The results of two Scottish by-elections were announced yesterday, and in order to gauge the temper, of the country and its attitude] towards the Government, one would have wished for more information about them. In one case Mr. Mac-Roberts had to contest his seat on: his appointment as _Solicitor-General, and in the other the sitting member, also an advocate, had been made a Judge of the Court of Session, and there was accordingly vacancy. In both cases the Con-candidate was returned, the Solicitor-General by a major! of about 1,000, while in Dumbarton shire Col. 'Them, ~the successful candidate, was actually returned by a minority vote. It was a three-cornered contes between them the Labour and' Liberal candidates {kad about 1,000 votes over the total of 12,680 cast for the Conservative. Of the votes on the other side the!
Liberal had the small number of 2,146, which shows tolerably clearly how Liberalism to-day stands in Dumbartonshire. It lie to speculate on how these Liberal votes would have been east had it been a straight fight between Conservative and Labour: in all probably they would have been about equally split, and the, result would, have been the same as it turned out at the election. The i Labour Party Scotland was predominantly Liberal in its polities, and among the Liberals who in Yecent years sought what were considered safe seats there were Mr. Asquith, Mr. Morley (for the sake of brevity we omit titles) and Me. Churchill, Mr. Morley went to the! House of Peers early enough ts escape the Liberal débicle, but both Mr. Asquith and Mr. Churchil: had. bitter experiences. The. fact that, in one of tHese, recent" by-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.