-bidding their bribes he will get a majority at the General Election.
