January 27.
Tur end of the General Election is now within sight and it is possible to gauge the results with sufficient accuracy to justify certain deductions. Of the one hundred and eleven seats still to be contested seventy-two are occupied by Liberal or Labour members, thirty by Unionists and nine by Nationalists. If no change in the representation of these constituencies takes place the new Parliament will met with 323 Liberals and Labour members, 269 Unionists and eighty Nationalists. Some changes, however, may be anticipated, and it is more than probable that these will reduce the numerical difference between the two main parties. When, therefore, the present Government meets the House of Commons, its: prospects in the face of a vote of no-confidence would depend upon the existence or non-existence of a pact with the Nationalists on the subject of Home Rule. If we are correct in our interpretation of the references to this subject recently made by the leaders of the Liberal and Trish: parties, it will probably he found that the undertaking given by Mr. Asquith in the Royal Albert Hall, while sufficient for the exigencies of the elections, will not stand the strain of a eutand-dried agreement acceptable at once to the whole of his own party and to all Nationalists. In such circumstances the support of the Trish vote, even if it could be relied upon to defeat a motion of no-confidence, could only be considered a precarious factor and the position must become sooner or later intolerable to the better judgement of the Liberal party. Mr. Redmond's idea that the new House of Commons would open its session with
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.