22 MAY 1886, Page 12

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

HOME-RULE.

[To ran EDITOR OF TIE " BrECT•TOR.".1 Sln,—Will you allow me to give expression to what I conceive to be the feeling of most provincial Liberals upon the Home- rule Question ? Next to the secession of Lord Hartington and Sir Henry James, nothing has saddened us more than the in- ability of the Spectator to support Mr. Gladstone in this great attempt. We honestly believe that the Prime Minister will triumph ; but should he fail, we shall like him not the less, for, in the words which Mr. Morris puts into the mouth of kfarsyas, we know-

" How far high failure overleaps the bound Of low suocessea."

I will not linger upon this point, because it is a well-worn one. I will only record my conviction that, rightly or wrongly, the faith of provincial Liberals in Mr. Gladstone at this juncture is stronger and more implicit than it was even upon the eve of such a reform as the Disestablish went of the Irish Church, or the extension of the franchise. The cry that all the "educated intelligence of the nation" is opposed

to the concession of Home-rule to Ireland is really not true. The frequenters of London clubs would be astonished to find how many people there are who pronounce their " h's " quite nicely, and yet believe that Mr. Gladstone's policy is the right one. Modesty forbids us from constantly making eulogistic references to our own "conscience ;" but we may fairly claim that in pro- vincial towns, so far as what is called " society " goes, it re- quires more sellsacrifice and more daring to support Home- rule than to oppose it

No doubt this question has ripened very suddenly, and there are few of us who would venture to claim that we have been unbrokenly consistent. Since January, however, the most earnest men among provincial Liberals have thought about the matter night and day, and they honestly believe Mr. Gladstone's policy to be, in the main, both just and inevitable. It is very aggravating, no doubt, that a small island, only separated from us by a slight stretch of water, should decline to lose its in- dividuality in the capacious and complacent bosom of the Mother- country. Still, this is the case. The foundation fact, in the view of provincial Liberals, is that England and Ireland are separate in racial feeling, in personal characteristics, and in religious belief. Given this, it is impossible to stop short of Home-rule, for, next to the love of God and the sense of justice, there is nothing so indestructible in human character as the instinct of patriotism. To kill that, you must kill all who possess it. Lord Salisbury thinks that he can crush it in twenty years ; but if he were allowed twenty centuries to work out his scheme, and the Irish survived the ordeal, he would find the demand for Home-rule still alive. It is not, as some seem to think, a momentary spasm, but a deep-rooted and ineradicable aspiration. In the opinion of provincial Liberals, the main prin- ciple of Mr. Gladstone's scheme is the establishment of a statu- tory Parliament in Ireland ; all other questions are regarded by them as matters of detail. In his "Oceans," Mr. Froude says that "one free people cannot govern another free people." The last Reform Act has made Ireland, in the fullest sense of the term, a "free people ;" and if we could not govern it while it was in an ancillary and subservient state, are we likely to be able to govern it now ? This once granted, we feel little anxiety about minor matters. It is proposed to retain an Irish element in the Imperial Legislature ; we do not object. It is urged that Ulster should be allowed a doll's-house of a Parliament ; well, we are not very much concerned about that, although we cannot help recollecting that these so-called Loyalists were the first to de- mand a repeal of the Union, and that they persisted in their cry until agitation for Catholic emancipation destroyed the possi- bility of obtaining an exclusively Protestant Parliament. I beg respectfully to assure you that upon the main point the feeling of provincial Liberals is with Mr. Gladstone.—I am, Sir, &c., [Mr. Mason is absurdly contemptuous of Ulster. The province has three times the population of Berne, which has governed itself for five hundred years.—En. Spectator.]