CORRESPONDENCE

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 287, 27 April 1911, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE

MR. LONGSDALE M.P., AND HOME RULE. To the Editor. , Sir,—The cable message m yesterday's News reports Mr. Longsdale, M.P., to have stated in the House of Commons that if Home Rule was passed the people of Ulster would not acknowledge the Government authority and it would not pay taxes. The advocates of Home Rule, even in Ulster, almost balance the opponents of that measure, and are a growing quantity, whereas the opponents of the granting of legislative indepandence to Ireland are year by year gradually but steadily dwindling away. In West Belfast supreme efforts were made to unseat Mr. Devlin at the last general election, but without success. The sacred name of religion was dragged I into the contest, and all softs of means ■ were resorted to in order to prejudice •the minds of the constituents against the sitting member, but a majority declared in his favor at the .polls. It is thoroughly misleading to talk of Ulster as anti-nationalist, and Mr. Longsdale and-others who speak in a similar strain are indirectly helping the cause they desire to damage by showing the world that the granting of autonomy to Ireland can only be prevented by misrepresentation and unmitigated and unblushing mendacity.—l am, etc., HOME RULER.