THE HOME ELECTIONS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 8956, 13 August 1892, Page 3

THE HOME ELECTIONS.

RESULT, INCIDENTS, AND SPECULAI TIONS. From our American newspaper files to July 22, we extract the following concerning the political situation at home Her Majesty signed the decree dissolving Parliament June 28th, and the writs for a new election were distributed the same evenmg ' THE QUEEN'S SPEECH. "The time has arrived when it is expedient that the electoral body of the country should be consulted by the assemblage of a new Parliament. I have, therefore, summoned you at an earlier period than usual. lam glad that my friendly relations with the foreign Powers remain unaltered. Treaties have been duly ratified referring the differences with the United States with respect to theßehring Sea to arbitration." Referring to Bills passed at the session just ended, the Speech says : " The arrangements that Parliament made concerning working-men to purchase agricultural holdings will iucrease the class of cultivating owners, which is of great importance to the State. The application to Ireland of educational measures, recently adopted in Great Britain, will confer great benefits upon the people of that country." The Speech concluded : "In closing this Parliament, which has been unusually laborious and also highly fruitful in beneficent legislation, I thank you for the assiduous performance of your momentous duties during the past six years, and heartily commend you to the favour of Almighty God." Only '20 Commoners and 35 Lords were present at the delivery of the Speech.

RESULT OF THE ELECTIONS. The general elections opened on July 1, with the return, without opposition, of Lord Randolph Churchill (Conservative) for South Paddington. On the 19th, only two members of the House of Commons remained to be elected. Of these, one was at Tipperary, and the other at the Orkney Islands. The parties now stand : — Government 314 position 354 The districts to be heard from will go Gladstonian, giving him a majority in the next House of 42.

The Conservative and Liberal - Unionist press, says a London dispatch of July 18, has evidently received an intimation that the plan of the opponents of Home Rule will be a rabid and uncompromising opposition to every attempt made by Mr. Gladstone. He is to be obstructed in every way, .and the Labourites are to be encouraged and the Parnellites stimulated to oppose him. The Tories are confident that Mr. Gladstone's majority will prove too precarious for general use, and they mean to make the situation as uncomfortable as possible. The situation, as stated by several Liberals, is that they will play for two or three sessions before dissolving Parliament, and will not rush the Home Rule Bill. If constrained to give it precedency, they will not accept its rejection by the House of Lords as necessitating immediate dissolution, but will proceed with measures tending to strengthen the Liberal vote throughout the country. The I'all Mall Gazette of the 18th had a rumour that tho Queen would send for the Duke of Devonshire instead of Mr. Gladstone, but the best informed Liberals ridiculed this. Meantime, it is said that Mr. Gladstone's health is causing uneasiness to his friends. His exertions in the Midlothian campaign told heavily upon him. He begins to show the feebleness of age. When staying at Dalmeny with Lord Ro-sebery during the campaign lie repeatedly fell sound asleep during dinner. On two occasions this occurred after the first course, and he was removed to his bedroom in his chair asleep and put to bed. For some weeks, says a despatch from London, there have been rumours afloat to the effect that .Mr. Gladstone intends to take refuge in the House of Lords after the approaching general election, and it is not at all unlikely that he will do so. Although his health is surprisingly good for a man of his age, the inevitable infirmities of 84 years press heavily upon him. His physical strength is failing. He is growing very deaf, and his eyesight is giving way.

INCIDENTS OF THE CAMPAIGN. While driving through Chester oil the 25th, to attend a meeting of the Liberal Club, the ex-Premier was struck near the eye by what was supposed to be a stone. It was ascertained subsequently that the guilty person is a woman, and that the missile was a large piece of hard gingerbread. In spite of this incident Gladstone made a spirited speech at the meeting, and at the close the speaker received an ovation. After examining his eye, the oeculist stated that there was a large abrasion at the corner, extend-' ing to the edge of the pupil. There was a wound on his nose also, which bled freely. After treatment and seclusion* for a few days, however, it was found the' injury to the organ was onlv temporary, and not permanent, as feared The woman who threw the missile was recognised as the wife of an artisan. During his speech Mr. Gladstone remarked that there was no doubt in his mind the person who wounded him had done so from malice. He said the opponents of the Liberals were fighting them with intimidation, the invention of religious bigotry. He added : "For the first time in our history the Prime Minister is a firebrand in the land."

At Cork, June 29, Mr. Win. O'Brien said that the Nationalists had entire confidence in Mr. Gladstone, and that the Ho..ie Rule measure proposed by him would, in some respects, be better than the Home Rule Bill which Mr. Parnell had approved in 1886. Lord Rosebery met Mr. Gladstone and his party upon their arrival in Edinburgh, dune 29. The route to D.ilmeny Park, the Earl's country seat, where Mr. Gladstone was a guest, was lined with enthusiastic crowds, and the progress from the station to the park was one long ovation. Addresses were presented to Mr. Gladstone at various stations on the way to Edinburgh. To each of these testimonials he replied in a brief speech, speaking from the window of the carriage in which he was travelling. The crowds of his admirers who thronged about the stations received his remarks with rapturous applause, and in every instance Mr. Gladstone was heartily cheered until the train rolled from the depot. While Mr. Gladstone was addressing a Liberal gathering at Costophiue, Mr. Usher, the brewer, appeared with a huge manuscript in hand, and began to put questions to Mr. Gladstone. The crowd greeted him with a storm of abuse, but Usher, amid continued interruptions, demanded whether the Liberal leader approved of the plan of campaign in Ireland. Mr. Gladstone indiguantly said that the questioner had never taken pains to read his speeches. lie reiterated that the Government had br light about the plan of campaign. When the uproar had subsided, Mr. Usher said : "Then I understand that, under these circumstances, Mr. Gladstone approves the plan of campaign." Mr. Gladstone responded, with intense irony, shaking his finger, and saying : " I'm not responsible for this gentleman's understanding. 1 m responsible for the understanding the Almighty has been pleased to lodge in this skull of mine; but I am not responsible for the understanding Almighty God has been pleased to lodge in that skull of his." Mr. Usher asked about the law of conspiracy, and Mr, Gladstone, with a fierce flash of his eye, said : " You want to entangle me in a legal question." Mr. Usher then demanded : " Would vou accept an alliance with the Parnellites if you could get it?" Mr. Gladstone trembled with indignation. He paused for a moment, and then began "I wish, my friend, that—" The crown shouted : "Don't answer," and the chairman of the meeting declared that the question was impertinent, and said he wouldn't allow it. The packed meeting concluded with hearty cheers for Mr. Gladstone.

Mrs. Cornwallis West, who canvassed for her husband in Wales, cried to quell a disturbance on July 5 among the electors, who refused to hear her husband speak. She said, "I am an Irishwoman ; but it was not until I came to Wales that I found men capable of refusing to hear a woman who was pleading their cause." She was interrupted by a storm of yells and hisses. Pluckily leaving her husband's platform, she forced her way to the stand from which ati opposition orator was addressing the crowd, and tried to argue him into silence. He shook his first in her face, and repelled the attempt. Finally, a melee occurred, and Mrs. West was forced to return to the Unionists' platform. The meeting then broke up in disorder.

STANLEY AS A CANDIDATE. A despatch from London mentions the fact that the canvass being made by Stanley, or rather by Stanley's female relatives, on behalf of his candidacy for the Unionist ticket in North Lambeth is rather lively. Stanley is fat- from being a. political or an effective stump speaker, and he makes a miserable failure as a candidate, especially when addressing Radical workmen. He is too quick-tempered and imperious to take guying in good part, and soon gets "rattled," turns fiery red in the face, and makes angry retorts, sometimes ending by an abrupt withdrawal from the platform. At the Doulton Pottery Works business was suspended in order to allow the workmen to listen to the address. His appearance was the signal of loud cheers for Gladstone, leader of the opposite party. Mrs. Stanley kept by his side pulling his coat and prompting him as if he were a schoolboy. The workmen bothered him with all sorts of questions, asking him why he posed some time ago as an American, and was now a rabid Britisher, and finally putting the inquiry, what he was. anyway, American, English, Welsh, or African? The last query evidently riled Stanley a good deal, but his

I wife came to the rescue with a very sensible ' I reply to the effect that he had proved hia : English citizenship and his interest in the couutry bv voting two years ago in London. Mrs. Stanley lost her head later, however, and repeated a remark that was . much ridiculed when she first made it from the platform that Lambeth would disgrace itself if it did not elect as its representative in Parliament the greatest man in England. Another meeting was held in a hall, subsequently, where there was almost a riot, no kind of order being preserved. Reference by Stanley to Africa elicited shouts of " Where's Emin Pasha ?" " On, Stanley, On," etc. Stanley again lost his temper, and roared out " You remind me of the savages I met in Africa." This only made matters worse, and Stanley soon retired, with some in the crowd calling out that they would vote for the " missus'," as she was the better of the two. A late number of the Pall Mall Gazette had a cartoon picturing Stanley relieving the Starvation Camp of the Unionists. It reE resents Chamberlain sitting on an empty ox surrounded by graves marked " Pigott, 1 ' " Hurlburt," near a tent labelled " Ulster Hospital." Everything has a hopeless look. Suddenly Stanley appears in the distance waving a flag with the word " Unionism," and bearing a bundle under his arm endorsed " Electors' Address." The cartoon is full of clever hits, and was much laughed at. Everybody agrees that the Unionists have made a mistake in their candidate, and that Stanley has made a mistake in consenting to stand.

Stanley and his wife met with even a rougher reception from the tough electors of Lambeth when they attempted to speak there again on June 29. The police seemed to be powerless to quell the disturbance, and eventually the meeting broke up in a general fight, followed by persistent attempts to assault the candidate and his wife. As soon as Stanley appeared on the platform, someone shouted, Three cheers for Gladstone," followed by such cries as, "How many niggers did you kill?" "Sit down," " Let your wife talk for you," "Go back to Africa," and others equally irritating. He was derided all through. When Mrs. Stanley took the platform, she was but little better received tnan the candidate, and her attempts to discuss political issues were lost in the uproarious demands that her husband speak tor himself. She lost her lines of thought in the confusion, and was terribly embarrassed. When leaving the hall, the Stanleys had to fij»ht their way to the door through blows and abuse, coming out with their hats smashed and clothes torn. The mob then bore down on Stanley's carriage, and he was barely able to get Mrs. Stanley inside when they were upon him. They wrenched off one door after ho had jumped in, but before they could do more mischief the driver got his horses into a gallop, and left the mob howling behind him. Mrs. Stanley was badly frightened. She was almost in hysterics when she left the hall, and screamed repeatedly in the carriage. Stanley took his defeat in very bad grace, and was scarcely civil to his successful opponent. The London Chronicle crowed over him. Stanley had left for a holiday in Wales, as both himself and his wife are worn out. General Fraser, who might have won Lambeth for the Tories, was absolutely forced out of his candidacy, it is said, by the persecutions of Stanley's mother-in-law, who wanted the explorer to stand. Finally, when the General was apprised of the coining of Mere Tennant to his residence, he used to le ive by the backdoor. Hence, to get rid of her importunity, he declined to stand for the seat.

A PRIEST DENOUNCES PARNELL. Archbishop Walsh had written a letter to the Catholic clergy in his diocese, urging them to use every effort to preserve peace among the people. In the face of this the Rev. Father Boehan, a Dublin priest, said at a v p»ublic meeting on June 30 that Parnell had been a curse to the country. ''God thrust him down to the grave," he added, " where his b'mes are now rotten and his flesh putrid. The Parnellites did homage to every lascivious man living a loose life. Every drunkard, every man who liked to beat his wile, was a Parnellite." This language aroused angry remonstrances''' from many of his heat ers, and then Father Bochan exclaimed " When we are your masters we will crush you." This utterance added to the excitement. Bochan then shouted to the anti-Par-nellitea to throw the Parnellites out of the windows, and also directed the police to use their batons on the Parnellites. " The day for this is over," exclaimed one of the audience. The police prevented a personal conflict. The Dublin Independent says any layman would be horsewhipped for such language as Father Bochan used, and that the people have endured such priestly indecencies too long. If Archbishop Walsh does not put a stop to this kind of thing the people will.