TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE KILKENNY ELECTION.
Kilkenny election shows that we were probably T HE wrong in estimating Mr. Parnell's personal power in Ireland, after the greater number of the priesthood had deserted him, as anything like as great as that of his opponents. It is, indeed, true that hardly any field for a contest less favourable for Mr. Parnell than North Kilkenny could have been chosen. There are no large towns in it, and in the rural districts the power of the priests is a great deal more dominant than it is in the towns. We believe that Mr. Parnell would still carry most of the genuinely urban con- stituencies with him ; but then, in Ireland the urban constituencies count for comparatively little, so that instead of regaining a great part of his old Parliamentary influence, Mr. Parnell, if he continues the struggle, cannot probably hope for more than to maintain his present position as leader of about a third at most of the Nationalist Members. Whether he will think that position worth the cost of the great struggle he must make for it, is, we should think, somewhat doubtful. It will be an uphill fight even to hold his own in the towns and cities, as he probably can do if he chooses. But if the Kilkenny election convinces him that this is the utmost limit of his hopes, he may very probably think twice before he formally undertakes so unremunerative a struggle. It is clear that the Anti-Parnellites believe that the great victory they have won will incline Mr. Parnell to accept a com- promise, and that they hope for a compromise as the result of Mr. Parnell's meeting with Mr. O'Brien. But what compromise is now possible ? It seems to us very doubtful whether the majority of the priests in Ireland have not made up their minds to break with Mr. Parnell, and to look to Sir John Pope Hennessy as their future leader. Sir John Pope Hennessy has shown himself to be an accomplished Parliamentary strategist. Since he retired from Parliament, he has served an apprenticeship in the art of governing, and though he is twelve years Mr. Parnell's senior, he has the great advantage of being a sincere Catholic as well as a sincere Tory democrat, while Mr. Parnell is neither. If the Irish priesthood take up Sir John Pope Hennessy heartily, we do not see how any effective compromise with Mr. Parnell can be arranged. Mr. Dillon and Mr. O'Brien have really nothing to offer, unless they can promise Mr. Parnell that, after a brief period of retirement, he shall return to the leadership of a united party. And in such a bargain as that, not only must the Catholic priesthood of Ireland be reckoned with, but also the Nonconformist English supporters of Home-rule. Will they agree, or allow Mr. Gladstone to agree,—even if he is himself in- clined to do so,—to restore the man against whose private character they have made so strenuous a protest, to the leadership after a brief period of political penance ? These are considerations which seem to us to throw very great doubts upon the future of the Irish Home-rule Party. If Sir John Pope Hennessy is equal to the emergency, and if Mr. Parnell continues to show that strange sterility or weakness or irritability of character which has made his electioneering speeches during the Wilkenny election so barrenly dictatorial, we may soon see the complete transfer of the leadership, and a very rapid defection of many of Mr, Parnell's remaining followers, even if he himself does not quit the arena. We have not yet the means of knowing.- what the Attitude of the Irish Catholic priesthood towards Mr. parneli le, 4u4 till we de know it, we cannot at all compute the prospects of the Irish struggle, They may be satisfied with showing him their power, and accept a temporary retirement as sufficient atonement for his conduct ; or they may be determined lot to accept his leadership again on any conditions what- ever. But we incline to think that Mr. Parnell will hardly be disposed to sit in Parliament as the mere leader of a revo- lutionary party, supported by the American Irish, without the confidence of the greater number of Irish constituencies. In any case, Mr. Parnell, we think, must lose a great deal of prestige, not only morally but intellectually, through recent events. The magic of that prestige is gone. He is proved to be not only a shrieking electioneerer, but one who can be beaten with his own weapons. How will this affect the general prospect of the move- ment which hitherto Mr. Parnell has controlled, and which it is not likely that he can really control any longer ? Mr. Gladstone no doubt regards it as a change for the better, so far as it substitutes a party which broke with Mr. Parnell on purpose to prevent breaking with Mr. Gladstone, for a party that might have been disposed to dictate terms to him to which his English followers would not have allowed him to consent. And it may be allowed that if the Irish Home-rule Party did sink into a mere tail of the Glad- stonians, it would create much less alarm amongst the English constituencies than it has created in the past with its hitherto inscrutable leader at its head. On the other hand, we must remember that the Irish Party have felt compelled to pledge themselves up to the eyes not to lose their independence of the Gladstonians, and that nothing could be more unpopular in Ireland itself than the notion that the Irish representatives were pre- pared to yield what Mr. Parnell has denounced as a treason to Ireland, and what the American Irish would un- doubtedly regard as treason to Ireland. And, on the other hand, it must be remembered that the Scotch supporters of Mr. Gladstone, and probably the Nonconformist sup- porters also, would scan with a great deal more jealousy and dislike the terms of a Home-rule measure dictated, as it would be supposed, by a nominee of the Irish Catholic Church, than they would the terms of a Home-rule measure dictated by Mr. Parnell himself. There would be no reason in such a jealousy. The Irish Catholic priest- hood are very much less likely to be animated by pure animosity to England than Mr. Parnell. But the jealousy undoubtedly exists. Already it is said that in Scotland Mr. Gladstone's supporters are getting very restless under the odious alliance between the Gladstonians and the priest- hood, and are beginning to avow their dread of any policy concerted between Mr. Gladstone and the heads of the sacer- dotal party. It was restlessness of this kind which over- threw his Government in 1873, and it might well be rest- lessness of this kind which would overthrow it again. We are disposed to think that anything that would be gained by the comparative submissiveness of the Anti-Parnellites to Mr. Gladstone, would be fully balanced by the loss due to this morbid dread of Roman Catholic intrigue.
But the great consideration of all in relation to Home- rule for Ireland is, that Mr. Parnell, after a long course of histrionic moderation, has at length come out openly as the representative of the " American Irish party," and of " the men of the hill-sides." The constituencies of England will be struck by this almost inevitable reliance on a party of violence beyond the Atlantic, and will be perfectly well aware that the very delegates who are now opposing Mr. Parnell in France, have been appealing to the party of vio- lence in the United States for aid in resisting the present Government of Great Britain. Mr. Dillon and Mr. O'Brien disown Mr. Parnell in his own country ; but they accept all the aid they can get from the anti-English party in the United States, and would undoubtedly fall back upon that aid, if they ever succeeded in getting Ireland organised under a Legislature and Administration of her own. The general result of this great quarrel haw been to show that Home-rule moderation is only superficial ; that it is not to be trusted ; and that nothing succeeds in Ireland like declarations of independence of English control and jealous repudiations of English influence. And when the anti-English tone is adopted, as it must be adopted, by the representatives of the sacerdotal party in Ireland, it will excite a still more violent suspicion and. distaste than it did when it was used by the sphinx-like leader who has now thrown off his disguise, and shown that he only assumed it in order to bring round Mr. Gladstone to acquiescence in his view.
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