INTIMIDATION IN IRELAND.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR," 1
SIR,—In an able article, entitled "The Weight of Irish Authority against Irish Home-rule," which appeared in the Spectator of March 18th, you state, after speaking of Mr. Gladstone's refusal to receive a deputation of commercial men from the three Southern provinces of Ireland :—" It may be said without hesitation that the higher education of Ireland is, as a whole, quite as hostile to Home-rule as Irish commerce. When we have admitted that the Irish Catholic priesthood and the Irish peasantry are in favour of it, we have exhausted all the authority on that side."
The enclosed letter, which was published in the Irish Times of Saturday, March 18th, shows that even the peasant class is not unanimous in a desire for Home-rule. But such is the terrorism which now rules Ireland, that few among the humbler classes dare venture upon a free expression of opinion. To the tender keeping of a Government whose supporters practise tyranny as referred to in enclosed letter,. England (avowedly a lover of fair-play) is willing to consign
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