Ireland, is going back to
denounce the Home Rule movement as a mischievous fraud.

When I asked him what remedy he would propose for the discontent stirred
up by the agitation of Home Rule, this Presbyterian clergyman replied
emphatically, "Balfour, Balfour, and more Balfour!"

This on the ground, as I understood, that Mr. Balfour's administration
of the law has been the firmest, least wavering, and most equitable
known in Ireland for many a day.

Later in the day I had the pleasure of a conversation with the Rev. Dr.
Kane, the Grand Master of the Orangemen at Belfast. Dr. Kane is a tall,
fine-looking, frank, and resolute man, who obviously has the courage of
his opinions. He thinks there will be no disturbances this year on the
12th of July, but that the Orange demonstrations will be on a greater
scale and more imposing than ever. He derides the notion that
"Parnellism" is making any progress in Ulster. On the contrary, the
concurrence this year of the anniversary of the defeat of the Great
Armada with the anniversary of the Revolution of 1688 has aroused the
strongest feelings of enthusiasm among the Protestants of the North, and
they were never so determined as they now are not to tolerate anything
remotely looking to the constitution of a separate and separatist
Government at Dublin.

BELFAST, _Tuesday, June 26._--Sir John Preston, the head of one of the
great Belfast houses, and a former Mayor of the city, dined with us last
night, and in the evening Sir James Haslett, the actual Mayor, came in.

I find that in Belfast the office of Mayor is served without a salary,
and is consequently filled as a rule by citizens of "weight and
instance." In Dublin the Lord Mayor receives L3000 a year, with a
contingent fund of L1500, and the office is becoming a distinctly
political post. The face of Belfast is so firmly set against the
tendency to subordinate municipal interests to general party exigencies,
that the Corporation compelled Mr. Cobain, M.P., who sits at Westminster
now for this constituency, to resign the post which he held as treasurer
and cashier of the Corporation when he became a candidate for a seat in
Parliament. I am not surprised, therefore, to learn that the city rates
and taxes are much lower in the commercial than they are in the
political capital of Ireland.

Both Sir John Preston and Sir James Haslett have visited America. Sir
John went there to represent the linen industries of Ireland, and to