IRELAND AND COMPULSORY SERVICE.
(TO THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR.")
SIR,—In the late summer I spent a few days at a little village on the border-line between Derbyshire and Staffordshire. Crossing the dividing bridge one evening, I saw some half-dozen stalwart youug fellows leaning against it and joking and laughing with the village girls as they passed along. Asking who these were and how they were exempt from service, I was told: " Oh, they are the Irish harvesters." Sir, it made my blood boil, and nothing would have delighted me more than, at the head of a company of " Tommies," either back from or destined for the trenches, to have forced them into the ranks! I am sure the " Tommies " would all have been equally delighted. The rising choler of the " man in the street " on this question will, I am quite sure, force the Government to apply the Compulsory Act to Ireland. But what a pity this Government have to hare a Compulsory Act applied to them in everything. To a non-Home Ruler there remains the dictum, " No compulsory service, no Home Rule." But it is a grain of wretched satisfaction.—I am, Sir, Ac.,
&mum
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