The Sun.
London, England, 1868-11-28 00:00:00

TAE SUN, LONDON, SATURDAY EVENT

ROYALTY THEATRE.
Under the Management of Miss M. Oliver.
Tilts EVENING, at 7.30, ALL THAT GLITTERS IS NOT
r OLD. To be followed by THE RISE AND FALL OF
ItICHARD III.; or, A New Front to an Old Dicky: Mr. Dewar,
\Tr. Danvers; Miss Collinson, and Miss M. Oliver. To con
elude with TIE CLOCKMAKER'S HAT.

PRINCE OF WALES'S ROYAL THEATRE.
Under the Mann.7oment of Miss Marie Wilton
THIS EVENING, ATCHI! Messrs. Blakeley and Montague;
Misses Addison and A. Wilton. After which, SOCIETY : Messrs.
J. Clarke, Hare, H. J. Montague, Blakeley, Montgomery, and
Bancroft; Mrs. Buckingham White and Miss C. Addison.

CHRISTY MINSTRELS. St. James's Hall, Every Night, at 8
Wednesdays and Saturdays, at 3 and 8 all the year round.

ROYAL AMPHITHEATRE AND CIRCUS, HOLBORN.

THIS EVENING, The Great Carre Troupe and magnificent Stud
of 50 Horses; also Avolo, the Marvel of the Nineteenth Century,
Alfred Bradbury, Mdlle. Montero, M. Napoli, F. Clifton, and
Samwell's Performing Dogs. Commence at 7.30.

ROYAL AL HAMBR A PALACE. THREE BALLET 4,
Promenade Concert. Band of 60. Begin at 8. Is. Box-office
open from 11 to 4. -

ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS, Regent's-park, OPEN daily (ex
cept Sundays). Admission, ls.; on Mondays, 61; Children
under twelve, 6d.

pv3-
Snits

LOATDON, SA7 URD.,II; NOV. 28, 1868.

Now that the General Election is drawing so im-
mediately to a close, we can estimate with tolerable
accuracy the relative strength of the two great rival
parties. Out of the 658 there have been already re-
turned 646 representatives. Twelve more alone re-
main to be added to the full number completing the
Commons House of Parliament. And of those already
returned (that is of the 616), according to the limes,
380 are Liberals and 266 Conservatives—leaving to
the former, therefore, 114 as a clear majority.
Against this statement, however, of the chief organ
of the Liberals, there is the counter-statement put
forward by the chief organ of the Conservatives.
The Standard's assertion being that the Constitu-
tionalists number alrea-ly, out of the aggregate of
646 members even now returned, not 266, but 270
—a calculation which would show the clear majo-
rity of the Liberals to be not fourteen, but merely
half-a-dozen in excess of the square hundred.
The Standard, however, simply contents itself with
setting forth this statement. It refrains from de-
monstrating by a very simple sum in arithmetic how
it is that it arrives at this quotient. It undertakes
to give no detailed analysis of the electoral returns
already accumulated in the hands of all. It goes fur-
ther, nevertheless, than simply claiming 270 of the
members now returned as avowed Constitutionalists.
It expresses the greatest confidence that ten out of the
12 seats yet to be filled up, will be filled up by sup-
porters of the Government. So that, in that case,
280 out of the 658 being Conservatives, the Liberals
would have a clear majority of 78 altogener—instead
of either 6or 14 over the 100. Now, as usual, the
truth,webelieve,will befouud in between these two ra-
ther rash and extravagant calculations—between the
rose-coloured statement of the Liberals in Times and
the rose-coloured statement of the Standard in the
nameof the Conservatives. The clear majority secured
to the Opposition as the result of the General Election
now upon the very eve of its completion, will, as we
feel assured, and as we have often before now stated
in so many words in these columns, be as nearly as
possible upon the turn of the hundred. It was a
clear majority of between 70 and 80 iu
the last Parliament. It will have im-
proved upon that in the new Parliament, as
we have all along anticipated by a gain of between
20 and 30 altogether. The Spectator, we see, calcu-
lates to-day a just possible absolute majority of 101
—though it adds, " the real majority, we still believe,
will exceed 105:" Remembering the predictions which
were so very confidently indulged in, when the elec-
tions commenced, by the more sanguine antagonists of
the Government, the result thus arrived at partakes
very much, juiced, of the character of a collapse.
Mr. GLADSTONE was to enter the house with a clear
majority of 200. That was au assertion often in-
dulged in. The Conservatives were to be, in racing
phrase, just simply nowhere. The Opposition had
everything 11efore them. The Leader was to be in-
stalled as a sort of Parliamentary Dictator or Politi-
cal Lord Paramount. The dwindling down of the Tory
Party was to be a something utterly ludicrous and
contemptible. The actual result has not, however,
by any means realized these extravag Int anticipa-
tions. The majority attained is conclusive as to
the settlement of the question of the Irish Church
—not off hand, but with all due deliberation
and Parliamentary formality. But, while it
it is so, it must, in simple honesty and jus-
tice, be conceded to the Conservatives that they
make anything but a mean anl contemptible show ;
that on, the contrary they still prove to absolute de-
monstration that they are a very considerable power
in the State ; that they are foemen worthy of the
steel of the Liberals ; that they confront their anta-
gonists with ranks which are not n'imerically insigni-
ficant, any more than they are either undisciplined
or disorganised. Mr. GLADSTONE will have now in
1868—as Sir R. PEEL had in 1841—a great, and at
any rate for the time being an united party at his
back, numbering, up at the lowest calculation, some
379, or thereabouts—giving him now in this matter
of the Irish Church, as it gave Sir ROBERT PEEL
then (seven and twenty years ago) in the matter of
Protection, a clear majority of 100. But while these
are the immediate probabilities on the one side there is
the all but certainty on the other that Mr. GLADSTONE,
so entering the House with that clear majority of
100 on the one sole question of the Irish Church, will
find himself confronted in regard to all other ques-
tions by a very formidable antagonist, indeed, iu the
person of Mr. DISRAELI at the head of his two hun-
dred and seventy odd Conservatives or Constitu-
tionalists ! Mr. DISRAELI so confronting him, at
the head of that formidable body of Constitu-
tionalists, in his capacity as Author of the last Re-
form Bill and as undisputed leader still of
the country gentlemen of England ! A Conserva-
tive Statesman who has shown himself, by this
last enormous measure of Parliamentary Reform,
—which he has passed so very recently and so
triumphantly—to be no obstructive, and who has yet
at his back a serried mass of followers numbering up
very nearly 280 altogether An antagonist, therefore,
in no way to be contemned even by a Leader carried
in on the heads of the people, and having upon one
great question alone (the most prominent and urgent
question of the hour however) a clear majority in
his favour of 100 in a house of 658. No wonder,
when the results of the General E!ection come thus
to be scrutinized and analysed, no wonder that with a
phalanx of 270 or 280 Conservative Representatives
owning his authority as their leader ; no wonder we
say that Mr. DISRAELI prefers not to be relegated
himself to the House of Peers. No wonder
that—while handing over the coronet won by
his genius to that " perfect wife," his affection
fur whom he has more than once before now so
gracefully signalizA —Mr. DISRAELI reserves still
fcr himself the occupation of that proud posi-
tion he has now held so conspicuously for twenty
years as Leader in the British House of Commons
of the great party of the Conservatives or Constitu-
tionalists.

LANCASHIRE has returned 22 Conservatives and 11
Liberals to the new Parliament. Fourteen out of
the 22 sit for boroughs; so that, even leaving out the 8
county seats, Conservatism is still in the ascendant
in Lancashire. The total strength of the Conserva-

,fives is to the Liberals as two to one. In order,

however, to estimate aright the feeling of this great
county, we must -examine votes as well as seats.
It is quite possible that a county may be
almost equally divided between the two parties,
and yet if one party had a slight excess
over the other in every constituency it would
win every seat. We have therefore taken the trouble
to calculate the number of votes actually polled in
every constituency, and we find the following result.
In round numbers there were 188,600 votes recorded
for Conservative candidates, and 187,200 recorded
for Liberal candidates. This result is obtained in the
simplest possible way—by adding together all the
votes given to Conservative candidates and all those
given to Liberal candidates. The number of Liberal
candidates who polled was one more than the num-
ber of Conservative candidates, but as the extra
Liberal stood in Manchester, where the minority
clause is in force, this fact does not vitiate the cal-
culation. It should be added that we have taken no
account of Warrington election, because, although a
Liberal has been returned by a majority of votes,
the Conservatives claim that there has been
some -error on the part of the poll-clerk. The
result of the contest is, therefore, that while
Lancashire returns twice as many Conservative
members as Liberals, the county is divided into
almost exactly two equal parts. In fact, the
numbers are so nearly equal, that if we were,
after assigning to each party 16 members, to give
the odd one to the Conservatives, we should give
them more than they were entitled to by the num;
ber of their votes. Nevertheless, when all these
considerations are taken into account, we are still
surprised at the prevalence of Conservative feeling
in Lancashire.

THE last of the three-cornered constituencies chose
its members on Thursday, and we are now able to
ascertain the results of the minority clause. They
ought to make Mr. BRIGHT less angry with this
device in future. It has not only served to shew the
overwhelming strength of his party in his own
borough, but it has added considerably to the strength
of his party throughout the kingdom. There are
thirteen constituencies in which minorities have
obtained the right of representation. These con-
stituencies returned to the last Parliament fifteen
Liberals and twenty Conservatives; to the new Par-
liament they return twenty-two Liberals and eighteen
Conservatives, the number of seats having been
increased by five. For the first time Mr. DISRAELI
has a Liberal colleague in the representation of his
very Conservative constituency. Mr. HENLEY
is in the same position in Oxfordshire, and Mr.
WALTER has regained his seat in Berkshire. In
Cambridgeshire, Herefordshire, and Dorsetshire the
Liberals have retained the one seat which they held
before. They have won the additional seat at Liver-
pool and Glasgow, and have carried two out of the three
seats in Herts. In only one constituency have they
actually lost a seat—in London, which At the
present time returns three Liberals and one Con-
servative. Will anyone—will even Mr. BRIGHT
venture to say that this is an unfair proportion, or
declare that the Conservative wealth and intelligence
of the first city in the world ought to go unrepresented ?
The Liberal party ought, instead of lamenting over
this one loss, to wish that the principle which has
caused it had been e _tended a little further. Had it
been applied to South Lancashire, for instance, Mr.
GLADSTONE would not now be the " beggar and the
vagrant " which he by anticipation described himself
to be. This question has always seemed
to us beyond all party considerations. It i
appeared but just that where there was a '
plurality of candidates the whole represen-
tation should not be engrossed by a portion
of the constituency only fractiOnally over a I
half, while a portion only fractionally under was not

represented at all. In constituencies where
the electors were largely in the majority, as
in Birmingham, the clause would have no effect ;
at the same time it would remove from the minority
the sense of injustice that prevailed under the old
system, for they would feel that at least they had the
opportunity of returning a candidate of their own
opinions whenever they were strong enough to do so.
Viewing the result as a whole, we find that
while in individual constituencies a powerful
minority has obtained its share of representation,
the net result has been to largely increase the repre-
sentation of the majority. It has given the Conser-
vatives of Manchester and London representatives of
their own, and it has increased the Liberal strength
by nine votes.

LATEST INTELL LGENO)2:.

(REUTER'S TELEGRAMS.)

THE PRINCE AND PRINCESS OF WALES.
LUBECK, Nov. 28.

The Prince and Princess of Wales have arrived
here. Their Royal Highnesses alighted at the Hotel
Stadt Hamburg, and after partaking of luncheon,
they will continue their journey.