Sept. 17.
Ir is a commonplace that by-elections are all-important or unimportant according to the party point of view. But the truth of that saying varies proportion ately to the life of a Ministry. Every Government knows what it tis to return to power, perhaps|'P with an overwhelming majority, and, forthwith, to see the elections begin to turn against it and no Government allows its equanimity to be disturbed by the fact. Defeats at by-elections, however, which count for little enough in the first year of an administration, assume a very different importance in the fourth or fifth, when the same Ministry has given full proof of its quality Hence the Unionists are fully justified in showing all the joy that they feel in the capture of Midlothian, a Liberal stronghold, instinct with Gladstonian traditions Itis true that the fight was 'a three-cornered one, in which the! Labour candidate accounted for 2,413 votes. Whether these would) have been given to the Liberal candidate or not, supposing the Labour man had stood aside, it is idle to speculate. The plain result is that the Unionists succeeded in driving a wedge into the ranks of their opponents, as they may rightly try to do and have already done on several occasions. Nothing could show more clearly' the seriousness of Midlothian to the Government than the tone of the two Ministers who have since spoken in public. Mr. Winston Churchill, characteristic seally, adopts the attitude of one
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.