Record showing that the value per acre of agricultural products in Pennsylvania has decreased.

There is but one intelligible explanation of this. It is that the products of the farms as well as of the forests and the mines of Pennsylvania are systematically hindered in their natural increase by discriminations against them. The farmers and cattle producers of Pennsylvania are prevented from sending with profit, to markets beyond the State, what they have to sell, by virtually prohibitory rates of transportation. Then, too, their home-markets are stunted in growth by the discriminations made against Pennsylvania manufacturers. The manufacturers north and east and west of Pennsylvania are favored by railroad discriminations in the prices at which they obtain their coal and other raw materials, and favored again by discrimination in the rates of delivering their manufactured products. Then, to crown the injustice and outrage, even the home markets of Pennsylvania are in great degree supplied, through discrimination in favor of the Western States and against the peoof Pennsylvania, as regards almost every article of consumption. Grain, flour, feed, butter, cheese, swine, cattle, horses, lumber, and almost everything the farm or forest can produce, are delivered at lower rates from far distant points than Pennsylvania land-owners can have them transported for. Is it any wonder that Pennsylvania is not prospering to the extent that might reasonably be expected from its natural advantages? Any wonder that population increases slowly and business of every kind, whether agricultural, manufacturing or mercantile, moves sluggishly?

The second fact we state, and it is the last we shall cite, confirms the one we have just commented on. Ever since the Pennsylvania Railroad (in order to monopolize the railroad business between Philadelphia and New York) acquired virtual ownership of the United Railroads of New Jersey, and so, too, ever since it acquired (for a like purpose) its systems of railroads west of Pittsburgh and Erie (extending to Cleveland, Northern Michigan, Chicago, Cincinnati, Louisville, St. Louis and other points), it has lost, if its official reports are true, from one to three million dollars annually, sometimes on each and sometimes on both of its railroad systems, east and west of Pennsylvania. And year by year the Pennsylvania Railroad officials congratulate the stockholders, assuring them that, though their railroads through New Jersey and their railroads west of Pittsburgh and Erie have been operated at a loss, yet the profits on local freights to and from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia and intervening points not only have made up these losses, but have earned sufficient profits over and above them to pay fixed charges and justify a dividend.

Now, what does this mean? It means simply this, that by exorbi

tant charges upon the business of the people of Pennsylvania, who are almost entirely shut out from the use of other railroads, the Pennsylvania Railroad gives premiums to the people of other States and carries their products at unremunerative rates, and then imposes the loss upon the people of Pennsylvania; thus actually making them to pay, in the shape of needless and oppressive charges, for the discriminations which the very railroad they gave corporate existence to and generously sustained through all the difficulties of its earlier existence, exercises in favor of other States and against Pennsylvania.

The aggregate amount which the people of Pennsylvania have thus paid up to the present time (as any one can verify--if he can get the successive annual reports of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company for the last twenty years) is not less (and probably much more) than from thirty to forty millions of dollars.

Pennsylvania is equal in geographical extent to the State of New York. It has a more genial climate, and a vastly greater quantity of land capable of being made productive. It is the first State in the Union as regards its quantities of coal and iron-ore. It has a monopoly of anthracite coal, and a virtual monopoly of petroleum and of supplies of natural gas. It is nearer to the southern seaboard States, both by water and by rail, than New York. It is nearer to the great West and Southwest. It is no farther from the vast Northwest. Its people are unexcelled for persistent energy and industry and thrift. Its chief city has direct water communication with every country whose shores abut upon the oceans of the world. Its second city is at the head of a system of river navigation that extends from St. Paul on the north to the Gulf of Mexico on the south, and westward to the Rocky Mountains. No other State has greater or equal natural advantages. We believe that if these advantages were properly and energetically utilized, Pennsylvania would be in population the first State in the Union. Yet Pennsylvania is not growing either in population or in wealth, or as regards its industrial activities, either agricultural or manufacturing or commercial, as rapidly as it might and should. And why? We can find no other answer than that Pennsylvania has given itself over to the control of monopolies, chiefly of railroad monopolies, and chief among them has been and continues to be the Pennsylvania Railroad. They are repressing the energies of her people, are making their exertions unprofitable, and are steadily transferring her natural increase and her natural industries to other regions naturally less favored.

THE ELECTIONS IN GREAT BRITAIN AND IRISH HOME RULE.

HE results of the recent elections in Great Britain and Ire

THE

land furnish cause to friends of Ireland and of Ireland's rights, not for chagrin or disappointment, but for congratulation. All the antecedents of the elections, taken together, form a chapter in British Parliamentary history, and a chapter, too, in the long contest, and the progress of the contest towards a happy termination, of Irish aspirations for right, justice, liberty, freedom, against British oppression, injustice and tyranny, which can never be blotted out.

The long, protracted, exhaustive debate in the House of Commons, which resulted in the dissolution of Parliament and the ordering of a new election, demonstrated, beyond all possibility of successful denial or even question, the justice and the necessity of conceding to the people of Ireland the liberty of legislating for the promotion and protection of their own rights and special interests; a necessity, too, which was intertwined as closely with the true interests of Britain as with those of Ireland.

The discussion, both on the floor of the House of Commons and outside in newspapers, and periodicals, and letters, and pamphlets, scattered broadcast through the British Islands, demonstrated also that the motives and arguments against Home Rule for Ireland grew out of a mean and selfish and, in no small degree, malicious combination of landlord greed, aristocratic pride and traditions, Orange bigotry, English stupidity, obstinacy on the part of their squirocracy and their agricultural laborers, personal jealousy of Mr. Gladstone, and personal vain ambition and desires to acquire notoriety, if not fame or power, on the part of a number of sentimental, but unprincipled, professed Radicals and Liberalists. On the other hand, it clearly and irrefutably proved that the demands of the people of Ireland were supported by the whole history of the relation of Britain to Ireland, by natural and divine law, by human consciousness of the eternal principles of right and justice, and by every intelligent comprehension of the real and true interests of the people of Great Britain as well as of Ireland. These facts are now of record and can never be blotted out.

A new election of members to the House of Commons was ordered, and the elections have been held. The results of this election we shall discuss in a subsequent paragraph. During the canvass the opponents of Mr. Gladstone and of his Home Rule proposal spared no means, legitimate or illegitimate, justifiable or base

and contemptible, to mislead and delude the people of Britain. Persuasion, corruption, intimidation, vilification, were unhesitatingly and unscrupulously employed. Old and stale slanders against the people of Ireland were revived. Traditionary prejudices, on the point of expiring, were warmed into new life and activity. Religious prejudices were appealed to, and political and personal falsehoods were disseminated broadcast. Churchill did. his utmost to stir up riots and open rebellion in the north of Ireland, hoping that the consequent confusion would bring about a summary withdrawal from Ireland of even the partial rights its people possessed. His efforts, happily, failed, and, if British law against treason had been enforced, he would have been consigned to the Tower of London.

In view of all this, it is a wonder that opposition to Home Rule did not sweep over all Britain as fire sweeps through stubble or the dried leaves of a pine forest in summer.

Moreover, there was a combination of other incidents and circumstances against the friends and in favor of the enemies of Irish Home Rule, which the latter did not neglect to effectively employ. The recent Acts, for the extension of the franchise and for the redistribution of seats in Parliament, were, as yet, very imperfectly understood by "the masses" in England who thus had obtained the privilege of voting. They were scarcely conscious of their newly-acquired power, or, if conscious, they knew not how to use it effectively. For "Hodge," the traditional epithet applied to the English agricultural drudge, is the slowest to move or change, the stupidest, the most stolid and obstinate creature that breathes and lives, in human form, on the face of the earth. We say "English," with deliberate purpose and meaning, excluding the Scotch and Welsh. And, the English toilers in mines and mills and factories are little better.

They neglected to register as voters; or, moving into other election districts, they registered, and were deluded into registering in districts where they had no right to vote. Then, too, the elections were held in the harvest season. The owners or holders of the land are Tories, Whigs, or Plutocrats, opposed to Irish Home Rule. They shrewdly and systematically drove on their harvestwork, refusing any cessation or interval to the laborers they employed. Thus they compelled them to lose their votes by staying away from the polls.

It was in this way, with all the power of wealth and pride of station and of class, with bold intimidation and reckless falsification, and pandering to the basest passions of fallen humanity, that the defeat of Gladstone was accomplished.

But, before that defeat could be obtained, and a seeming victory

won by the combined Tories, the Whig landlords and the recalcitrant Radicals, declarations and promises had to be made by Hartington and Chamberlain, and their respective followers, of willingness to do justice to Ireland and grant local government; promises which, "like chickens and curses," will "come home to roost" on the heads of those who made them, whether sincerely or with deliberate intention to deceive.

It were useless to fight the battle over again by recounting what reputations were hopelessly wrecked, what aspirants to political influence, power or office went down upon the field, killed or sorely wounded.

Suffice it to say that, throughout the whole conflict, Gladstone towered above all his foes, and proved himself as often before

No carpet knight, so trim,

But in close fight a champion grim,

In camp a leader sage."

Never, in any previous conflict, throughout all his long and varied career, did he bear himself so knightly and so nobly. Who were struck down by the sword of his keen logic, who were unhorsed by the spear of his resistless arguments, it is needless to mention. It is enough to know that, of all the members of his Cabinet, of any note, who refused to accept his proposal to grant Home Rule to Ireland, and followed Chamberlain into the "cave" of English Radical dissidents, the only survivor is Chamberlain himself. And he, after going down into the gutter or the cess-pool, to gather dirt with which to bespatter Gladstone and his supporters, must now strive to emerge from it, hoping, but vainly hoping, that he may cleanse himself from the filth with which he has besmirched himself.

To any one who thinks of the attitude of the people of Great Britain only two or three years ago, the results of the election just concluded are scarcely credible; and scarcely credible, too, are the events which, rapidly following each other, compelled that election to be held.

It seems only yesterday that Parnell and his little band of followers were refused a hearing by the House of Commons, were suspended and expelled amidst yells and jeers, were politically and socially ostracised; since most of them were imprisoned in Kilmainham jail; since, of the six hundred and seventy members of the House of Commons, only thirty-five or thirty, or even a less number, of its members could be relied upon to stand resolutely, in face of overwhelming opposition, advocating demands of the Irish people that involved not one-tenth of what Mr. Gladstone's proposals foreshadowed. In this stubborn unreasoning opposition, Tories, Whigs and factionists of every shade and color, both in Britain and from