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London, January 4th, 1917. ULSTER AND HOME RULE. TO THE EDITOR OF THE IRISH TIMES. SIR,—There are certain statements in the letters of your anonymous correspondent "R. J. Y." which, "as an Ulsterman," I cannot allow to pass unanswered. The figure 90,000 is a very modest estimate of the number of Nationalists who were induced to fight for the Empire by reason of the Home Rule Act being on the Statute Book, if we include Irishmen resident in Great Britain as well as those in Ireland. As regards those enlisted from Ireland, full particulars can be obtained in a table attached to that very Unionist document the Hardinge Report, with which, no doubt, your readers are familiar. In any case, a few thousand more or less is immaterial. The point is, that at the beginning of the war Mr. Redmond was authorised to call for recruits from Ireland and to assure his followers that, the Home Rule Act being on the Statute Book, it was the duty of Nationalists to enlist in their thousands; and, as a matter of fact, they did so in considerable numbers. Will it not, therefore, be a breach of trust if at the end of the war the "scrap of paper" on which these men relied in enlisting is not redeemed? I dare say that I will be met by the retort that not enough Nationalists have joined the Army to justify the Government in redeeming its pledge. Taking the figures given in the table referred to above as an estimate, if anything, favourable to Unionist contentions, slightly less than one-third (89,706) and slightly more than half (60,064) the available man-power of Nationalist and Unionist Ireland respectively had served with the forces of the Crown, or were serving at the date therein given. The difference is not so very great in view of the monopoly of loyalty in Ireland which "Ulster" has been endeavouring to persuade the world that she possesses. If this is the criterion by which the loyalty of Nationalist Ireland is to be tried, will any responsible Unionist kindly say what number of Nationalists must voluntarily join the Army before he will withdraw his opposition to Home Rule? Does your correspondent pretend that, if the Home Rule Bill had been passed and enforced throughout Ireland in August, 1914, recruits for the Empire's Armies would have come pouring in from that province? I quite agree with him that militant Ulster "did not hesitate to demand any conditions." One of the conditions demanded and obtained was the promise of an "Amending Bill"; another, which they obtained, and presumably demanded, was a promise by the leaders of English Unionism (including Mr. Bonar Law) that, if necessary in defiance of the opinion of the electors, in the event of an attempt to force Home Rule on Ulster the whole resources of British Unionism would be placed at their disposal, even to the extent of joining them in a civil war. This promise is rarely referred to now, but it has been made superfluous by the general acquiescence in the dictum that Ulster cannot be coerced. Not till…