o deny that their home
rule policy, if carried into effect, will make slaves of one part
of Ireland or another.

If their bill for the better government of Ireland reaches the
statute book without the amending bill it will make slaves of the
Ulstermen. It will deprive them of half of the representation to
which their population entitles them in the House of Commons, thus
reducing them to a political inferiority, as compared with the
peoples of Great Britain, which can hardly be distinguished from
political slavery, and it will further compel them to accept the
administration of a Dublin Parliament which they fear and detest in
all matters relating to their local government. I have often
wondered how any one rejoicing in the inheritance of old Liberal
traditions could for a moment suppose that any group of free men
would ever accept such dishonoring conditions.

Again, if the Home Rule bill is passed with the amending bill
tacked on to it, the chains of slavery from which Ulster will be
relieved will be riveted on the rest of Ireland. Ulster will have
thirty-three representatives in the Imperial House of Commons, and
the rest of Ireland twenty-seven! What germ of a settlement of the
Irish question can any one discover in a policy which proposes that
one-fourth of the people of Ireland should be able to outvote the
other three-fourths in matters affecting their liberties and
taxation?

No! The Ministerial bills of home rule are fundamentally bad and
should be withdrawn, in order that a new attempt may be made to
reach a settlement by general consent in accordance, as I believe,
with the wishes of the overwhelming majority of the people.

Is it not better to wait a little for a settlement by consent on
lines which will conduce to permanent peace and prosperity than to
try to force on the pages of the statute book a measure which must
lead to bloodshed and civil war? If party considerations veto the
withdrawal of the Ministerial measure of home rule without the aid
of a general election, then let us have a general election without
one moment's unnecessary delay.

The times are too perilous to allow us even to contemplate with any
other feeling than that of horror and dismay the Lord Chancellor's
appeal to go forward unflinchingly to civi