The Sun.
London, England, 1868-09-19 00:00:00

THE COMING ELECTIONS 1N IRELAND.

Thoroughness is the chief characteristic
which at present marks the preparations for
the coming elec-tions in Ireland. Priests
and people are unanimous in their determi-
nation to return to the new Parliament none
but men pledged by their character and an-
tecedents, even more than by their word, to
postpone every question of less lasting import-
ance to the complete and thorough abolition
of Protestant ascendancy. Whatever services
a man may have rendered in the past, or may
fairly promise for the future, are blotted out
from the memory or fall dull on the ear of
constituencies, if he does not make the dis-
establishment of the Irish Church his chief
business. No more striking illustration of
this thoroughness and unanimity could be
found than in the declaration of the clergy
of Meath, which we published last week, re-
pudiating in the most emphatic terms the
insinuation that they set a higher value on the
passing of a land bill, however important in
itself, to the abolition of the Irish Establish-
ment. The clergy of Meath are at one with
the clergy and people of Ireland on the para-
mount importance of a thorough settlement
of this great question. In every address,
at every public meeting, in all parts of the
country, on every occasion, in season and out
of season if any occasion of pronouncing a de-
termined opinion can under present circum-
stances be out of season, this thoroughness of
purpose makes itself felt. It is seen in every
Catholic constituency ; it writes with no in-
visible hand on the electoral wall—" No Dis-
raelitish Tory need apply !" It stops the ears
of the Irish people to the words of men who
fancy, or feign, that the disestablishment of
the Irish Church will be carried out as fully
and completely under the manipulation of Mr.
Disraeli, the grand defender of the Royal
Supremacy, and of unmitigated Erastianism,
as by a Gladstone ministry returned to power
for that very purpose bya justice-loving people.
it is mere sham or pretence to say that Whig
or Tory is equally inclined to do this great act
of reparation to Ireland. The issue has been
broadly put to the country, and cannot be
blinked : it is Mr. Disraeli and Protestant
ascendancy, or Mr. Gladstone and disestablish-
ment. The popular mind rejects any over
nice discrimination between the comparative
merits of Kr. Disraeli and Mr. Gladstone. It
sees in any opponent to Mr. Gladstone only
an enemy to the disestablishment of the Irish
Church. And, on the whole, the popular in-
stinct is right. Such thoroughness of purpose
no doubt operates harshly in individual cases,
but when the public heart is stirred, it seizes
upon general outlines and broad issues. To
such an impulse is to be attributed, we imagine,
the opposition which men who have deserved
so well of Catholic support as Sir George
Bowyer and Sir Joseph M'Kenna have met
with. Such an opposition, though much to
be deprecated, is not so ungenerous as it ap-
pears at first sight. It is mainly due, we
believe, to the deep-rooted idea that Pro-
testant ascendancy in Ireland can only be
abolished by Mr. Gladstone's aid, and that
every man, however opposed to the Irish
Church, who is not a supporter of Mr. Glad-
stone, is a hindrance rather than a help in the
coming Parliamentary campaign. Sir George
Bowyer's and Sir Joseph M'Kenna's services,
in helping to carry against Tory opposition the
disestablishment of the Irish Church, will be
too invaluable to be inconsiderately thrown
away. As real representatives of Catholic and
Irish interests, no constituency ought, we
think, to reject them under the mistaken
notion that by so doing it is servicing the
cause which is as dear to these two zealous
Catholic members as it is to the most deter-
mined of the electors themselves.
Every force ought to be husbanded ; the
battle is beginning throughout the country ;
victory may cost a hard and perhaps prolonged
fight ; but such an act of national justice and
reparation as the disestablishment and disen-
dowment of the Irish Church will far more
than atone for sufferings incurred in the con-
test. The abolition of Protestant ascendancy
in Ireland will place Catholics throughout the
United Kingdom on quite a different footing,
and will remove more than one material ob-
stacle to its progress. Already the struggle is
bearing its fruits. If, on the one hand, it has
excited a no-Popery bigotry, and it has only
done so to a limited extent, it has, on the
other, as has been the case in every great
movement the Catholic Church has made in
these countries, brought to our side the lovers
of justice and fair play, as well as the seekers
after truth. The overthrow of Protestant
ascendancy in Ireland is the first step towards
the overthrow of anti-Catholic prejudice and
misrepresentation in the United Kingdom.-
117 i stilt/Jester Gazette.

MISCELLANEOUS NEWS.

(Front the Anglo-American Times.)

It is vain to predict what the election in Cali-
fornia has been, when at any n•oment the result
may be known. All the Democratic calculations
include California among the States sure to give
their electoral votes for Seymour and Blair.
Although the strong Radical papers dispute this,
they do so feebly, and it is clear that if California
went Republican that party would be the most sur-
prised. Last year California gave the Democrats a
majority of 3,000 ; but the Radicals assert that the
battle was fought upon local issues, which split
their strength into fragments. Mr. Gorham, who
was then the apple of discord, has been removed to
a higher sphere, and if the last elections have been
carried by the Democrats, it would show that the
Pacific States are unanimous in their support of the
Democratic ticket. In 1864, M'Clellan polled
43,841 votes. In 1867 Holden, the Democratic
candidate for Lieut.-Governor (the total vote for
the Lieut.-Governor being larger than for Gover-
nor), received 47,969—the coincidence indicating
very clearly that the whole Democratic strength
was brought out. In 1864, Lincoln received 62,134
votes, while the Republican candidate for Lieut.-
Governor in 1867 polled but 44,584.
The legislators of the Southern States are not
likely to add much to the dignity of these assem-
blies through their personnel. The world is censori-
ous ; and whatever might be the legislative wisdom
of the members, it insists, at least in an Anglo-
Saxon community, that their calling should in some
degree correspond with the position they assume as
representatives of their fellows. A coloured State
Senator of Louisiana, it is said, took up the post of
barber on board a Mississippi steamboat during the
Legislature recess, and two Representatives for the
same period held the useful but not very dignified
places of cabin-boys. In Alabama, at the hotels of
Montgomery, the State Capital, the negro mem-
bers of the Legislature proved useful as waiters,
spending part of their time in cleaning the " re-
bels' " plates, and the other portion in legislating
for their better behaviour. What an example for
the British House of Commons, where the members
only dirty boots and plates, instead of cleaning
them, and in consuming food instead of cooking it !
Although the British Parliament has grown old in
idleness, it is never too late to mend. We do not
appeal to the Lords, for we know it is useless to lay
this brilliant example before that effete assembly,
but better things may be hoped for from a Reformed
House of Commons.

An Order in Council prohibited the landing of
hay from the United States in any port in tha
United Kingdom without a special licence, under
the authority of the Privy Council. This is in con-
sequence of the cattle disease, which has caused so
much loss and alarm in various States of the
Union. The Irish Farmer's Gazette has taken
strong grounds in urging the Government to this
step, for if there is one thing, more dreaded in Ire-
land than another, it is the introduction of pleuro-
pneumonia. The disease, which is imported from
Yews, appears to be dying out in the other States
as suddenly as it was introduced, and is probably
the result of the unusual drought, ceasing when
the conditions of weather which produced it
changed..
That the record of the four candidates is more