We are constrained to admit that, so far, the result of the Elections
has not come up to the confident anticipations of our Party. Seats
have been lost that ought to have been retained. On the other hand,
we have failed to win seats that we had a right to count upon as
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.