THE CLERICAL ADDRESS TO MR. GLADSTONE. [To TIER EDITOR OF
THE " SPECTATOR:1 SIE,—Will you kindly permit me to ask your correspondent, the Rev. Brooke Lambert, of Greenwich, to read a letter, addressed "To a Friend in Scotland," written by the Rev. Dr. Hanna, of Belfast, and published in the Daily Express (Dublin) on the 16th inst.? J.rite from a remote part of Ireland, other- wise I would send him- a copy of the paper. Dr. Hanna is a -distinguished Presbyterian minister and a sound Liberal. He informs his Scotch friend that the Irish Presbyterians number about half-a-million souls ; that the "General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland" is, and always has been, "one of the most Liberal bodies in the United Kingdom," only about a dozen out of its 550 members being Conservatives, and two or three of these Orangemen ; and that of the whole 550 members of this highly Liberal body, only three support Mr. Gladstone's Home-rule policy. He ridicules, justly, as every one in Ireland knows, the "Irish Protestant Home-rule Association," as "a myth invented to beguile the British people," most of its few members being " Socinians, agnostics, and doc- trinal non-descripts ;" and he declares, what also every one in Ireland knows, that, practically, Irish Protestants numbering 1,200,000 are unanimous in vehement opposition to Mr. Gladstone's Irish policy, and are supported in that opposition "by the best elements of the Roman Catholic population," probably about 800,000. This gives 2,000,000 of avowed and determined Unionists out of the 4,750,000 of the Irish popula- tion, and the Unionists are admittedly far above the average Irishman in point of property, industry, and education. Even supposing that every individual of the remaining 2,750,000, including a great proportion of illiterates, ardently desired that Ireland should have a separate Parliament, would this be a sufficient reason for outraging the sentiment of the other 2,000,000 Bat in every large body of men there are numbers quite content with things as they stand, and the number of this way of thinking among the 2,750,000, I am convinced from personal knowledge, is very large. I go further, and say that the well.to.do farmers generally dislike this Home-role, fearing, and I believe justly, that an Irish Parliament would tax them heavily, or take portions of their land to distribute among the cottiers and labourers. Till the agrarian trouble is ended, it is impossible to estimate truly the strength of the feeling in Ireland favourable to a separate Parliament. I believe it to be in itself extremely feeble, and a conviction to this effect probably explains Mr. Parnell's readiness to accept the meagre and humiliating proposal made by Mr. Gladstone two years ago.—I am, Sir, &c, AN IRISH LIBERAL.
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