_The London County Council elections_.

A swing of the pendulum which, measured in votes, would have transferred
a majority of twelve into a minority of seventeen, had the effect of
changing a majority of 49 into a minority of 41. This alternate
exaggeration of the prevailing tendencies in municipal politics gives
rise to a false impression of the real opinions of the elector. The
citizens of London are not so unstable as the composition of their
Council, but it is the more violent displacement which forms the basis
of comment in the press and of municipal action. These elections, too,
like the Parliamentary elections, showed with what ease the minority
throughout large areas may be deprived of representation. Six adjoining
suburban boroughs--Brixton, Norwood, Dulwich, Lewisham, Greenwich,
Woolwich--were, before the election of 1907, represented by twelve
Progressives. At that election they returned twelve Moderates; indeed on
that occasion the outer western and southern boroughs, in one continuous
line from Hampstead to Fulham, from Wandsworth to Woolwich, returned
Moderates and Moderates only.

_The election of aldermen of the L.C.C._

The London County Council elections of 1910 gave the Municipal Reform
party a majority of two councillors over the Progressive and Labour
parties. The transfer of a single vote in Central Finsbury would have
been sufficient to have produced an exact balance. It was the duty of
the new Council to elect the aldermen, the block vote being used. The
majority of two was sufficient to enable the Municipal Reformers to
carry the election of every one of the ten candidates nominated by them,
thus depriving the minority of any voice in the election of aldermen.
The object for which aldermen were instituted was entirely set at