15 JANUARY 1916, Page 14

IRELAND AND COMPULSORY MILITARY SERVICE.

ITO THE Torroa OF THE " SPECTATOR."'

Sin,—Many people think it unjust that married men should be expected to join the Army while younger unmarried men have not joined. There is much to be said for this view, but any injustice involved pales into insignificance before the monstrous injustice of compelling English, Scotch, and Welsh to serve and exempting Irish. The Irish Unionist Members have protested against the exclusion of Ireland. The fact that many Irishmen are loyally serving is quite irrelevant ; so are many English, Scotch, and Welsh. Ireland has frectuently been bribed with British money, now she is to be bribed with British blood. Britons, other than Irish, are to face wounds and death, while those Irish who choose are to remain comfortably at home as a reward for flagrant disloyalty and hatted of England. To say that they would not make good soldiers is false. A more scandalous example of vote-buying at the cost of the lives of fellow-citizens I have never heard of. If the Bill passes in its present form, I shall regard both political parties with contempt