THE CLERICAL ADDRESS TO MR. GLADSTONE.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—My friend Mr. Essington is anxious to know whether there are other qualified signatures to the clerical address on Home-rule. There are none. I have been in correspondence with the acting secretary on the subject, and he has decided to remove my name, as the only signatory in the same case. He has refused one other signature on the same ground. Whilst I acknowledge the great courtesy with which I have been treated by the secretary, who has tried to include me without compromising his cause, I am sorry to find myself shut out from a clerical protest in favour of Home-rule.
A quotation, which Mr. Essington may recognise, seems to express the position of myself and the other excluded signatory,— "They crack a nut, yet leave the kernel whole." The nut is coercion, the kernel is Home-rule. The protest against coercion is only one of many incidents in the cam- paign in favour of Home-rule.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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