The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-08-04
WoBBLERs IN BRITISH POLITICS.

The general belief that the extraordinary
Conservative victory in Great Britain was
due to a sweeping change of public senti-
ment III regard to the main issues between
the two parties renders exceptionally in
teresting to all students of politics an esti-
mate of the determining factor of the pop
ular vote made by the Westminster Ga
eette on the eve OF the elections, which will
be found instructive to all who wish a
clear understanding OF the situation.
According to the Gazette a study of the
past shows that the great mass of British
voters never change their minds. In every
general election there are always about
two millions of voters on one side and
nearly the same number on the other. All
changes in the results are due to small
minority who swing now this way and
now that, sometimes, undoubtedly, for
good reasons, but occasionally from no
other motive than desire to give the other
side show.
That much might be said of any country
where representative government is car
ried on, but there were certain peculiar
conditions in the political situation in
England on the eve of the late elections
which rendered very small proportion of
the voters able to produce results so large
that they would seem at first sight to be
impossible, except a widespread change
had taken place in the country. In the
late Parliament there were forty Liberal
seats and thirty-eight Unionist seats held
by majorities of less than 200. The aggre.
gate majority of the forty was in round
numbers $500 and of the thirty-eight $500.
In these closely contested districts it needed
but a small change one way or the other to
give a great parliamentary victory to
either party.
Commenting on this condition of affairs
the Gazette said:
ga mere trife of less than 1000 wobblers
would give the Liberals gain of seventy
six votes on q division, and would return
them to power with the sweeping majority
of 104l The country would then have
pronounced emphatically' for Home
Rule-by the voice of 1000 persons. A very
much larger number OF persons might have
wobbled in other places in the other direc-
ton, but they would not count one iota.
Or take 1t the other way round, and sup
pose that King Chance pumped heavily
iOI Tie 4OIlSS, anu Wulle leaving CQem
their thirty-eight risky seats, wiped out the
forty similar seats from the Liberal score.
In that case the Tories would meet the
new Parliament with majority of fifty
two. The votes of 5000 individuals would
have done it. Meanwhile $4,000 wobblers
elsewhere might have declared for Home
Rule, but King Salisbury, aided by a
monarch yet more powerful, would laugh
at them as of no account"
The result, as we know, has not been
widely different from what the Gazette esti-
mated. The Salisbury "wobblers" were
in the places where they could do the most
good. They gained for the Conservatives
so many seats that to the world it seems as
If the mighty voice of the British people
had spoken. Perhaps after all. however,
the victorious majority may be only few
thousand uncertain, undecided and unre-
liable men. If this is true the triumph
OF the peers" is likely to be short lived,