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THE UTILITY OF COMMON STATISTICS 17
Ulster-has relatively increased; but here again I wish
to confine myself to patent and obvious figures, the
lesson of which has more or less sunk into the popular
mind.
It is not difficult to perceive, moreover, that these
changes in figures must gradually teIl more effectively
than they have yet done on the Irish difficulty. In 1832
Ireland was endowed with one hundred and five mem-
bers, its proportion of the population of the United
King!lom being then one-third. If one-third was then
considered to entitle it to one hundred and five members,
one-seventh, it is clear, would only give it at the present
day about forty-five. Of these forty-five, again, one-
third would be from Ulster, and almost exclusively
among the remaining two-thirds, or thirty in all, if we
are to judge from the present appearance, should we
find Home Rulers. The parliamentary Home Rule
difficulty would thus seem to have largely arisen from
the failure to adapt the representation of the country
to changes in the population. There is certainly nothing
in the increased wealth or vigour of the Irish population,
compared with that of the rest of the United Kingdom,
to suggest that Ireland should have a larger repre-
sentation in proportion to its population than it had in
1832 j yet if its representation were only to be reduced
in proportion, the parliamentary difficulty would largely
disappear. Even if no greater change were now to be
made than the introduction of equal electoral districts,
and assuming that the present changes in population
continue, and that Irish representation is adapted to the
probable relative population of Ireland and the United
Kingdom at the next census, then the representatives
of Ireland in Parliament would be reduced from one
hundred and five to eighty-three, and of these eighty-
three only fifty-five would be sent from those parts of
Ireland in which there is disaffection, so that the
maximum number of Home Rulers, unless there are
great changes of party, which I am not discussing,
would apparently be less than fifty-five. Of course I
II. C