It would be idle to deny that the cause of Irish Nationalism is at present more or less under a cloud. A great defeat has been experienced, and reaction—the in evitable reaction—has hardly had time to assert itself. The return of the so-called Unionist party to power with a majority of over 150 is an event which it may be possible to explain satisfactorily from the Nationalist point of view, but the results of the discomfiture muss: remain for the time being. Irish Nationalism has nothing to hope for at tho hands of the new Parliament, and it would be strange if this fact did not cause a certain amount of depression. Again, the divisions among the Irish supporters of Home Rule are a source of undoubted weakness. Apart from ~the want of unity in the genuine Nationalist party—the party of which Mr Justin M'Oauthy is the head—the exist ence of the Pamcllite faction is an abiding menaco to the success of the cause. Such utterances as that recently attributed by the cable to Mr John Redmond—that if England went to war with the United States Irishmen would support tho States —must doan immense amount of harm. English electors do not discriminate very closely between this and that Irish politician, and the Unionist electioneerers know well how to make effective use of an atrocious statement like that of Mr Redmond. So that altogether, with the defeat at the elections and the continued dissensions, tho Home Rule movement might seem to be in a bad way. And yet no genuine supporter of Home Rule supposes that these ob stacles are of more than a temporary nature. "We may fall with it now, but we shall rise with it again," ex claimed Mr Gladstone in reference to the Reform Bill of 18GG, and reform was carried in the following year. True, it was carried by the opposite party, who " caught the Whigs bathing and ran away \uf hj their clothes" ; but that mattered little, If Lord Salisbury likes to pass Home Rule no Home Ruler will object. This, however, is very far from likely. What wo are urging is that brighter days —and a day of eventual success -are in evitably in store for the Home Rule cause. 