NEWS OF THE WEEK
A RL I AM E N T is to meet on Tuesday, February ith, not
earlier than usual. Some of our Liberal contemporaries have been amusing themselves with painting a most misleading and pessimistic picture of the majority at the disposal of the Government, which they have managed to reduce to a point at which, according to them, the desertion of a dozen or a dozen and a half Whigs would land the Liberals in a defeat. This is all delusion. When this Parliament first assembled, the Liberals, if only thirty-one of the Home-rulers had voted with them, and thirty-two against them, would have had a majority of 114. We can still count on at least twenty-eight Home. rulers for the Government, and count on them more certainly than ever on any question not directly involving Home-rule, .and on that question the Tories will hardly join the Home- 'rulers. Counting that the Liberals have lost a balance of ten seats since the general election, the Government can still ensure a working majority of considerably over eighty, and even if all the Liberal Home-rulers declined to vote on some exceptional occasion, a majority of considerably over fifty.
