rro rine Eorroa OF TH2 ..SPECTAT02.'9
Srn,—I have been grateful to read and endorse your wise and moderate counsels during the whole of this Home Rule crisis. But what you wrote on p. 561 last week gives me pause. You there say " If the country by a direct vote adopted the Home Rule Bill we should support its being forced upon Ulster." May I ask you to reconsider this in the light of the American revolt P Then the Monarch, both Houses of Parliament, and the bulk of the nation supported the war of coercion. Would you indeed have done the same because a majority favoured that course ? Would you have condemned the opposition of Chatham and Fox and the Liberals who stood by one or the other I cannot believe so. The minority was right then. As to Ulster, one may concede the legal, even the moral, right of Parliament to eject her, but surely there the matter ends. Once ejected, the right of choosing a Government belongs to banished Ulster. And if to make good her right she is driven to meet force by force, I cannot join in coercing her.—I am. Sir, do., [We will not admit for a moment that the majority of the nation was with Lord North and George III. We believe that it was with Chatham, and that then, as now, a Refer- endum would have shown the people to be on the right side. That the majority in Parliament was with Lord North we admit, but that was, and is now, a very different thing. Remember that our remarks applied to a Referendum. To those remarks we adhere, for the reasons given above.—En. Spectator.]
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