HOME-RULE.
To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."'
Sin,—Irish Unionists are often accused of undue distrust of the fair words spoken by their Nationalist fellow-countrymen ; and are told that it is altogether too late in the day to fear any setting up of an ecclesiastical domination in a Home-ruled Ireland. I commend to your readers, who think us unwisely sensitive about this danger, the following extracts from a speech delivered last Sunday by the new Lord Mayor of Dublin at a luncheon given in the Mansion House in honour of Archbishop Walsh :—
"The august ceremony of that day [they had just returned from mass at the Roman Catholic Cathedral] tended to bring closer together the alliance which existed between the Mansion House
and the City Hall and the Archbishop's House. He trusted that as time went on the ties that existed between the civic and ecclesiastical authority would be strengthened, and that the union between the Church and the civic state in Dublin would long continue."
Your readers will bear in mind that at least half the city rates are paid by Protestants, in whose hands are the best business enterprises in Dublin. To appreciate the full mean- ing of this speech, let them further consider what they would think of a Church of England Lord Mayor of London who in entertaining Bishop Temple spoke of the union between the London Corporation and the Church of England 1—I am, All Saints' Rectory, Waterford,Vanuary 9th.
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