12 MAY 1894, Page 3

The Times of Saturday last contains some very striking -extracts

from letters written by Gladstonian working men who went to Ireland and studied Ulster's case against Home- rule at first hand. These gentlemen have had the good sense -and good faith to own that their original views were founded, and to admit that they have changed them,—an act of moral courage which it would be difficult to exaggerate. They will certainly be denounced as having been got at by "the classes" in Belfast, and will be dubbed traitors to their own order. One of the writers, Mr. Field, explains that he went to Belfast as a Gladstonian delegate, believing that " the people of Belfast and the North of Ireland generally were an intolerant and bigoted class, desirous of greed for themselves and wishful to deprive others of liberty and freedom." At Belfast he publicly declared that he did not believe in the Unionist allegations of priestly intole- rance and influence, and challenged those who opposed the Bill to "prove their assertions to the democracy of England." "I little thought," he continues, "how soon I should have to eat my own words." He had been deceived, he found, "both by the Gladstonian Press and speakers."