THE ULSTER ELECTIONS.
(TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR:']
SIR,—.1 am one of those Liberals who think that Mr. Gladstone's attempted coup d'etat deserved to fail. I wish to point out that in the only part of the kingdom where the Liberal party has gained, namely, in Ulster, their gains would have been greater had the Election not come so suddenly. The change in Ulster appears to be altogether due to the Ballot, and it would have been greater,
if there had been time to din into the ears of the tenant-farmers that the secrecy of the Ballot is impenetrable by the landlords or the landlords' agents. When they are fully convinced of this, the rural constituencies of Ulster will be totally lost to the Con- servatives. I do not speak as a partisan. I voted in County Antrim for the Conservatives on their personal merits ; had I been in County Down, I should have voted for the Liberal. But none the less do I rejoice that the Ballot, as I foresaw it would, is eman- cipating the people from both landlords and priests ; though the constituencies where priestly influence is on the wane are using their freedom with that want of political good-sense which is so dis- couraging to those who wish well to Ireland, by running after the mischievous folly of repeal of the Union (for this, Mr. Gladstone may be assured, is the meaning of Home-rule), instead of an ex- tension of the benefits conferred on the tenants by the Land Act, which is greatly needed in those districts where Tenant right is not proved to exist.
The only seat lost by the Liberals in Ulster is in Belfast. This, however, tells nothing against the spread of independence in Ulster. Belfast is not Conservative, but Orange, and in 1868 a quarrel between the Conservatives and the Orangemen opened a share in the representation of the borough to a Liberal. Mr. Johnston, the Orange Member, who made the quarrel in 1868, has not thought proper to perpetuate it, and Belfast has gone back to its old colours. The Ballot makes no difference in Belfast, for voting there was always free.—I am, Sir, &c., JOSEPH JOHN MURPHY.
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