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Balfour's opponent, Professor Munro, did everything but beat him. He palled down bis majority to nugnificently slender proportion!, and made the best of a fight. Mr T. P. O'Connor writes pleasantly about him in his Sunday Sun :— " You should have seen the warmth of the shake of the hands that man after man came to cffer the opponent of Mr Balfoar. And think of the bittemest of the many noble men and noble women who looked to Professor Mnnro to finally avenge the cruelties and shame of coercion. I have heard of women ehedding tears when they heard that Professor Muoro had not won. Altogether I have not met a better candidate, and though he modestly complains that the struggle ought to have been taken up by a more prominent man, I doubt if any man io the country oould have made a fight more energetic, braver or more successful. It was Dot— everybody in Manchester, Liberal or Tory, knows it— on their merits that Professor Munro lost and Mr Balfour won. The struggle had many picturecque features. Professor Munro is an Ulster Protestant, one of the men for whose religious liberties Mr Balfoar professes to think the Union is necessary. That is not all. His grandfather was a staunch Ulster Nationalist, and was banged at his own halldoor in the troublous times of '98. On the mother's side he comes from the family of Sbarman Crawford— the greatest and the earliest friend of tenant right His wife — also an Ulster Protestant —is as energetic and vehement as Professor Munro himself in Nationalist convictions. Altogether, it was a fight in which every Irishman could feel that he had a champion worthy of his people and his cause. We have not beard the last of Professer Mnnro— far from it. He ought to be in this Parliament to defend the rights of his country in the fine, clear North of Ireland accent of his, and with that merciless logic with which he has tracked and dogged every speech of Mr Balfour." We (Glasgow Observer) trust Mr O'Connor's wish will yet be gratified.

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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZT18920930.2.10

Bibliographic details

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XX, Issue 50, 30 September 1892, Page 7

Word Count
351

Untitled New Zealand Tablet, Volume XX, Issue 50, 30 September 1892, Page 7

Untitled New Zealand Tablet, Volume XX, Issue 50, 30 September 1892, Page 7