London, 7 July 1892

Dear August, This is what comes of your forbidding me to write to you! ' Yet The elections are going swimmingly.

1. The Liberal victories are such minor ones and so much offset by counter-victories and other unmistakable symptoms (diminished majorities, often to the extent of being virtually non-existent, etc.) that the next parliament is likely to show at most a narrow majority for Gladstone, and maybe none at all (i.e. practically none at all) either for him or for the Torres. That would mean early dissolution and another election, but also preparations for the latter in the shape of legislation which would ensure extra votes for the Liberals, and those could only be new Labour votes. In fact even were the Toriss to remain at the helm— which hardly seems likely — they would have to try and strengthen their position by acquiring additional votes and these again they could only get from the workers. So there’s a prospect of 1. a cessation of the harassment which has hitherto made it difficult for individual workers to assert their right to the universal suffrage they have been conceded % and 2. social measures favourable to the workers.

The Liberals have won 16 of their opponents’ seats: the last government majority was 68. If you take away the 16 seats lost and also the above 16 won from their opponents, you get 32. That still leaves a Tory majority of 36. So if another 18 seats are won, the parties will be all square. I believe that a few more will be won; the so-called country boroughs are those in which opposition to the feudal pressure exerted by the big country landowners is strongest and where the lower middle classes do not therefore, as here in London and in other large towns, vote Conservative out of opposition to the now enfranchised workers and out of philistine habit. Gladstone might quite likely obtain a majority of 20, including, of course, the Irish, and he won’t be able to govern with that. The Irish are bound to demand Home Rutzand a majority of 20 won’t enable him to put that through in the teeth of the Upper House. And that will mean a rumpus.

2. The only startling victories are those of the new Labour Party. Keir Hardie has turned what was, in the last elections, a Tory majority of 300 into a majority of 1,200 for himself. John Burns — whose Liberal predecessor had a majority of 186 — has got one of 1,560. And in Middlesbrough (the iron-working district of Yorkshire) Wilson, Secretary of the Uniox of Seamen and Coal Trimmers— a careerist but pledged neck and crop to the new unionism, obtained 4,691 votes, thus beating the Liberals (4,062) and the Tory (3,333). The measly Liberal majorities look pitiful by comparison.

3. In three places where a Labour candidature, etc., was both apposite and had been properly prepared for in advance, the Labour candidates were in fact beaten, but they also caused the downfall of the Liberals.

In Salford, Hall, Labour, obtained 553 votes but the Liberal was beaten by only 37.

In Glasgow (Camlachie) Cunninghame-Graham was beaten (906 votes), but so was the Liberal who needed 371 votes to obtain a majority.

In Glasgow (Tradeston) the Labour candidate Burleigh (in other respects a ne’er-do-weel) got 783 votes while the Liberal got 169 fewer than the Tory.

What’s more, in a number of other places (Aberdeen, Glasgow — College —, Bradford), though the Liberals did in fact win, they nevertheless forfeited anything from 990 to 2,749 votes to Labour candidates standing against both parties, which means that next time Labour will constitute a direct threat.

In short, the Labour Party has proclaimed itself clearly and unmistakably and that means that next time both the old parties will have to make it offers of alliance. The Tories may be ruled out so long as they are led by the present jackasses. But the Liberals are bound to make an approach. And likewise the Irish. When Parnell was sent to Coventry over the absurd affair of the divorce,?! he suddenly turned pro-Labour, and so will the Irish gents in Parliament when they realise it is only Labour that can procure them Home Rute. Then the compromising will begin, and then, too, the Fasiaxs 7—in these elections conspicuous by their absence — will again put in an appearance, but over here that sort of thing just can’t be avoided. However, we're making progress, as you can see, and that’s the main thing.

By a splendid quirk of history, both of the two old parties have now got to appeal to Labour and make concessions to Labour if they want to retain or take the helm, and at the same time each of them senses that by so doing they are giving a leg up to their own successors. And yet they can’t help it! What is our little jest compared with the colossal jest now emerging from the turn history is taking?

Many regards from Louise and myself to Mrs Julie and yourself.

Your F.E.

If you write to Shaw you might recommend Conrad Schmidt’s article in the Neue Zeit? as a refutation of their ‘Austrian Tueory oF VALUE’.