In May, the National Union of Suffrage Societies decided to run a Parliamentary candidate of their own, at a by-election in Wimbledon, and had chosen as their nominee a well known Liberal, the Hon. Bertrand Russell. The crushing defeat which resulted has unfortunately been quoted as a proof that the majority of the Parliamentary voters in that constituency were opposed to the principle of women's enfranchisement, but an impartial examination into the facts shows clearly that they do not in any way justify this conclusion. The Wimbledon seat had always been held by the Conservatives, and their majority at the General Election, in spite of the then great Liberal revival, had numbered more than 2,000 votes. Now, with the well known and typical old Conservative, Mr. Henry Chaplin, in the field, the Liberal Party considered it wisest not to fight. Therefore, but for the intervention of the National Union of Suffrage Societies, who opposed him because of his anti-Suffragist views, Mr. Chaplin would have been returned without a contest. Opinions may reasonably be divided as to whether the game of running Parliamentary candidates would possibly be worth the candle to a Women's Suffrage Society, but everyone will surely agree that if Suffrage candidates were to be run at all, the chief object of the Suffragists ought to have been to efface as far as possible all other points of political difference between the rival candidates in order that upon the question of Votes for Women, and upon that question alone, the electors might have decided how to vote. To ensure that the single issue should predominate, it might have been well to choose as the Suffragist nominee a candidate whose views upon general political questions were, either similar to those of his anti-Suffrage opponent, or altogether colourless and obscure. In any case it was essential that the Suffragist candidate should be willing to subordinate all his other political opinions and to concentrate his attention absolutely upon the question of Votes for Women. In this Election, however, though it was well known that Liberalism was unpopular, the Suffragists chose to represent them a strong Liberal who was determined to make the election contest an opportunity for propagating his Liberal principles. That Mr. Bertrand Russell cared very much more for Liberalism than he did for Women's Votes was at once apparent. With the news that he had consented to stand as the Suffrage candidate came the announcement that he would not in any circumstances have agreed to do so had an official Liberal been nominated, and he showed clearly that he had no intention of standing out against the wishes of his party leaders in order to press forward the Women's Cause. Right from the outset the record of the Liberal Government, and the general principles of Liberalism were the points constantly put before the electors, and it was upon these points that the Election was really fought. Mr. Russell's Election