War-time conditions joined with a new and revolutionizing electoral law to give the British parliamentary elections of last December many novel features. The national electorate, including six million women, was twice as large as ever before; balloting, except by soldiers and other absentees, was confined to a single day; votes were allowed to be sent in by post, or to be cast by proxy; the usual party contest was replaced by a trial of strength between a coalition government which found support among practically all political elements and a number of groups whose physiognomy would hardly have been recognized by an antebellum observer.