[To THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR.") Sra,—Professor Dowden's opinions command
the respect of every one, but his letter in the Spectator of September 29th appears to show that, in common with many Irish Unionists, he ignores the essential. point. Mr. Gill, he says, is not an expert in agriculture. But in a subject equally complex—the means _by.which a Government or other organising body can foster agriculture and kindred industries—he is an expert. Mr. Gill has studied minutely the process by which countries like Wiirtemberg and Denmark have been raised from a position similar.to that in which Ireland finds, itself to one of widely diffused prosperity. He knows what has been done, and is being done, by the various Departments of Agriculture abroad and in the Colonies; and this is not a branch of know- ledge which can be mastered in a hurry. I have heard it repeatedly asserted that there were hundreds of other men as competent as Mr. Gill, and that he was appointed not although he was an extreme Nationalist, but because of that fact. Against this I set,—first, the assertion of Mr. Plunkett— who has devoted his whole energies for many years to the single end of . increasing Ireland's material prosperity—that in appointing the man who was to be the principal wheel in the machinery of a new Department which at last made his schemes realisable he thought long 'and carefully to find the most competent person ; secondly, the view expressed to me by a prominent Unionist member of the Recess Committee, which was (1) that Mr. Plunkett had a right to' choose his own man, and (2) that, if my friend had had to make the choice, from his -knowledge of Mr. Gill's work he would have appointed
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