The most piquant feature of the Election was the rout
of the Asquithian Liberals. There has been nothing like it in our annals. Mr. Asquith himself and seventeen out of his twenty ex-Ministers were beaten at the polls in constituencies which used to be regarded as Liberal strongholds. Mr. Asquith was defeated by an old Unionist opponent in East Fife, for which he had sat since 1886, and the majority against him was 2,002. Mr. McKenna, Mr. Samuel, Mr. Runeiman, Sir Charles Hobhouse, Mr. Tennant, and Mr. McKinnon Wood, in three-cornered fights, found themselves at the bottom of the poll. Mr. McKinnon Wood, standing-for his old Glasgow constituency, polled only 1,521 votes out of over 20,000, and thus lost his entrance-fee of £150. Sir Charles Hobhouse had a similar fate in Bristol. Sir John Simon was badly beaten in Walthe.uustow, and, strangest perhaps of all, Mr. Gulland, the Liberal Whip, was defeated in his old Dumfries constituency by a Unionist, with the com- fortable majority of 5,783. To any one who knows the extreme conservation, of the Scottish rural voter, Mr. Gulland's fall must appear a portent indeed.
