The Sun.
London, England, 1857-03-28 00:00:00

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IRISH POLITICS.

BELFAST, MAR= 24.
There seems very little doubt that, generally, the Irish
Elections will go against Lord Palmerston. This is ef-
fected by very strange political distractions. In the
County Tipperary, the Tories had no chance, and the
contest being bet ween a protege of Mr. George Moore
and a Mr. Waldrop, who was Whig pure and very
simple, the Tories voted against Mr, Waldron and re-
turned " The O'Donoghue." This will occur in several
Counties, and in Boroughs the Independent party re-
turns the compliment by voting invariably against the
mere Whig for the Derbyite. Lord Palmerston is
likely to lose, at least, twenty votes in the Irish Elec-
tions. The only constituency that pledges itself to his
Government is that of Belfast—certainly the most " ad-
vanceci" town in the United Kingdom, but, for some
years, abjectly in the hands of an Orange faction.
Here the political game is very peculiar. There
are five candidates ; the two sitting Members,
Messrs. Cairns and Davison, an ultra-Presbyterian
puppet, Mr. Thomas M'Clure, and two Radical can-
didates, Mr. M'Clean, the well-known London En-
gineer, a native of Belfast, and Mr. J. F. Ferguson,
one of our first merchants. As regards the Burgess-
roll, the contest would be hopeless for the Liberals, but
—indicating a very prevailing feeling—the mercantile
people generally, Conservative and Liberal, are so
strongly in favour of Lord Palmerston, that hundreds
of Tory votes will be given, on purely commercial
principles, against the Tory candidates, both of whom
figured in the division against the Government on Mr.
Cobden's China motion. This opportunity of destroying
"Orange" ascendancy is being made the most of by the
Liberals, and there seems every certainty of Mr.
M'Clean being returned—a distinct gain to Lord Pal.
merston of one vote. Theie is, in Belfast, an inextri-
cable connexion between the local and the Imperial poli.
tics. The Belfast Corporation (Tory) are in Chancery,
besieged by the ratepayers, for inalversation of property
—and as this Corporation has an " Indemnity" Bill
standing over, in the House of Commons, for a second
reading, the conviction affecting the whole contest is
that the Government, if favoured with the return of a
Palmerstonian candidate, will " settle" this Indemnity
Bill, and effectually dispose of the Conservative Town
Council. But, even apart from these peculiarly local
considerations, there is here, in the commercial capital
of Ireland, where the Irish problem of mixed races and
opposing creeds is concentrated--an intelligible and
earnest fight between Irish Orangeism and Imperial
Liberalism. Belfast is intensely Radical, and the masses
here have a very remarkable man for their leader—a
Young Inlander imprisoned in 1848, but now with
modified, and yet enlarged, politics, appealing for con-
ditional imperialism to the whole democracy of the
country, and, at present, ardently engaged in procuring
the return of Mr. McClean. This is Mr. John Rea,
who is a very effective speaker, and who is more power-
ful in Ulster than any other rem He is emphatically
Palmerstonian, and the course he is pursuing in favour
of the Government is more or less influencing the
whole politics of the Nortls. The Government, secure
of its English and Scotch majorities, seems to be very
earelees In. respect to the Irish elections ; but this
Palmerstonian ardour of Mr. Rea is understood to indi-
cate some tendency in Lord Palmerston to deal fairly
and comprehensively with the Tenant Right question.
All the elections in the North will be affected by the
result of the contest in Belfast. The town is in a state
of great excitement.

A letter from Cattaro in the Agram Gazette says :
" A priest, named Mina, and Captain de Negos have
been arrested at Cettingen as accomplices of Lucas
Radonitch. It is said that the conspiracy of the latter
counted above 200 members."

kaTHE BALLOT.—The following is an extract from a
letter dated Collingwood, Melbourne, Australia, Nov
12, 1857 We tried the ballot in the recent elections,
and it answers admirably, doing away, in a great mea
sure, with treating and intimidation, and consequently
securing a better class of members."
_