certainties. It is not easy to apportion the responsibility for
failure. Over-confidence and a consequent want of energy may have had
something to do with it; but the chief reason is to be found in the
disgracefully defective organisation of the Party. The story is an old
one. We have ourselves deemed it our duty to lay this aspect of the
case before the Leaders of the Party, but our repeated warnings have
been unheeded, and the necessary consequences have followed. Our
opponents, however, have not much to congratulate themselves upon. The
Irish question has been kept studiously in the back-ground, and the
results, so far as they have gone, only prove conclusively that there
is no diminution whatever in the dislike with which the majority of
the electorate regard the proposals of the party of disorder. We are
far from saying that even now we shall lose the Election. Everything
may yet be retrieved. But, even should the result be numerically
favourable to the Opposition, they will be powerless for mischief with
the small majority which is all they are likely to get.

NO. III. (_A WEEK LATER_.)

The Elections are now nearing an end, and it is possible to summarise
the results. It is not surprising that our opponents should be
reduced to the lowest depths of despair. They counted with the utmost
certainty on a majority of two hundred. But, as matters stand, it
is out of the question that their preponderance should exceed fifty.
Where are now the confident boastings with which they inaugurated the
campaign? They have confused the judgment of the electors with every
kind of side-issue. Misrepresentations have been sown broadcast, and
have, in too many instances, succeeded. But the great heart of the
country is still sound. Votes must be weighed as well as counted, and
it is safe to assume that, with a paltry and heterogeneous majority