" REDUNDANT ULSTER M.P.s "
Sta,—Mr. J. L. Barlow's illiberal letter in last week's Spectator must have shocked you, both as a man bred in a Liberal tradition and 23' the editor of a review with a long tradition of liberality ; for if ever a man pleaded for taxation without representation, Mr. Barlow did when he demanded that Ulster members of the Imperial Parliament should be " sacked" as redundant. Mr. Barlow, who seems not to know the meaning of the word "redundant," is manifestly ignorant of the subject on which he descants with that arrogant assurance which is at once the most irritating and the most charming characteristic of an under- graduate in his first year. The Northern Ireland Parliament deals only with the local affairs of the Six Counties. If Wales and Scotland had their own Parliaments, as Mr. Churchill round about 1912 suggested they should—he would, indeed, have given Northern England a Parlia- ment, too—these assemblies would also deal exclusively with local affairs. But the people of Wales and .Scotland and Northern England, like the people of Ulster, have imperial and national interests. Would Mr. Barlow prevent them from expressing their views on them? The Northern Irish pay taxes to the National Exchequer. Are they to be forbidden any say in how those taxes shall be disbursed? Who would settle these matters if Wales and Scotland and Northern England each had their Parliament and were, on the Barlow system, to be treated as roughly as Ulster? The fearful wildfowl who frequent the marshes of Kensington Square Gardens?—Yours sincerely, ST. JOHN ERVINE.
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