MR. HOBHOUSE AND EAST SOMERSET.
[To ?RR EDITOR OF TM' " SPRCT/LTOR.1 SIR,—Will you kindly allow me to deny emphatically the state- ment made in your columns of May 1st, that I reject the Home- rule Bill, knowing that I shall lose my seat ? I neither know nor believe anything of the kind. On the contrary, I know this,— that the member of my Association who moved the resolution accepting Mr. Gladstone's Bills as the basis of a satisfactory settlement, was equally ready to move a vote of confidence in myself, had any want of confidence been expressed by any person present. I also believe that the more the proposal to give Ireland a separate Parliament is discussed and understood in country constituencies like my own, the less support it will get from thoughtful, independent, and patriotic Liberals. At any rate, Liberal Members, who have proved their zeal for the Liberal cause by winning many a bard-fought fight last year, are not now to be suddenly converted into Home-rulers by the fear of losing their seats, or even of being branded by an authority whom we all revere as belonging to "class, and the dependants of class," and opposed to "the upright sense of the nation."—I am, Sir, &c.,
House of Commons, May 5th. HENRY HOB110II8E.
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