NEWS OF THE WEEK.
MR. CHAMBERLAIN landed in Ulster on Tuesday, and received a most enthusiastic reception. The harbour of Larne was dressed with flags, crowds welcomed him in Belfast, and his speeches everywhere have attracted audiences so packed as to be dangerous. These speeches have been many and long, so that we can only hope to give an outline of their drift. In the first series, on Tuesday and Wednesday, Mr. Chamberlain stated with great force the Ulster Question. Ireland, he said, was believed to be one ; but of her five millions, two were opposed to Home-rule, and the two include "most of its intelligence and a large proportion of its wealth." If the Parnellite Party were elected by numbers instead of by districts, they would have only sixty, or at most sixty-five Members. He found himself in a province as devoted to the British con- nection as Birmingham, and so singularly prosperous that in 'Ulster alone is an additional quantity of land being taken in for cultivation. "There is an Ireland which is pro- sperms and loyal and contented, and there is an Ireland which is miserable and dissatisfied and continually under the control and leadership of agitatorg who profit by the disturbance that they create." As Ulster refused to be transferred to a Parlia- ment in Dublin which would govern Ireland as the Tammany Ring governed New York, he was justified in asking Mr. Glad- stone what he meant to do with Ulster. The province refused a second place in a petty Kingdom under a Constitution drawn up in Chicago. He maintained that Home-rule must, from its very limitations, inevitably result in Separation, and after observing that in Ireland "the future Judges insult the Bench, the future Executive disobey the pollee," he wound up a speech frequently interrupted by bursts of cheering, with the American verse :— "Sail on, oh ship of State,
Sail on, oh Union strong and great, Humanity with all its fears, With all the hopes of future years, Is hanging breathless on thy fate."
