So many falsehoods are in circulation as to Mr. Bright's
actual opinions on the Home•rule Bill, and on the duty of Radicals as to the second reading, that it is worth while to quote the text of his letter to a constituent, published in the Birmingham Post of Thursday :—" I think the Home-rule. Bill should have been withdrawn before the second reading, and bat for the fear of a dissolution, which decides the votes of some scores of Members, this would have been done. My sympathy with Ireland, North and South, compels me to condemn the proposed legislation. I believe the united Parliament can be, and will be, more just to all classes in Ireland than any Parlia- ment that can meet in Dublin under the provisions of Mr. Glad- stone's Bill. If Mr. Gladstone's great.authority were withdrawn from these Bills, I doubtif twenty Members outside the Irish Party in the House of Commons would support them. The more I consider them, the more I lament that they have been offered to Parliament and the country."
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