4 FEBRUARY 1938, Page 18

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR, —Are you aware that

you ask the people of Northern Ireland to give up their British nationality and all the rights and freedoms to which they have been born?

Do you know how these De Valera people laugh at you for gullible fools ?

Have you not realised even yet that they are utterly rebel and disloyal and that giving them all Ireland is only preliminary to declaring a republic ?

God help you in time of war. Northern Ireland is all that stands between you and an utterly hostile country. And no " generosity " (!) on your part will alter it. It is indeed a tragedy that the greatest nation in the world is willing to throw their loyal friends to the wolves—to buy their so-called loyalty.

Were those people loyal like the Catholics of England no one would object to ea loyal Dominion parliashent—but they are not.

Remember how they insult the King on every occasion. The Coronation was ignored, the old King's death ignored—. every broadcast ignored. A Dublin picture-house which showed a picture of the Coronation had to do so at midnight-- sending tickets privately to a few. Let them show us their loyalty first.

As to the Catholic minority here—if they are so badly treated, why, oh why, do they keep pouring in here from the South ?

An offer was made to exchange farmers among them with farmers in the South—loyalists who want to come North. We were inundated with applications from the South, but not one Catholic farmer here cared to exchange and go South. Apart from any farmers, every Catholic in the North is employed by Protestants—there are no Catholic employers of labour.

The Free State elected to leave the British Empire—why should we have to do likewise ?

What would you say if we went to London and said we'll only be loyal if the Free State returns to the Empire ?

And they will never be your friends though you throw them every real friend you have.

You can verify all this, and surely should do so in common decency and your much talked of fair play.