NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE most important event of the week is the Bermondsey
election, which took place on Thursday, and resulted in the return of Mr. Dumphreys, the Unionist candidate. Mr. Dumphreys polled 4,278 votes; Mr. Spencer Leigh Hughes, the Liberal, 3,291; and Dr. Salter, the Socialist, 1,435. The Unionist majority over the Liberal was thus 987. The result can only be regarded as a very serious blow to the Government and the Budget. That this is so, in spite of the fact that the two pro- Budget candidates polled rather more than half the votes cast, is clear from an examination of the figures, and from a comparison with the election of 1906, when the elector i were asked to vote, not for a Socialistic and anti-free exchange policy, but for the true principles of free exchange.
