HOME RULE AND CONSCRIPTION.
(To THE EDITOR or THE " SPECTATOR.") SIR,—It is recognized in Great Britain with practical unanimity that in any scheme of Irish Home Rule or of Federation all military and naval concerns, including, of course, the conditions of military service, must be settled and administer& by the Imperial Parliament and Executive. It follows that the first duty of a Government contemplating a Home Rule scheme is to ascer- tain whether those Irishmen who demand it will accept this indispensable postulate—Aye or No? If they refuse to accept it (as now seems certain), will any Government be so criminally insane as to waste more precious moments in blowing the soap- bubble of a Home Rule Bill, rejected in advance by those whom it is intended to satisfy? Perhaps the best propagandists of Con. scription in Ireland might be a body of American troops on their
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