ithin the Established Church have had little
bearing on them. So far as ecclesiastical questions have come in, the
strife has been between "Church"--that kind of Church which is
pue-fellow to the Mosque--and something which is supposed not to be
"Church." These late elections have therefore been far better tests than
the old ones of the strictly political feelings of the constituencies.
Looked at in that light, they certainly do not prove that the University
constituencies are more Conservative now than they were then. They do
prove that the Liberal growth, the Liberal reaction, or whatever we are
to call it, in the University constituencies since that time has been
far less strong than Liberals had hoped that it had been. They do prove
that the Conservatism of those constituencies is still of a kind which,
both for quantity and quality, has a very ugly look in Liberal eyes.

Thus far we have been looking at Oxford and Cambridge only. But we must
not forget that Oxford and Cambridge are not the only Universities in
the kingdom. The general results of University elections were set forth
a few weeks back in an article in the _Spectator_. They are certainly
not comfortable as a whole. We of Oxford and Cambridge may perhaps draw
a very poor satisfaction from the thought that we are at least not so
bad as Dublin. But then we must feel in the like proportion ashamed when
we see how we stand by the side of London. A better comparison than
either is with the Universities of Scotland. From a Liberal point of
view, they are much better than Oxford and Cambridge, but still they are
not nearly so good as they ought to be. The Liberalism of the
Universities of Scotland lags a long way behind the Liberalism of the
Scottish people in general. One pair of Universities returns a Liberal,
the other a Conservative, in neither case by majorities at all like the
Conservative majorities at Oxford and Cambridge. Speaking roughly, in
the Scottish Universities the two parties are nearly equally balanced, a
very different state of things from what we see in the other
constituencies of Scotland. If then in England and Ireland the
University constituencies are overwhelmingly Conservative, while in
Liberal Scotland they are more Conservative than Liberal, it follows
that there is something amiss either about Liberal principles or about
University constituencies. And those who believe that Liberal principles
are the principles of right reason and tha