AMERICA AND IRELAND.
[To THE EDIT0a OF THE " SPECTATOR."' Sis,—Your article last Saturday on " America and Ireland" con- tains some home truths and much good sense, but it is vitiated by ignoring the Unionists outside Ulster. You say that a solution on the lines of West Virginia would be received with the best possible goodwill on the part of the Unionists. Perhaps it would on the part of the English Unionists, who would not suffer by it; but not by the Irish Unionists, to whom it would ho a death-blow. You are just to North-East Ulster, but you seem to have no compunction about allowing the Sinn Fein rebels to have on a charger the heads of the loyalists in the rest of Ireland. You italicize Lincoln's words about breaking faith with the men who were true to the Union under very severe trials, but you have no thought for the men who are similarly placed in Ireland. If Lincoln's example in refusing to exempt Irishmen from con- scription had been followed in Ireland, there would have been no rebellion last year. The weakness of successive Liberal Govern- ments in favouring the disloyal elements at the expense of the loyal has fostered the growth of disloyalty to such an extent that Home Rule as understood by the Nationalist Party would now make life unbearable for us. But, apart from this, Virginia is not an island, and if all America were to shout with one voice it would not reconcile any party or faction in Ireland to partition.-
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