PREPARING FOR THE GENERAL ELECTION.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XI, Issue 23, 28 September 1883, Page 25

PREPARING FOR THE GENERAL ELECTION.

(Correspondence of the Boston Pilot, August 180 Fob the general election is imminent. In two months it may arrive, with all its confusion ; at any rate it is almost certain to take place before this year, now half run out, is over. The English Press, Liberal and Conservative, discount ihe contingency. This imminent general election is found to be the most momentous that has ever taken place in Ireland. The interests of the whole Irish people all the world over, who desire the freedom of their native land, are concerned in it. It behoves them to look on it with more interne attention than they ever gave to any Irish election. How are the Irish people in America and Ireland preparing for the contingency that may be upon them at any moment ? For Irish Americans we have but to say that, as yet, they may not fully realise what the crisis means and what it will require from them ; and, possibly, they may not bestir themselves to intelligent action until Mr. Parnell arrives and sets the ball rolling. For Ireland, we rejoice to say, the people there and their National leaders have begun their preparations with splendid ardor. In England, and Scotland, too, the Irish and their National leaders have stripped to the work. In every constituency in the three kingdoms where there is an Irish Nationalist vote worth talking of- they are as busy as blacksmiths, preparing for the general election. As far as the part which the Irish at the other side of the Atlantic can, are to take goes, everything indicates that that part at least of national struggle will be properly performed. The cable dispatch of the Irish news Agency this week tells us that the work has begun in the capital city under the direction of Mr. Sexton, without waiting for the Parliamentary recess. Private despatches from political friends in Ireland and England enable us to judge of the work the National League has taken in hand elsewhere than in Dublin. The first and most troublesome task to be attacked in every constituency is the overhauling of the registration. Every man who is entitled to a vote must, on or before a certain day, every year, attend at the taxing office in his district and have himself duly registered. Otherwise, when an election arrives and he goes to cast his vote, he finds that his name has been struck off the voters' list, and that he is practically, for that year, disfranchised. Hitherto the popular side has been neglectful to an immense extent in this direction. Previous to the general election of 1880 the National spirit had not been waked up to a sense of all that conld be done by proper Parliamentary representation' In the constituencies where the popular vote overwhelmingly predominated, they took no trouble. In constituencies where the equipoisa was narrow, the fact that " National " candidates were, as a rule of such a "nominal" character— English Whigs scarcely disguised — made the people largely indifferent as to whether they were misrepresented by an out-and-out and openly-declared enemy or by a treacherous quasi friend. Up in the North the case was thought so hopeless that a Nationlist candidate never ventured there, and the Nationalist electors, in a fight between representatives of the English parties merely, did not feel interested enough to go to the polling booth, let alone to visit the taxing office to make sure of having a vote. The enemy, on the other hand, never were deluded by any chance into neglecting the registration. Liberal and Conservative Registration Committees and clubs existed in every country and borough. Jn addition to securing that every voter of their parly was properly registered they lodged hundreds and hundreds of bogus objections against such popular voters as they knew would go co far as to visit the taxing office to be registered, but would stop before they would attend a court to dispute a crochelty objection. These objections, not being disputed, were thus declared valid and an additional large class of National voters disfranchised. The result of this popular negligence and anti-popular vigi'aace, in regard to registration was a weakening of the popular forces in many ways. Besides the actual loss of votes, a false idea as to the relative strength of the opposing parties in the constituencies obtained all over Ireland. In this false idea seats were left uncontested that might be won, and touch hurt in the way of loss of self-confi-dence and discouragement was done to the National spirit in general. The election of 1880 changed this state of things considerably ; but it is only recent events, notably the elections of Mallow and Monaghan, that have opened the eyes of Irish Nationalists to the real importance of the question of registration. Now that their eyes are opened, they are going to repair the damage inflicted during several years, and they are going to work, to all appearances, in a way that will leave no stone unturned. Considering the accumulaarrears that must exist after all these years of neglect, it will ■^c understood that the task the Irish Nationalists have set themselves in this regard is no light one. Dublin County would not have been won by King-Harman at the recent election on the death of that staunch old- Tory, Colonel Taylor, but for the neglected state of the National registration and the perfected condition of the enemy's. This registration question was Colonel Taylor's hobby ; and the result of that election and every other in Dublin County showed what a sensible hobby it was. It is now calculated that the overhauling of the registration, just begun, will add no less than 3,000 Nationalist votes to the Dublin electorate — enough to secure a popular majority in both city and county. So that when Mr. MacMahon, and, possibly, Lord Mayor-elect Meagher, together with Mr. E. Dywer Gray, and possibly, Mr. Parnell, will oppose the Lyons and Brooks, King-Harmans and Tottenhams, of Dublin City and County, they will be returned at the poll high above those tones, renegades, and white-washed Whigs. There are constituencies like Dundalk, now misrepresented by Mr. Charles Russell, and Kinsale and Youghal, and Atblone, and Portarlington, in mid and'southern Ireland, where an examination o the electorate is revealing the National vote as irresistibly strong when properly registered. All cause for anxiety with regard to the result

of elections in these places will be removed with the completion of the registration. Bnt the most extraordinary discoveries are being made with regard to the North. That astonishing victory in Monaghan has set everybody thinking and calculating. Hitherto the North was considered as a sort of sacred ground for Presbyterian Whigs and Tories, which was as if marked off by a pale, beyond whose rigid line no Catholic dare trespass. In Parliament this was the vaunt of the Ulster members, who pointed out in opposing every national demand that " the great province of Ulster " wanted none of it. But the Rev. Harold Rylett, an Ulster Unitarian clergyman and well-known National Leaguer, has shown by a caieful analysis that the Catholics in the so-called Orange Province are just as numerous as the Protestants, and Catholic in the North always means Nationalist ; and, furthermore, that if that measure of household suffrage promised by the Liberal Govenment were granted, the startling result would be able to return without effort at least fourteen Nationalists to Parliament ! As it is, it is pretty certain that Down, Donegal, Armagh, Tyrone, and Antrim, among the Northern counties, may be relied on to follow the example of Monaghan. Even the Tories admit that three out of these five, Donegal, Tyrone and Armagh, will go over to the Nationalists without a doubt. Among the Ulster boroughs, Dunganon, Newry, and Londonderry, are looked upon as safe and almost sure to give representatives to the cause ; while Belfast is expected to return at least one supporter of Mr. Parnell. Special and very vigorous preparations are now in progress for contesting the constituencies ; the registration is being thoroughly overhauled, the dormant Nationality, of the Catholics, and the Presbyterian tenant farmers, who are tired of being humbugged by place-hunting hangerson of English parties, is fully aroused, and proper candidates are being chosen carefully befrehand. It is needless to dwell on the case of the Southern and Western constituencies, whose representatives, returned on the National pledge have betrayed them in Parliament. These constituencies were always able to return Nationalists, and when the opportunity comes, they will kick the renegades out without ceremony. Reviewing the whole position in Ireland, it is now as certain as any human speculation can be, that, with the way the National party are going to work there, Mr. Parnell, after the next general election, will be furnished by Ireland alone with at least eighty-four supporters —that is to say, with four-fifths of the Irish representation. These will be amply sufficient to enable him to paralyze the energies of Parliament, and to bring about that contigency dreaded by the St. James Gazette when the English " must consent to see their political life, utterly disorganised, or must grant to\lreland whatever measure of Home Mvle it claims." . Bo far reference has only been made to what Ireland herself is doing and about to do in regard to the general election. The part that the Irish in England are about to take will be another source of National strength, which will call for consideration also. Meanwhile, is it not time for the Irish- Americans to consider how tliey are going to help in this momentous crisis ?