New Zealand Mail. PUBLISHED WEEKLY. FRIDAY, MAY 14, 1886.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 741, 14 May 1886, Page 16

New Zealand Mail. PUBLISHED WEEKLY. FRIDAY, MAY 14, 1886.

After a succession of apparently inconsistent and contradictory telegrams with respect to the attitude of Lord Hartingtou toward Mr Gladstone’s Irish proposals, we hare at last an intimation of singular gravity. It is now stated that Lord Hartington has definitely given notice of his intention to move the rejection of Mr Gladstone’s Home Rule Bill when it comes up for its second reading. He seems to have displayed characteristic hesitation before arriving at that determination to adopt this course. Indecision has indeed been Lord Hartingtons besetting weakness throughout his political life. It had much to do with the wrecking of the Liberal Party’s fortunes, when he held the leadership, and it remains to be seen whether his seeming dilatoriness in declaring his intentions may not in the present instance have seriously prejudiced his chance of defeating Mr Gladstone’s proposals. He appears to have been much more anxious to publish his denial of any intention to coalesce with the Con servatives, with whose chief he nevertheless acted in holding a meeting to denounce the Gladstone scheme. Whether he will be able, with the aid of the other Liberal malcontents and of the whole Conservative party to defeat the scheme, it is impossible to judge from the meagre information obtained through telegrams. Nor can Mr Chamberlain’s action be clearly predicted. Judging from telegrams, he would seem to be disposed rather to force a slight remodelling of the scheme than to make it the means of defeating his late colleagues. But the fuller intelligence received via San Francisco and published in another column, apparently indicate a more serious rupture between Mr Chamberlain and Mr Gladstone than we had been led to suspect. If Mr Chamberlain and his party unite with Lord Hartington and his party and the whole Conservative strength is allied with them in opposing the Ministerial policy, the Government will hardly be able to avert defeat. But whether such an incongruous alliance of Tories and Whigs and Radicals, would be able to do more than this is exceedingly doubtful. It has already been hinted that a dissolution would be claimed in the event of defeat, and in that case there is little security that the free and independent electors would prove capable of grasping the true import of the situation. The GladstoneChamberlain combination won the last election by means of the “ three - acres - and -a - cow ” bait to the newly-enfranchised county electors. Probably Mr Gladstone will promise six acres and two cows this time, and, if so, he is tolerably safe to command again a rural majority — unless, indeed, Lord Salisbury outbids him with nine acres and three cows. In that case the incorruptible country elector would be hopelessly lost to Grand-Old-Manism.