THE OVER-REPRESENTATION OF HOME-RULE IN IRELAND.
[TO TIE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR"] Sin,—Will you permit me to show how unfairly to Irish Unionists the Irish representation is apportioned P And let me say that if there is to be over-representation at all, there should not be over-representation of the majority. Yet so it is in Ireland. Home-rule Kerry, with 23,242 electors, and Tipperary, with 22,979, return each as many Members as Unionist Belfast, with its 44,528 electors. Then the four boroughs of Waterford, Galway, Newry, and Kilkenny, with a total electorate of 9,401, return between them as many Members as Belfast. Then compare the average 6,600 of the seven constituencies of Co. Cork with the average 8,500 of Antrim's four constituencies. Co. Longford returns two Members, though its total electorate would be greatly over- represented by one. In short, the twenty Unionist con- stituencies average 8,030, the eighty-three Home-rule 6,480, electors. At the Cape the representation is being adjusted so as to give the Progressives their fair share of seats. When will the Irish house be set in order ?—I am, Sir, &c.,
AN OLD CROMWELLIAN.
[Exactly. Yet a Government who call themselves Unionists refuse to adjust this great wrong. They have Unionism on their lips when they wish to taunt those who insist that the policy of Free-trade which has made the Empire great and prosperous shall not be abandoned ; but when they are asked to make the Union secure by reducing the over-representation of Ireland their Unionism shrinks to zero. This is a betrayal of their trust which we believe is being noted by thousands of Unionists quite irrespective of their views on the fiscal question. The Government could find time to pass the Irish Land Purchase Bill, but not to do electoral justice to England, which is as much under-represented as Ireland is over- represented. Yet we who refuse to let this betrayal of the cause we have at heart be passed over in silence are denounced as untrue to Unionism.—En. Spectator.]
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