456 GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. (THE ELECTORAL CAMPAIGN.) 



ent composition of parties because of the unal- 

 terable opposition of the Irish Conservatives. 



The political alliance with the Conservatives 

 was kept up in the electoral campaign. On 

 Nov. 23 a manifesto was issued in the name of 

 the National League, advising all Irish voters 

 in Great Britain to vote for the Conservative 

 candidates. The sins of the Liberal party, es- 

 pecially those committed against Ireland, were 

 denounced in scathing terms. The three or 

 four English Radicals who stood by the Irish 

 party in the late Parliament were the only 

 Liberals that received Irish votes with the ap- 

 proval of the League. The intention of the 

 Irish leaders to contest a number of English 

 constituencies containing a large Irish popula- 

 tion was abandoned in most of the boroughs, 

 but in one the Parnellite candidate was suc- 

 cessful. In Ireland the League organization 

 assumed complete control of the nominations, 

 easily overcoming the opposition that was 

 raised in one or two districts. Mr. Callan, 

 Mr. O'Donnell, and Mr. O'Sullivan, of the ad- 

 vanced wing of the party, who had sometimes 

 rebelled against the parliamentary lead of Mr. 

 Parnell, were left off the ticket. Mr. Callan, 

 who set up as an opposition candidate, accused 

 Mr. Parnell of intimidating voters, and threat- 

 ened to dispute the election of Col. Nolan, the 

 elected member for his district. The League 

 ticket swept the country, every province but 

 Ulster returning a solid delegation of Parnell- 

 ites. The Irish Liberals and the Moderate 

 Home -Rulers disappeared from Parliament. 

 In Ulster eighteen Orange Tories were elected ; 

 but the majority of the counties of that prov- 

 ince fell in line with the League. 



The Electoral Campaign. The Conservatives 

 went into the contest without a comprehensive 

 programme, relying upon the diplomatic blun- 

 ders and military failures of the Liberals and 

 their wasteful financial administration to pro- 

 duce a Tory reaction. The division in the 

 Liberal ranks was in their favor ; yet, instead 

 of seeking a coalition with the Whigs, they 

 preferred to maintain the alliance with the 

 Irish party. Mr. Chamberlain came out early 

 with a Radical programme embracing free edu- 

 cation, laborers' allotments, parodied as con- 

 stituting a promise of three acres and a cow to 

 all the new voters, the abolition of entails, the 

 disestablishment of the Church, and direct 

 taxation. The Whigs declared against all the 

 Radical propositions, and appealed for party 

 unity and a campaign without a platform on 

 the strength of Mr. Gladstone's name, declaring 

 that his umbrella was wide enough to cover all 

 shades of Liberalism, and that " the old pilot" 

 would safely guide them as before. The Con- 

 servatives allowed the Tory Democrats to give 

 the cue to the campaign arguments. They raised 

 a protest against disestablishment in England, 

 which was not made an immediate issue by the 

 Radicals ; but only independent Tories resisted 

 the disestablishment of the Scottish Church. 

 They objected to making the schools free. In 



the controversy on this question the United 

 States was frequently adduced, on the strength 

 of the census returns, es a country in which 

 illiteracy prevails. They ridiculed and picked 

 to pieces Mr. Chamberlain's socialistic projects, 

 but did not allow him to raise a distinct issue 

 on the land question, or on that of the reform 

 of taxation except in regard to land-taxes. The 

 repugnance to state socialism, which is as 

 strong among the body of the Tory party as 

 among the Moderate Liberals, was not echoed 

 by the spokesmen of the campaign, who left it 

 to be inferred that they would set to work as 

 willingly as the Radicals, but with more prac- 

 tical wisdom and a more conservative regard 

 for the sacredness of property, for the creation 

 of a peasant proprietary, and the improvement 

 of the condition of the laboring-classes. The 

 sections of the Liberal party led by Mr. Cham- 

 berlain and Lord Hartington, respectively, en- 

 gaged in open hostility and rivalry until Mr. 

 Gladstone induced the former to hold back 

 some of his radical theories, and the party 

 managers compelled rival Liberal candidates in 

 doubtful districts to allow arbitrators to make 

 a selection between them. Mr. Gladstone, 

 who took no part in the early part of the can- 

 vass on account of an ailment of the vocal 

 organs, and was absent on a health tour in 

 Scotland and Norway, issued in September a 

 manifesto, in which he defended his adminis- 

 tration, though admitting mistakes in the Sou- 

 dan, and advocated the projects approved by 

 the Moderate Liberals, such as the enfranchise- 

 ment of the soil, the establishment of local 

 government, the registration and easy transfer 

 of land, the equalization of taxation on land 

 and personal property, and severer measures 

 against obstruction in Parliament. Some of 

 the Radical schemes, such as the abolition of 

 school fees, disestablishment, and the reform 

 of the House of Lords, he spoke of as ulterior 

 subjects of legislation or discussion without 

 indicating his own views, except in equivocal 

 and non-committal phrases. In November Mr. 

 Gladstone assumed personal control of the can- 

 vass, and delivered two of his great speeches 

 in Midlothian. 



The Land Question. One of the foremost ques- 

 tions in practical politics on which action in the 

 next Parliament is expected is that of land re- 

 form in Great Britain. Owing to the embar- 

 rassments of land-owners and farmers, caused 

 by the sinking in the price of grain and other 

 produce, due to foreign competition, all parties 

 advocate changes of one kind or another in the 

 feudal land laws of Great Britain, which until 

 lately were defended by the Conservatives as 

 the indestructible basis of the social and po- 

 litical institutions of England. The relief of 

 landed property from its peculiar burden, the 

 local rates, and the imposition of an equal 

 share of these taxes for public charity, educa- 

 tion, etc., on personal property, has been, while 

 the Tories were out, one of their chief legisla- 

 tive demands. This cry was made less of now 



