and is maintainable on irrefutable grounds. The dispute seems practically laid at rest in the chapter 'La Controverse Juridique' in the standard work of Dr M. Lias mentioned by Mr Chance.* As to the third stormpoint,' the question of Schleswig, he describes it as 'of weightiest effect,' referring apparently to the schemed restitution to the Holstein-Gottorp line of Ducal Schleswig as an element in the conflict between Great Britain and Russia, an ending of which, in reconciliation and alliance, might undoubtedly have changed the future of European politics. More direct in its bearings, though only in a subsidiary measure, was the fourth 'storm centre,' the question of the Polish Protestants, which turned directly on the so-called 'blood-bath' of Thorn and the remonstrances attempted against it in Protestant Germany and other Protestant countries. While attesting the survival of the religious conflict in central Europe, its treatment helps to illustrate the genuine Protestant sentiments of George I, who in this respect saw eye to eye with his son-in-law. Though Frederick William was more closely connected with this question than George I, yet in his attitude towards it the latter more thoroughly represented the nation to whose throne he had been called than is sometimes remembered in summarising the debt which that nation owes to the Succession of the House of Hanover.

These problems possess an interest beyond that which contemporary diplomacy was necessarily called upon to take in the conclusion and maintenance of Alliances such as that of Hanover, and in the formation of others of equal or inferior significance. Together, these relations constitute a chapter of political history as fascinating as it is complicated, and one which can only be made intelligible by such a collection and presentment of its materials as Mr Chance has undertaken in the work before us. He modestly calls it a 'Study of British Foreign Policy'; yet we cannot but hope that he will find leisure some day to combine it with other 'Studies,' into a well-proportioned continuous work which will form the standard history of British Foreign Policy in the whole of the early Hanoverian age.

A. W. WARD.

* 'La Belgique Commerciale sous l'Empereur Charles VI: la Compagnie d'Ostende.' Brussels and Paris, 1902.

Art. 14.-SOME ASPECTS OF THE LATE GENERAL ELECTION.

Ir is just a year since, in the number of this Review which appeared on Jan. 15, 1923, we recorded the surprising results of the General Election which followed on the breaking up of the Coalition. We have now, contrary to all reasonable expectation, to comment, after an interval of only twelve months, on the details of another General Election, which if not so startling in its figures as that of November 1922, is likely to be much more momentous in its consequences. For it has brought us suddenly face to face with a problem which has been impending for many years, but which has only taken definite shape to-day-the problem of how Parliamentary government is to be conducted when the House of Commons is composed of three parties, none of which has a clear majority over the two others combined. Any difficulties which arose from the existence of a small 'third party' of Peelites in 1846-52, or of Home Rulers in 1892 and 1910, were child's play compared with the problem of 1924. The wonder is that the deadlock did not arise before: if Proportional Representation had been in use, it would certainly have occurred on several previous occasions, when the governing party, though it did not possess a majority among the electors, was fortunate enough to obtain a clear working majority in the House of Commons. The chances of the ballot are inscrutable, but never before do they happen to have produced this particular result, of the appearance of a Chamber in which every party is in a minority. And the most unfortunate thing is that the composition of the House reflects the decision of the electors with fair accuracy. We have to envisage the problem of how the governance of the realm is to be carried on when no party leader can claim, with the least vestige of plausibility, that he has the nation

at his back.

This result has been produced by no theatrical 'landslide' in the country: no transfer of votes by the million from one party to another has occurred. But there has been a 'landslide' in the representation of Great Britain in the House of Commons in consequence of the

action of 2 per cent. of the 14,000,000 electors who t part in the General Election. If Mr Baldwin's advis at the Conservative Central Office informed him t there would be no serious fall in the numbers of Conservative electors at the oncoming General Electi they were perfectly right in their estimate. As will demonstrated in a later page, the party polled 5,400, votes this December; in November 1922 it recor 5,457,871-practically the same number-a deficiency 57,000 on 5,450,000 is barely worth mentioning. But, the hazard of the ballot box has decided, this loss one vote in ninety-five out of the whole strength of party has resulted in absolute disaster, when acco panied by the appearance of a one and a half per ce addition to the number of the enemy. No one co have foreseen such a vast result from such a sm cause. Well-informed political prophets conceded th there would be some loss of Conservative seats, in co sequence of the way in which Mr Baldwin's request f a mandate for Tariff Reform would inevitably be rep sented all over the country as a threat of dear fo But they estimated the probable number of seats danger at twenty or thirty: that a net eighty-sev would be lost would have seemed an incredible foreca considering the comparatively small number of i dividuals who declared that their allegiance to Fr Trade sans phrase would compel them to withhold the accustomed vote from their old party.

Undoubtedly, therefore, the feature of the rece election which first strikes the eye of the dispassiona observer, is that a maximum of change in the represent tion of the country in the House of Commons has bee effected by a minimum of change in the relative positio of the three parties, so far as numbers go. A powerf Government has been wrecked, and a solid majority o 75 destroyed, by the votes of under 300,000 persons in total poll of over 14,000,000. Yet the numerical pro portion of the parties to each other has barely bee affected. In 1922 the Conservatives actually polle

* Where these figures differ by a few thousands from similar calcula tions to be found elsewhere, the discrepancy has been caused by divergen views as to whether certain Independent' members are to be counte as Conservatives, or not.

5,457,871 votes: in 1923 they showed 5,400,399—a figure still far ahead of that of their rivals: for the Labour vote has only risen from 4,251,011 to 4,358,615; and the Liberal vote from 4,119,012 to 4,304,578.* But the Conservatives' predominance is considerably greater than these figures indicate: since we must make allowance for the fact that no less than 35 seats in their hands were uncontested at this General Election, so that the number of the voters belonging to these 35 constituencies does not appear in the statistics given above. There are only eleven Liberal and three Labour seats in similar condition. Since in all such constituencies as these, opposition is allowed to be hopeless, on account of the complete predominance of the adherents of the sitting member, we must allow a very heavy numerical superiority to the party holding the seat, when making our estimate of the total of the voters belonging to these 49 uncontested boroughs and county divisions. The greater part of the 35 which belong to the Conservatives (e.g. the City of London, the two Westminster Divisions, South Kensington, Reigate, East Surrey, Putney, Westmorland, the two Antrim seats, etc.) are localities in which the runner-up, if he had appeared, would have been a Liberal, not a Labour man. We may hypothetically add about 525,000 to the Conservative total, 170,000 to the Liberals, and 85,000 to the Labour party, as the probable poll for these 35 seats-averaging each at 30,000 electors, and granting that the predominant party polled a net 50 per cent. of the names on the register, and the minority not more than 25 per cent. For the eleven uncontested Liberal seats (5 in non-industrial Scotland and two in rural Wales) the allowance on a similar scale would be 165,000 Liberal voters, 57,000 Conservatives, and 30,000 Labour. The minority allowance on the three uncontested Labour seats (Ogmore, Wentworth, and Abertillery) should go entirely to the Liberals, as it is not likely that a Conservative candidate would have appeared in any one of them: we may put it at 22,000 Liberals to 45,000 allowed for the Labour majority.

It would therefore seem that the total polling strength

• These figures are reached by adding to the totals published in the

Times' of Saturday, Dec. 8, the votes given in the twelve belated

ontests which were announced after that calculation was made.

of the three parties, composed of their actual votes plu the estimate allowed them on the 49 uncontested con stituencies, in the proportion stated above, would b 5,982,399 Conservatives, 4,518,115 Labour, 4,661,57 Liberals.

If our calculations are anything like correct, it is o course absurd that the Labour party, with about 150,00 adherents less than the Liberals, should have 36 mem bers more in the House of Commons than their rivals In an ideal Chamber-chosen by an elaborate use of Proportional Representation and allowing for six 'Independents'-the relative numbers of the partie ought to be something like 240 Conservatives, 186 Liberals, and 183 adherents of the Labour cause.

But an ideal House of Commons from the point of view of Proportional Representation never Occurs Obviously the Conservatives were very lucky in 1922 and obtained by small majorities, where there were only two candidates, and by sheer hazard in some threecornered contests, a good many more seats than they could have reckoned upon. This time Labour is in luck also, and Liberalism (as in 1922) has been hardly treated by Fortune.

Lest, however, we should overstate the ill-luck of the Liberal party, we must bear in mind that a very large number of the votes given for them on this occasion were not really their own. Wherever they were fighting Labour, and no Conservative candidate was forthcoming, as happened in some Scottish constituencies and in many North-country English ones (e.g. Greenock, Clackmannan, East Newcastle, Consett, Houghton-le-Spring), the Liberal poll of 1922 was suddenly increased by many thousands in 1923. These were the transferred votes of Conservatives, who had by no means been converted to Liberalism, but who wanted to keep the Labour man out by any means in their power. And in many English country constituencies, where the contest was a simple one between Liberal and Conservative, Labour votes, for the opposite reason, were given to the candidate who was-of the two-most friendly to Labour principles. This accounts for the sudden upward leap in the Liberal poll in such localities as Hexham, Harborough, Stroud, Thornbury, where in 1922, but not in 1923, a Labour