We have dealt elsewhere with the prospects of the elections,
and will not attempt to say more here. In a very few hours the results of the first elections will be known. We may say, however, that Friday's news shows conclusively that there is a great movement throughout the country in favour of the Unionists, and one which is bound to affect the polling. The Unionists not only say that they desire that the will of the people should prevail, but are willing to provide the machinery to make their words effective. The Liberals do but offer lip-service to the essential principle of democracy. They say they want the will of the people to prevail, but they are determined at all costs to prevent the establishment of the only effective system for securing that the people shall have the final word in all matters of grave legislative import- ance. We trust to the political instinct of the electors to enable them to realise which party in the State now stands for true democracy. There is of course nothing new in the distrust of the people's will shown by the Radical Party. The Jacobins during the French Revolution showed exactly the same spirit. They were willing to talk for ever about the people with a big P, but the people were only to be allowed to have their will if and when it coincided with the political aspirations and desires of these false democrats.
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