GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPEOTATOR."3 SIR,—You mention, in the Spectator of September 9th, that in the voting on the third reading of the Home-rule Bill, the majority against the Bill in Great Britain was 23, and in England and Wales, 48. I wonder you did not go on to give the number of the majority in England. It seems to me that in the general controversy about the Bill, sufficient prominence is not habitually given to the fact that the people of England by a really immense majority have con- demned the Gladstonian policy. This fact disposes at once of many assumptions which are constantly made upon the side of that policy. It is said that the English democracy have- allied themselves to the Irish democracy. This is the reverse of the truth. You quote the Star as exclaiming that the Lords have again insulted the people," have " destroyed the Bill of the people." What they have done is to give voice to the declared will of the people of Great Britain. What makes the claim of the Gladstonian policy to be that of the people and of the democracy still more absurd is, that if Ireland had only proportional representation even numerically, according to its population and the opinions of its inhabitants, the small majority which the Irish vote enables the Government to command would almost disappear.
I cannot help thinking that if the numbers which represent these facts were kept well before the eyes of the constituencies, they would have considerable influence. It does not look as if England had acted very ungenerously towards Ireland in giving it such a share of the Parliamentary representation as enables Irish feeling completely to overpower in governmental action the judgment of so great a majority of the people of England.---I am, Sir, &c., J. LLEWELYN DAVIES- Kirkby Lonadale, September 12th.
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