1 NOVEMBER 1913, Page 27

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

A SOUTHERN UNIONIST'S VIEW OF THE EXCLUSION OF ULSTER.

[To TEE EDITOR 07 THE "SPECTATOR"] SIR,—It is perhaps naturally urged by the average Radical, whose one desire is to get rid of Ireland, that if this Home Rule Bill is defeated there will be a Nationalist upheaval as formidable as that which Ulster threatens if Home Rule is thrust upon her. Yet everything in the south of Ireland suggests that the rejection of this measure would be taken very calmly, and indeed in many cases with real, if undemon- strative, satisfaction. No doubt the voice of the disappointed job-hunter would be heard in the land. But as no real Irish grievance now remains unredressed, it would be impossible to lash the people into any serious outbreak. But, on the other hand, if Ulster fights for her liberties, as we know she will, we Unionists in the south are in deadly peril. Civil war in the north will most certainly beget bloody reprisals in the south. Every party has its blackguards, and it is only too probable that sporadic outrages would be inflicted on the Roman Catholics of the north. This would naturally set the south aflame with an issue which it is terrible to contemplate,