Yesterday week a deputation, representing the trading interests of Dublin
and the three Southern Provinces of Ireland, which had asked for an interview with Mr. Gladstone to protest against the Home-rule Bill, and had been denied the interview, —on the ground that Mr. Gladstone saw no good end to which it could lead,—was received by Lord Salisbury, Mr. Bal- four, Mr. Goschen, and Lord Randolph Churchill, at the house of the late Premier in Arlington Street. Lord Iveagh (representing the Guinness*, Mr. Joseph Hone (Governor of the Bank of Ireland), and a great number of the most in- fluential men of commerce in the three Southern provinces of Ireland, composed the deputation, and the address they pre- sented spoke most strongly of the mischief likely to be effected in Ireland by the Bill of the Government. The special safe- guards introduced into the Bill for the protection of minorities, are, they said, more likely to intensify the animosities which the Bill will stir up than to allay them. The Chairman of the Great Northern Railway of Ireland stated that the capital value of that undertaking, which extends over a line of 487 miles in length, and has a capital of 7i millions of money, had suffered a depreciation of value of half-a-million during the last few weeks from the popular fear of this Bill ; Alderman Sir John Scott (a Cork steamship ,owner) described the Bill as rather a "Home-ruin Bill" than a Home-rule Bill ; and the Governor of the Bank of Ireland said that if the Bill ever became law, it would be a most disastrous blow to the com- merce and enterprise of Ireland.
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