t that she may remain as she is in the
unimpaired enjoyment of her position as an integral portion of the
United Kingdom and with unaltered representation in Imperial Parliament.
She wishes to continue as an Irish Lancashire, or an Irish Lanarkshire.
In this relationship to Great Britain she is confident she will best
preserve, not only her own interests, but also those of her fellow
loyalists, Roman Catholic as well as Protestants, whose lot is cast in
the other provinces and whose welfare will always be her responsible and
earnest concern.

But if this demand--based on loyalty to the King and Constitution, and
founded on the elementary right of British citizens to the unimpaired
protection of Imperial Parliament--be refused, then the only alternative
is the Ulster Provincial Government, which will be organised to come
into operation on the day that a Home Rule Bill should receive the Royal
Assent; and under that Provisional Government we shall continue to
support our King, and to render the same services' to the United Kingdom
and to the Empire as have characterised the history of Ulster during the
past three hundred years.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 66: See Mr. Wyndham's article, p. 249.]

IX

THE SOUTHERN MINORITIES

BY RICHARD BAGWELL, M.A.

At the present moment no county or borough in the three southern
provinces of Ireland returns a Unionist member. There are substantial
minorities in many places, but very few in which there would be any
chance of a successful contest. The University of Dublin sends two
conspicuous Unionists to Parliament, who represent not only a
constituency of graduates, but the vast majority of educated and
thinking people. The bearing of the question on religious interests will
be dealt with by others, but it may be said here that the Protestant
community is Unionist. The exceptions are few, and are much more than
counter-balanced by the Roman Catholic opponents of Home Rule, who for
obvious reasons are less outspoken, but are quite as anxious to avert
the threatened revolution.

The great bone of contention has always been the land, the cause of
various wars and of ceaseless civil disputes. Parnell saw and said that
purely political Nationalism was weak by itself, and he took up the land
question to get leverage. For many years it has been evident that the
only feasible solution was to convert occupiers into owners, and a very
long step was made by the Purchase Act of 1903.