TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE CORK ELECTION. THE Cork election should be very instructive for all parties in both Ireland and England. It has settled various disputable questions, and settled them almost beyond doubt. In the first place, it has shown that a most fiercely contested election in Ireland, where the most furious language is used, and where there are a sufficient number of electors, even amongst the minorities, to shelter each other and give what one would suppose to be a sense of mutual safety to the members of the minority, instead of producing a very heavy poll, has produced an exceptionally light one. Not one of the three parties polled anything like the number of votes that might have been expected from them, as compared with the election of 1885, the last contest. In that election, the Home-rule Party was undivided, and polled nearly 6,700 votes, Mr. Parnell himself having received 6,682. On Friday week, the Parnellites and Anti-Parnellites polled together only 5,826 votes, or some 900 votes fewer than the united party in 1885, although the register was considerably higher. Indeed, there were on the register 10,267 electors, while the total poll of all three candidates was only 6,987, or 1,151 fewer than the total poll of 1885, when the register contained much fewer electors. We argue from this, that in Ireland the effect of political passion in an election is, instead of bringing a great many more voters to the poll, as it does in England, to bring a good many fewer. There is more fear on all sides, and a greater desire not to provoke hostility. In the present case, we believe that this has diminished the poll not only of the Conservative, Captain Samfield, but of both the sections of Home-rulers. A good many Catholics who would otherwise have voted for Mr. Redmond, stayed away to avoid exciting the anger of the priests. Not a few Anti-Parnellites must have stayed away to avoid provoking the anger of the Parnellite roughs,—indeed, the Pall Mall Gazette states that in one case at least, an elector who had just promised his vote to the priests for Mr. Flavin, actually declared himself an illiterate and gave it to Mr. Red- mond, fearing apparently the wrath of the Parnellites if he did not vote, and vote publicly, for Mr. Redmond, more than he feared the wrath of the priests for a publicly broken pro- mise. And the Conservative polled only 1,161 votes on Fri- day week, as against 1,456 given to the Conservative in 1885. We believe, then, that in Ireland, the higher the passion rises, the higher rises the mutual fear also, and the larger is the number of abstaining voters. And this is so, even while the steady protection of a police that acts with perfect impartiality is secured to all parties alike. The next fact which becomes perfectly clear from the Cork election is, that Mr. Parnell was not in the least justified in his rash challenge to Mr. Maurice Healy to abide by the decision of the Cork electors, and was very prudent in backing out of that promise on further con- sideration. Even in Cork, and even in Cork at a moment when the death of Mr. Parnell is fresh in the memories of all his partisans, and is exciting them to almost un- paralleled enthusiasm, the Parnellites have been beaten by a majority of considerably more than three to two by the party of the Bishops and the priests. In other words, there is hardly a constituency in Ireland, unless it be one or two of the Dublin divisions, in which the Parnellites have any chance of carrying their candidate. The Clerical Party is supreme, and it is probable that, with the help of Ulster, even the Unionists will carry more seats in Ireland at the General Election than the Parnellites. The anti-sacerdotal party has strength enough to excite a good deal of disturbance in Ireland, to make a good many voters tremble, and indeed have good cause for trembling, but it has not strength enough to send any body of repre- sentatives worth mention to Parliament. The priests, on the whole, excite both more loyalty and more fear. They command a great deal more confidence, and they inspire, on the whole, a good deal more dread. They have not only a larger mob behind them, but more real spiritual influence too. In the third place, it is clear that, except in Ulster, the minority opposed to Home-rule is very weak, even where it is strongest. We all know that Cork juries will find men guilty of intimidation and outrage though committed on the popular side, where hardly any other juries out of Ulster venture to find a verdict against those who commit these outrages ; and yet even in Cork, the Con- servative Party is practically impotent at the poll. The Irish Conservatives will never send any appreciable quota of representatives to any Parliament, Irish or English.
Now, these facts being made conspicuously evident from the Cork election, what is the inevitable inference except that Ireland is not in a condition in which we could, with any justice to the Irish minority,—let alone the British people,—permit Ireland to have a separate Legislature and Administration of her own ? We make no complaint of the Irish people for trusting their priests more than they trust any one else. Through many generations when English government was all misgovernment, the Irish priests stood by their people in all their miseries, in times of persecution, in times of famine, in times of veiled rebellion. No wonder the people stand by their priests. We, at least, do not reproach them on that head, or think the less of their political sagacity. But none the less it seems to us utterly contrary to the plain principles of justice to put the minority who do not expect anything but evil and resentment from the triumph of the priestly party, under their heel. Very possibly the fears of the Pro- testants on the score of their religion, may be greatly exaggerated. We, for our parts, are not inclined to think that any great religious persecution would follow the triumph of the priestly party in Ireland, though there may reasonably be two opinions on that point. But it is .not religious persecution which is most to be feared. What is most to be feared is, that the priests will in future, as they have during the past ten years, take the side of one class, even when that class is exercising the most unprincipled pres- sure over the rights of their neighbours, and will excuse all the political intimidation which it exercises, while they take no thought at all for the minority whose sympathies are known to be less with the populace than with the wealth and ambition of the middle and higher class. We have had the most convincing experience during the last ten years, that all the power of Rome has been as nothing to restrain the priests from sheltering the authors of the most illegal and uncharitable, and often the most cruel and dastardly acts, when these proceeded from the peasantry, and were under- stood to be performed in the interest of the poor tenant- farmer, and against the interest of the landlord or the " foreigners," as the sympathisers with British rule are generally regarded. Mr. Gladstone, as we have often in- sisted, obtained household suffrage for Ireland without any qualifying minority representation, by earnestly assuring the House of Commons that, though the Irish minority might not be adequately represented in any Irish contingent sent to the House of Commons, it would be virtually represented by the great majority of the British representatives. That we regard as a guarantee to the Irish minority that they should not be deprived of the protection of the great majority of British representatives in relation to legislation on Irish affairs and the administration of those affairs. Now it is coolly proposed that we should hand over the Irish minority bound hand and foot to a party who, whether they are disposed to persecute in religious matters or not,—we believe that they would not be so disposed,--would still have full power to do exactly as they pleased, not only in these matters, but on questions of class legislation, where we all know that the priests would use their mighty influence without the least scruple, as they have used it during the last ten years, in spite of all the pressure which Rome could apply to prevent its being unjustly used. For that danger,—it is something more than a danger,— there is no remedy that would be in any way consistent with giving to Ireland a national Parliament, and a. national Administration depending on the confidence of that Parliament. We hold, therefore, that, quite apart from any consideration for the safety of the United King- dom, we are bound in honour not to give up this island of many threats and many shrinkings, and many terrors, to the rule of a single class which has abundantly proved itself quite unequal to holding the scales of Justice even, in firm and impartial hands. Ireland left to herself would be the prey of prejudice, and at the mercy of a violent class of political bullies.
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