The chief political interest of the week at home has
been the Home-rule question, which was brought into prominence before Tuesday's debate by a discussion as to the failure of the Home- rule party to carry Mr. Kay at Salford. Thereupon, Mr. F. H. O'Donnell, a Vice-President and the Honorary Secretary Of the Home-rule Confederation, wrote to the Times, to say that the Home-rulers had contributed, as near as possible, 1,500 votes to the Liberal minority at Salford,—we suppose he means that they were pledged to do so, but not that he was in the secret of the ballot,—and that if they had voted on the other side, Mr. Kay would have been 3,000 votes behind his opponent, in- stead of nearly equal to him,—though, of course, Mr. O'Donnell has no means of knowing how many Liberal votes were lost to Mr. Kay by his flirtation with the Home-rule party. "The Home-rulers," says Mr. O'Donnell, "cannot undertake to return Liberal candidates in the face of an overwhelming current of adverse opinion, and the simple fact is, as you state, that the election at Salford was influenced very largely by the present state of the Eastern Question." Mr. O'Donnell then goes on to remark, very sensibly, that the half-andhalf politicians who only conciliate Home-rulers by promising to sup- port "inquiry" fall between the two stools ; and very im- prudently, though very fortunately for his opponents, that the Irish vote will always go to "the highest bidders," and that the Liberal party may wait "till the crack of doom," but "until they have accepted Home-rule for Ireland, they will be allowed, whether most worthy or unworthy, to bear no part in the govern- ment of the British Empire." Mr. O'Donnell knows more of the events which are likely to precede "the crack of doom" than we do, but in affairs of the present world he is not very skilful, and hectors irresolute sympathy into open defiance.
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