(TO THE EDITOR OF TEE "SPECTATOR. " ] SIR, — The Irish county elections
have gone as any one who knows the country would expect. As Mr. Devitt puts it, "He has wiped the floor with his political opponents," and for once "has nothing to complain of." That he and the melancholy Mr. Dillon are satisfied is something. Yet it is not easy to see, beyond this, what has been gained by the wholesale rejection of the services of the country gentlemen, or how their election in impotent minorities could have harmed the cause of Home-rule. On the contrary, is it not possible that a great opportunity has been lost of favourably influencing public opinion by averycheap displayof good feeling and toleration? It is probable that Mr. Redmond thinks so, and perhaps Mr. Healy. But fortunately for Irish Unionism, Messrs. Dillon and Devitt carried the day, and would have nothing to do with what Mr. Devitt terms "the humbug of toleration," lest any Irish Unionist should doubt what his position under their Home-rule would be, for Mr. Devitt can hardly in sober earnest believe that the men who rejected Mr. Gladstone's big bribe, and have accepted' permanent exclusion from the representation of their native country, will in six months turn Home-rulers in order to become County and District Councillors. As to the future of these Councils, it needs not the gift of prophecy to forecast it. Composed of exactly the same class as the Boards of Guardians in the South and West, whose Unions are bankrupt and cheques dishonoured, what reason is there to expect them to go a different way ? In those bodies the very substantial leaven of es-officio Guardians was powerless to restrain extravagance. But in the new Councils the dominant Labour vote will overbear any consideration of self- interest in the farmers. You write : " The Councillors cannot tax unequally" ; but this has been done for many a day in the South and West by the simple expedient of omitting to collect the rates from Nationalists, and by making up the deficit by striking a higher rate to be levied upon their political opponents. You also contemplate superseding these Councils when bankrupt. But when the money is gone and the debts incurred, paupers must be maintained, lunatics restrained in . asylums, and some kind of roads kept open for locomotion. Whence are the ways and means to come ? Sir C. Gavan Duffy, doubtless astonished at his own moderation, will cancel your liability "if England will settle outstanding claims on the basis certified by Sir Robert Giffen." Whether or not this modest proposal will allay to any extent your manifest, and, let me say, well-grounded, apprehension, you will admit that the minority in Ireland cannot justly be held to have incurred responsibility for expenditure over which they have not had the very slightest control.—I am, Sir, &c., AN OLD CROMWESSIAN.
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