[6] However, at the next election, in 1906, McArthur was defeated by the Liberal Richard Cherry,[6] who had recently been appointed as Attorney General for Ireland.
[1] Apart from the nationwide swing to the Liberals, who gained 216 seats in that election,[7] McArthur's defeat involved several local factors.
As a free trader, he lost the support of the many local unionists who favoured the system of protectionism known at the time as tariff reform; while his staunch opposition to Irish Home Rule galvanised the large Irish Nationalist population to support Cherry.
[1] However, McArthur returned to Parliament the following year, when he was elected at a by-election in September 1907 as the MP for Liverpool Kirkdale.
He told constituents that his election was a defeat of the Labour Party candidate John Hill was a great victory for "the Protestants of Kirkdale" over socialists and Irish nationalists.