UNIONIST HOME RULE.
rTO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."1
S[R,—You have been good enough to draw attention in the Spectator to a letter of mine in the Times on "Unionist Home- rule." Would you allow me a reply to your remarks on this
letter ? You say, and say truly, that "if the Irish were per- suaded that the United Legislature would always rediscuss their Irish legislation and administration, and reverse all that it disapproved, they would not give a brass-farthing for Home- rule." It would have been more true had you said, "for such a travesty of Home-rule as this constant interference would mean." " Home-rule " means a certain measure of responsi- bility, and a corresponding measure of trust. Your description robs it of both, and makes it not worth the brass-farthing which the Irish would rightly refuse to give for it.
You go on to suggest what appears to you to be the only alternative. " If, on the other hand, these Gladstonians do not intend to account themselves responsible for everything that the Irish Legislature does, and to interfere whenever they think that Legislature has committed a great injustice, then what they want is a nominal supremacy and responsibility for the Parlia- ment at Westminster, and not a real supremacy and responsi- bility." " These Gladstonians " do not intend to account them- selves responsible for everything that the Irish Legislature does, and may yet be thoroughly determined to interfere to prevent or remedy a "great injustice," should the occasion
arise for doing so. In this intention they follow the almost invariable rule in every case of delegated authority, where trust is given and responsibility imposed, but a supreme power is held in reserve,—a power not the less " real " because only called into use when there is a grave necessity for doing so.
There is an assumption in your editorial note too commonly made nowadays,—that Irish legislation and administration means a series of "great injustices." That assumption seems to me the greatest injustice of all. It is in reality an indict- ment not against Home-rulers, or any particular section of the Irish people, but against the whole Irish nation ; for an Irish Parliament, in its very name, and by the reason of its existence, must represent the whole. How often have we been told by the opponents of Home-rule that the disloyal are a mere handful, that the truly loyal among Roman Catholics, and among Protestants, are vastly more numerous, as well as more intelligent, than the enemies of England ! We believe them gladly. But we do not believe them when, in the same breath, they go on to say that this handful of ignorant and degraded rebels are going to create an Irish Parliament out of the " beggarly elements " of which they are composed, and then force it to pass a series of measures which the civilisation of England will condemn. We do not believe this. Do you ?—I am, Sir, &c.,
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