TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE ST. AUSTELL ELECTION.
WE are very anxious not to overrate the importance of the very remarkable result of the election for the St. Austell Division of Cornwall. We do not for a moment con- tend that what has happened in the South-West will neces- sarily happen in the North, or even in the Midlands. But granting that in the North or the Midlands opinion may not change so rapidly, or may even change in the other direction, granting everything that the most extreme partisan of Home- rule may have to plead on the other side, no one, we think, with so much as the germ of a political judgment, can hesitate in saying that the St. Austell election shows how little justifi- cation there is for any sanguine expectation that at the next dissolution the policy of Mr. Gladstone in relation to Ireland is likely to be accepted by a majority of the people of the United Kingdom. Let us minutely consider the facts of the case. In 1885, Mr. Borlase appealed to the then newly constituted electoral division of St. Austell, Cornwall, and was opposed by a Conservative,—the question of Home-rule for Ireland not having then been raised. The result was that Mr. Borlase was returned by 4,464 votes against 2,183 given for Mr. Johnstone ; majority, 2,281. In other words, the constituency returned Mr. Gladstone's supporter by more than two to one, and the vote was so triumphant, that when the Home-rule question was raised in the short Parliament that met in January, 1886, and was dissolved in June, Mr. Borlase was returned unopposed as a Home-ruler. And though some of the Cornish Liberals, like Mr. Courtney and Mr. Bickford Smith, who resisted Home- rule, and stood in 1886 as Liberal Unionists, secured their return by the help of the Conservative vote, they polled, even with the help of the Conservatives in 1886, considerably fewer votes than they had polled in resisting the Conservatives in 1885. In other words, the Home-rulers who deserted them diminished their poll by considerably more votes than the Conservatives could bring to their aid. On the other hand, Mr. Conybeare, in the Camborne Division, polled a great many more votes as a Gladetonian Home-ruler in 1886 than he had polled as a Glad- donjon Radical in 1885, when the question was not understood to be serious. Again, Mr. C. T. Dyke Aeland, who in 1885 had defeated his Conservative rival in the Launceston Division by 4,690 votes against 2,589 given for Mr. Lawrence, walked over the course in 1886, no Liberal Unionist thinking it worth while to oppose him. Such was the feeling of Cornwall on the first blush of the case when Mr. Gladstone's Irish measure was mooted in 1886. Now there has been time for a year's full discussion of the matter, and what do we find ? We find that Mr. Borlase's successor, a young and most acceptable candidate, Mr. MacArthur, a Wesleyan,— and this is in itself a great recommendation in a county permeated by Wesleyanism,—and one who had so much the start of his rival that, according to Mr. Caine's letter in Friday's Times, he had held at least 120 meetings, while the supporters of Mr. Brydges Willyams had held only about 80 at most,—obtained only the very narrow majority of 211 against his Liberal Unionist rival. We will take for granted that all the Conservatives who polled for Mr. Johnstone in 1885 polled for Mr. Brydges Willyams on Wednesday. That would have given Mr. Brydges Willyams 2,183 votes to start with. But Mr. Brydges Willyams polled 3,329 votes, so that, if we make no allowance for the increase of the consti- tuency on the new register (which, however, was considerable), 1,146 voters must have polled for the Liberal Unionist on Wednesday who did not poll for the Conservative in 1885. Mr. MacArthur himself polled only 3,540 votes (as against the 4,464 given in 1885 in a smaller constituency for Mr. Borlase). Does not this show conclusively that the longer Cornwall con- siders the subject, the less it likes the Home-rule move- ment ; that if the St. Austell constituency has been nearly carried, the Launceston Division, which was less strongly held in 1885 than the St. Austell, might be quite carried by a Liberal Unionist at the next General Election ; and that a bold man might even make a good fight against Mr. Cony- beare, and imperil his seat, too. Doubtless he made a much better fight against the Liberal Unionist in 1886 than he made against the Conservative in 1885; but that was partly
because he had not an antagonist of so much personal in- fluence to confront, and still more because Cornwall, in its profound confidence in Mr. Gladstone, was taken by surprise.
Reflection has not improved the popularity of Home-rule in the South-West, and with another year like the last, we believe
that every division of Cornwall might be carried against the• disastrous Irish policy of Mr. Gladstone. Even the Wesleyans,.
we observe, are protesting warmly against the impression that their Church identifies itself with any political creed at all,— which means in effect that they protest against being supposed to take up Mr. Gladstone's Irish policy, as Dr. Parker and Mr. Guinness Rogers have taken it up on behalf of the orthodox Dissenters in London. The Wesleyans, though no doubt Mr. MacArthur found much favour in their eyes, are by no means anxious to let it be supposed that they approve, as a religious denomination, the break-up of the United Kingdom. There is another cause besides the issue in relation to Home- rule which has worked very powerfully against the increase of Mr. Gladstone's party at the present time,—we mean the
sanction they have given to the waste of Parliamentary time. We are persuaded that a great many electors who are divided. between Mr. Gladstone and his opponents on the subject of Home-rule, and cannot really make up their minds on that question,—nay, who would by personal preference vote for Mr. Gladstone rather than for any other statesman on earth,— have voted against him not for his Irish policy, but for the powerful aid he has lent to the Parnellites in bringing Parliament itself into contempt. As we said three weeks ago, it was quite open to Mr. Gladstone to have offered the Irish Party his help in obtaining a separate Legislature for Ireland, on condition, and only on condition, that they fought their case as regular parliamentary Oppositions have always fought their case,—i.e., by constitutional discussion, not prolonged to the point, or anywhere near the point, of deliberate obstruction. Mr. Glad- stone had the right and the power to make such terms, which the Parnellites could not possibly have refused. But he did, not make them. He has actually allowed obstruction to ran riot through the whole period of the Session, and hardly ever speaks on the subject without reiterating that, in his, opinion, the Irish Party are in the right in resisting, by any and every parliamentary weapon in their power the passing of a Bill milder in every respect than his own Act of 1882, except only that it does not fix a limit of time to its operation,—though the sting even of that difference ought to be greatly diminished by the fact that any Administration which finds that it can enforce justice in Ireland without it, can at any time dispense with its aid by simply cancelling the pro- clamation of the districts within which the measure is to hold good. It seems to us that the constituencies feel a certain indignation that Mr. Gladstone is ready to defend the parlia- mentary barricades which the Parnellites erect to prevent the passing of this milder Crimes Bill in 1887, when he would have fiercely denounced the Conservatives for helping in the erection of such barricades in 1882 to prevent the passing of his much severer measure. Men say to themselves that as Mr. Gladstone and Lord Salisbury have changed places, Mr. Glad- stone should not thus bitterly resent a policy on Lord Salis- bury's part of which, only five years ago, he was himself the exponent.
The St. Austell division of Cornwall has, then, at least shown as much as this,—that in the South-West of Eng- land, deliberation has greatly strengthened the distrust of Mr. Gladstone's Irish policy, and, indeed, so seriously strengthened it, that another year of such deliberation would well-nigh deprive Mr. Gladstone of all his support in that region. Of course, we do not affirm that York- shire will be as Cornwall, or that Wales will be as Cornwall,— indeed, the latter result is extremely unlikely,—but this we do say, that the prospect of a still more decided declaration of the United Kingdom against Mr. Gladstone's Irish policy at the next Election than even the declaration of 1886, is now ren- dered fairly probable, and that with that prospect in view, the Unionists ought to redouble their zeal to save the Kingdom from the slow disintegration by which it is threatened. Never before did so great a leader commit so grave an error. That indeed, constitutes the magnitude of the danger. No one but Mr. Gladstone could have made the danger a serious one. And if even he fails, no one else will venture to tread the same perilous path.
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