HOME RULE AND THE RUIN OF BELFAST.
[To rsa EDITOR 011. TIIR "SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—You state week after week, and year after year, that Home Rule would mean the inevitable and speedy ruin of Belfast. Lord Pirrie has praotically spent his life in Belfast : he is one of the original creators of the marvellous concern over which he now presides, the greatest shipyard of the world. Do you accuse Lord Pirrio of ignorance, or of a deliberate attempt to ruin his shipyard and himself, along with the rest of Belfast Let me add that Lord Pirrie is only one of a group of influential business men who think as he does, and that there are thousands of Protestant Home Rulers in Belfast who are sick and ashamed of its bigotry and intolerance. I do not write in ignorance ; I was born in Belfast and have known Lord Pirrie for fifty years : his is certainly one of the greatest and most far-seeing industrial minds of the age. You speak dogmatically : whence, Sir, do you derive your knowledge of Belfast industrial conditions P—I am, Sir, 8r,o., M. W. S.
[Ut viti ut perii. We saw and were overwhelmed with the solidity and strength of the commercial life of Belfast. We are well aware that Lord Pirrie is a strong party Liberal, but we know also that he finds few followers among the commercial men of Ulster. If Belfast is not really against Home Rule what is the objection to allowing her the oppor- tunity to decide whether she shall pass under a Dublin Parliament or remain under that of Westminster ?— ED. Spectator.]
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