GENERAL BUTLER'S RESOLUTION.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
Sin,—May I call attention to a slight technical mistake in your article on "Undignified Democracies." The resolution of " cordial welcome to the capital and the country" is not an admission to the floor of the House. No one can be invited to this floor without unanimous consent. The objection of any member may prevent it.
You seem to me to somewhat overstate the case when you in- dicate the set intention of the party to vie with the Democrats for the Irish vote. An American rarely articulates to himself the possibility of making Irishmen republicans. But there is at the same time a chronic and unreasonable fear of irritating them. So that a more exact expression of the Congressional mind at the time of the vote would, I fancy, be as follows:—General Butler intro- duces his bills ; if you ask me to account for General Butler, I refer you to the chapters in the " Moral Philosophies" on the origin of evil. But Butler and his bill* being accomplished facts, it happens immediately that most honourable members wish the bill had not been introduced. Each honourable member hardly knows what to do ; he does not care to be the focus of Fenian resent- ment for his whole neighbourhood ; though he has but little fear of the Irish vote, he still reflects that his party at home might get a vague notion that some one else would be more available ; or at any rate, with an officeholder's susceptibility to indefinite alarm, he does not relish the situation. But the roll is calling and the " ayes" are thick and fast, till in this state of mind the clerk at the desk proclaims a familiar name, and he, too, quavers " ay." This confession readily substantiates your charge of lack of dignity against the politicians ; also, too, I readily endorse your indictment of apathy against the people.
"Strength by limping sway disabled,"
Shakespeare enumerates, at a point where he seems to be speaking for himself, as one of the human ills from which death is a pleasant escape; that is our undoubted present political misfortune, and the apathy of the people with regard to it is deplorable, almost
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