THE ELECTIONS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM, AND HOME RULE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 54, 9 May 1874, Page 6

THE ELECTIONS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM, AND HOME RULE.

In Ireland, England , Wales, and Scotland, the Home Rule movement has made more progress in a short time, than its most sanguine friends could have anticipated. The late elections have resulted in the return of eighty-nine members of the Imperial Parliament'pledged to vote for Home Rule for Ireland. Of these eighty-nine, Ireland returned sixty, England twenty-three, Scotland three, and Wales three. At no time since the fatal Union did the Imperial Parliament contain so many members pledged to advocate a Parliament for Ireland. With very few exceptions, all the constituencies in Leinster, Connaught, and Minister, have returned representatives pledged to Home Rule ; and even in Ulster, hitherto the stronghold of anti-"NTational principles and unreasoning bigotry, the Home Rulers have gained a great victory. Cavan County has been won from Conservatism and Orangeism, and now holds the distinguished place of the pioneer constituency of Ulster in the cause of self-government. Cavan has at length flung off the incubus of a Tory Oligarchy, and seal two staunch and able Home Rulers to St. Stephens. And there

is every probability of the movement spreading rapidly and widely throughout the province. Coleraine has returned a Liberal ; County Derry, two Liberals ; County Down, one Liberal ; and in other places the anti-Liberal and anti-National candidates have been returned by only small majorities. The probability is, that by the time, when it will be necessary to elect a new Parliament, the present Liberal constituencies will have developed into Home Rulers, and that a more national sentiment than prevails at present, will have taken possession of the Conservatives ot the North. In England, twenty-three members pledged to hand over to Irishmen the management of their own affairs have been fleeted; and amongst the constituencies which have elected! these, are sume of the most important in the Kingdom : such, for example, as Leeds, Hull, Durham, Chelsea, Bolton, Sheffield, Newcastle, Tynemouth, Stafford, Gateshead, Sunderland, <kc, &c. ; whilst in Scotland, Dundee has returned two Home Rulers, and Kilmarnock one. In "Wales, the large and flourishing town of Cardiff, and the two constituencies of Flint and M erthyr-Tydvill have returned one each. And the merest chance prevented the election of Mr Butt himself for Manchester. His nomination was informal, owing to the name of one of his nominators, though an Englishman of ■wealth and respectability, not being on the voter's list. It will be no longer possible for any English Ministry to ignore the Home Rule agitation. No Government can long resist the reasonable demands of ninety members, particularly when sixty of these are pledged to oppose every Ministry that refuses to concede this great measure of justice and restitution. "With such an united and determined body of reprerentatives banging on their outskirts, and harassing every Cabinet, ready in its day of trial to join the opposite party in ousting it, a continuance of injustice is impossible. It appears almost certair, therefore, that before many years, Ireland will see once more her own Parliament sitting in College Green.