Of course it is to a considerable extent matter of
specula- tion whether the result is due chiefly to local or to general causes. It proves beyond question that Birmingham and its neighbourhood is more heartily Unionist than ' ever, and that the alliance between the Liberal Unionists and Conservatives there has practically been re-cemented by the good faith and good temper with which the Conservatives have accepted Lord Salisbury's and Lord Hartington's arbitration in relation to the seat for Central Birmingham. But we do not doubt that more general causes, and especially the split in Ireland between the Parnellites and the Anti-Parnellites, with all its illuminating incidents, has had a good deal to do with the matter, and that the notion is at last filtering down to the English electorate generally that it is much better for the Irish people to be merged in the people of the United Kingdom, —that they act much more reasonably and sanely when so merged,—than it is for them to run a separate little Constitu- tion of their own in which there would be very little activity not chiefly consisting of quarrelling and levity.
