TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE LIMERICK ELECTION.
AMONG its other attributes, the Irish nation is endowed with a liberal imagination and a convenient memory. There is as much joy over Mr. Isaac Butt's election as if, in Curran's words concerning Plunket's return to the Imperial Parliament, he were " like Gylippus, whom the Spartans sent alone as a reinforcement to their distressed ally,—Gylippus, in whom were concentrated all the energies and all the talents of his country." In this case, the Athenians probably flatter themselves that they understand the value of Gylippus rather better than the Spartans. But the rejoicing of Limerick is, as it were, over one who has undergone the " baphometic fire-baptism," and been born anew. It is for the very prodigal of Irish politics that the fatted calf is killed, " all on the Shannon shore." It is to celebrate a conversion so tardy, so headlong, and so whole- sale that there is nothing like it among the many miracles recorded in the annals of agitation, that Limerick gives uproar- ious vent to its patriotic ardour. In Isaac it hails another Daniel come to judgment. The absence of the candidate from the hustings, for reasons much better understood for not being explained, gives a character which anywhere else would be regarded as wanting in dignity to the nomination of the apostle of the cause of a nation ; but in Limerick, doubtless, it is benevolently interpreted as the result of some profound conspiracy of the Castle. The scene altogether is one such, that if Mr. O'Connell's ghost is ever allowed to revisit the scenes of his power and glory, one can conceive the old man's keen eye taking in all at a glance, and then praying rather to be sent back to Purgatory.
To an Irish politician who has watched the course of events in that country for the last thirty years or so, there must be something bewildering, if not disheartening, in such an event as this. Mr. Butt, a young man of precocious talents, and addicted to serious studies, was elected Professor of Political Economy by Trinity College in his twenty-third year. He entered public life as the leader of the Tory party in the Dublin Corporation ; he was their chosen champion against O'Connell, when the great agitator moved the Council to declare in favour of Home Rule. He afterwards entered Parliament while the vast emigration that followed the famine was in full career, and while the party, of which Mr. Gavan Duffy, Mr. Lucas, Serjeant Shee, and Mr. Moore were the most conspicuous members, vainly endeavoured to induce Par- liament to anticipate that policy which history will declare to have been the crowning honour of Mr.
Gladstone's fame. Mr. Butt was for fifteen years in Parliament ; and he was by no means a silent member. He entered the House of Commons as a Protectionist, and he adhered to Protection even after Mr. Disraeli had ventured to sneer at the very name. In the course of years he made the circuit of the House, and became an assiduous though unat- tached Palmerstonian. Ho gave the service of his abilities to many causes, far and near,—the claims of Hindoo Nabobs to further Laos, the rights of Munster weir-owners to keep all
the salmon to themselves. But during those many years, when the cause of Religious Equality and the cause of the Irish tenant were often pleaded almost hopelessly to the House, never did Mr. Butt lend the aid of his burning zeal and his abundant eloquence to their support. In 1865 he lost his seat in Parliament, and he promptly took refuge in patriotism. The generous causes which he had opposed in the ardour of his youth, or ignored when his abilities and experience were mature, he laid hold of, appropriated to himself, claimed to have discovered anew the secret of their force, or to have invented new methods to their accomplishment when well-nigh sixty years of age. He labelled each of them as his own with a pamphlet. He gave a bond, he quite forgets for what amount, that he would repeal the Union within, we do not exactly remember how many years, but less than five. If Mr. Butt's opinions con- tinue to expand in the same ratio as they have done since he was unseated at Youghal, it will not be easy to say where he may be found at the end of five years. It may be in a Trappist cell, and it may be in the Commune. Under Lord Palmerston's rule, it might have been on the bench at Bombay.
But the House of Commons, one-half of whose Members know Mr. Butt of old, will not be so credulous perhaps of his miraculous political transformation as the populace of Limerick ; succeeded in murdering Mr. Smith O'Brien, Mr. Mitchel, and Mr. Meagher for presuming to doubt O'Connell's doctrine that moral force only ought to be employed in political operations, has always been exceedingly suspicious of its idols. It is not to be regretted by any wise or honest Englishman that the question of Home Rule, like any other question which enlists the sympathies of a considerable portion of the Irish People,. should be exhaustively debated in Parliament ; and it is now only too probable that it will, with little practical advantage, occupy the place in the debates of next Session that the yet unfolded chapter of Mr. Gladstone's Irish policy, Education, might otherwise have held. But what is in reality to be most apprehended for the Irish people is a still further sinking of the standard of public life, already lowered to a lamentable degree ; and their abandonment to strong delusions in regard to both men and things, from which they will awaken after a little to cry out that they have been again betrayed and sold. There is an utter absence of moral force and common-sense apparent in the present conduct of Irish popular politics.
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