THE IRISH MINORITY.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.") Sra,—In your issue of August 21st there appeared a letter signed " Walter Hobhouse." It was a very good letter, containing true facts and statements, but there was one remarkable om mission,— a fact but little noticed hitherto by the English Press, was never once mentioned. The letter did not state that, in addition to the Unionist poll of 142,000 at the Irish General Election of 1882, there were 286,852 voters who abstained from voting at all. Those who know Ireland are but too well aware of the significance of this fact, and are also perfectly acquainted with its meaning. The truth is that the majority of this enormous mass of abstainers was " coerced " into not voting by dread of the National League and its vengeance, and at the same time influenced by a feeling too common in Ireland, a complete want of faith in the secrecy of the ballot. Now, let us remember that the number of registered voters in Ireland is 737,758 (not 712,000, as mentioned in the letter in question) ; that the Unionist voters amounted to 142,000, and the number of non-voters to 286,832 ; these two last numbers, added together, make 428,832. Or, let us admit that 100,000 possibly may have abstained from voting for some other motive than that mentioned above, or were included in the number of anti-Unionist voters not voting in places where no contest took place. We have then, at the very least, 328,852 Unionist voters out of a constituency of 737,758. It must be remembered, too, that 98,404 out of the 450,906 who did vote at the seventy- nine contested elections which took place, voted as " illiterate" voters,—that is to say, that their papers were marked for them ; and it does not require a conjuror to decide what was likely to be the result of that process, as matters now are in Ireland. What, may I therefore ask, has become of the five-sixths of the Irish nation who desire Home-rule, and of whom we heard so much not very long ago P Of course, these are all facts steadily ignored by the anti-Union and Parnellite organs in England
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