Yesterday week Mr. Balfour, in replying to a toast of
his health, given at a banquet at the Manchester Conservative Club, remarked that out of the 70 seats in the counties of Lancashire and Cheshire 61 had been filled by Unionists. In the great neighbouring county of Yorkshire, the proportion is very different; and we should much like to know the reason of this difference,—a difference that has been notable for very many years. In fact, Yorkshire, Durham, and Northumberland are always distinguished from Lancashire and Cheshire by their much more Radical bias ; while Lancashire and Cheshire seem to love the principle of authority, and to feel little fascination for mere unqualified liberty. This can hardly be due to mere difference of occupation, for parts of Yorkshire, —and the most Radical parts,—are almost as much of factory districts as the greater part of Lancashire. Nor do we think it likely that racial differences would explain it. But probably the Yorkshiremen, and the men of the Border, have always been more disposed to a somewhat wilful individualism than Lancashire and Cheshire, and to much more solitary habits, so far as solitary habits are possible to them ; while Lancashire and Cheshire have preferred much more fully organised societies. Anyhow, there is a very definite difference in political bias between the three Northern counties and the great North-West, with its merchant princes and its large manufacturing industries.
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