" REDUNDANT ULSTER M.P.s " SIR,—I must plead guilty to
being ignorant of Ulster affairs, but I never said in my letter that Ulster should be unrepresented. I merely sug- gested that the Government in the Representation of the People Bill might have overlooked the question of Ulstermen having two votes, which according to Socialist lights is undemocratic. And since to the Socialist Government doctrinaire comes before logical legislation, I thought it possible that they might have missed another opportunity of upsetting a few more members. It might interest Mr. St. John Ervine to know that I took the trouble of looking up the meaning of " redun- dant " and was satisfied that I had chosen the right word ; also " the irritating and charming characteristic of " my arrogant assurance, has not come from the University, so his sarcasm was wasted. Might I in my turn suggest that Mr. Ervine is "manifestly ignorant" of the word ," marsh "? I have seen many a marsh in Devon, but I do not remember having yet seen one in London.
For Senator Taylor's benefit I have since studied the Bill he men- tioned and have thus lessened my ignorance ; however, there is a trace of irony in his statement, " One and a half million people no vote," for in the General Election of 1945 55,000 electors of Fermanagh and Tyrone voted for two candidates who they knew had for the last ten years refrained from taking their seat. Whose fault would it be, in this particular case, if the Government decided to abolish the seats on the grounds that the electors seemed not to be particularly worried if their members did not " express their views on imperial and national
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