IRELAND.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR."]
" If, however, a Government with Dominion powers, except as regards Customs, were to be established in South-West Ireland, the South and West should clearly cease to be repre- sented at Westminster."—Spectator, January 31st.
SIR,—One of the difficulties of settlement lies in the fact that no scheme which does not preserve the Union for the whole of Ireland places those portions not returning Members to Westminster in a position of inferiority and gives those por- tions, in the event of Constitutional differences with England, the alternative of litigation or rebellion ! Let me give an illus- tration.
A small island community of 50,000 persons—a Peculiar of the Crown—has enjoyed Home Rule for many hundred years. The Home Rule includes Judicature, Clergy, Militia, Educa- tion, Police, Coinage, Customs, Excise, and Flag, and, naturally, a Legislature with the right to initiate laws and taxation, sub- ject to the veto of the Crown in certain specific contingencies. A Royal Charter of Queen Elizabeth granted the islanders exemption from service out of the island " nisi in casu ubi corpus nostri praefatae Regime Haeredum et Successorum nostrorum (quod absit) in prisona detineatnr. . . et ab omnibus aliis contributionibus, oneribus et exactionibus quibuscunque." The islander nevertheless thought it incum- bent on him to serve, and more than seventeen per cent. of the whole population went to fight, an3 the island gave—not lent—£2 per head of the population to the Home Government for the conduct of the war. I shall not say what the island gained or urge what she lost; hundreds of her sons have honourable graves far from home, and hundreds have returned wounded, crippled, and smitten with disease, but her shield is clean and her record worthy of her history. The islander Row seeks to tax himself to pay off the £100,000 debt, and hap
passed a certain law which the Home Office has vetoed, at the same time suggesting a local Income Tax. The island has pro- tested and passed a second law, which the Home *Office has vetoed, again extolling the local Income Tax idea and insisting on the same. In this case the island's " remedy " is a lawsuit against the Crown; but in the case of Ireland the remedy might tie more expeditious and bloodier ! Now can any one doubt that if the island sent ten or fifteen Members to West- minster this trouble would never have arisen, or if it had arisen the settlement would have been simple and easy P-1 am,
House of Commons.
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