IRELAND'S PARLIAMENTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LII, Issue 61, 12 March 1921, Page 14

IRELAND'S PARLIAMENTS.

(To the Editor.* Sir, —Your correspondent, G. W. Blair, because of his freedom from cant and bigotry, merits a reply. He complains at mv designation "handful of people." He entirely missed my contention when he gives the total of Protestants in Ireland as 1,140,581. I do not question the accuracy of these figures To use the word Ulster in a homogeneous sense is, however, misleading and incorrect. In three out of the nine counties comprising Ulster, the Nationalists are overwhelming; in two others the Nationalists have a majority of 28,070; whilst the Unionists in two counties—Antrim and Down —have overwhelming majorities, and in the other ' two—Armagh and Derry— their majorities are 'relatively small. Consequently the Northern Parliament, which embraces six counties, two of which possess Nationalist majorities, will cater for a veritable "handful of people," with a most pronounced and discontented minority. The 240,551 Protestants in the south and west, of -whom G.W.B. writes, wrre represented at the convention, and unanimously supported one Parliament ioi Ireland, which they regarded as inevitable, though still clinging to the Union. The one thing the Unionists of tho south and west opposed was the setting up of a Northern Parliament. With G.W.8., I heartily agree that "peace and increased prosperity" may sood come "to all parts of Ireland," hut It will not come by the agency of two Parliaments. Australia was quoted by another correspondent. Australia, by the free votes of Its people, decided their own form of government, viz., by •Federal and State Parliaments. Ireland, on the contrary, had her form o* government decided by the people of the adjoining island, and in direct opposition to the wishes, often expressed constitutionally and by physical force, of the Irish people. Furthermore, it is sought to impose this mode of government upon au unwilling people by means of tanifl ami machine jruns. These methods are doomed to failure. All that the Irish people demand is that the English Government should practice what it preaches, viz., "Government by the consent of the governed."—l am, etc., JUSTITIA.