PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOE.] SIR,—Mr. Young says that Proportional Representation was not abolished in Northern Ireland in order to wipe out small minorities, but because " it was not wanted by a huge majority of all parties." If so, it is very odd that abolition was only carried in a House of 52 members by 20 votes to 13, and the Committee stage under the guillotine. I believe, too, that the Prime Minister said at a Battle of the Boyne anniversary that he intended there to be " no room for a third party in Ulster politics." If this was the intention it is no answer for Mr. Young to show that it has not quite succeeded.
When the Act setting up the Ulster Parliament was passed in 1920 Sir W. Worthington Evans said on behalf of the Coalition Government that P.R. was expressly provided as a- " safeguard to protect minorities," and it has now been abolished in spite of the strong protest of those very minorities.
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