ot stand in the
way of the whole of the rest of Ireland. Half a province cannot impose a
permanent veto on the nation. The utmost they can claim is for
themselves. I ask, do they claim separate treatment for themselves? Do
the counties of Down and Antrim and Londonderry, for instance, ask to be
excepted from the scope of this Bill? Do they ask for a parliament of
their own, or do they wish to remain here? We ought to know."

This was to proceed at once into the region of a bargain. Mr. Gladstone,
with his grip on the existence of a national spirit in Ireland, would
have known that concession on such point was a very different matter
from some alteration in the financial terms or in the composition of the
Parliament. It admitted, in fact, the contention that Ireland was not a
nation but a geographical expression.

As soon as the Bill went into Committee, the result was seen. The first
serious amendment proposed to exclude the four counties, Antrim, Down,
Armagh, and Derry, and it was moved from the Liberal benches. Three
Liberal speakers supported it in the early stages of a debate which
lasted to the third day--and on the division the majority, which had
been 100 for the Second Reading, fell to 69. Mr. Churchill did not
vote--nor, although this was not then so apparently significant, did Mr.
Lloyd George.

Thus from the very first the point of danger revealed itself. By the
mere threat of a resistance which could only be overcome through the use
of troops, Ulster had made the first dint for the insertion of a wedge
into the composite Home Rule alliance, and into the Cabinet itself. All
this had been gained without any tactical sacrifice, without even
anything like a full disclosure of the force which lay behind this line
of attack.

Nor was the full extent of weakness revealed. In such a case, much
depended on the personality of the man who moved the amendment, and Mr.
Agar-Robartes was one of the most whimsically incongruous figures in the
Government ranks. Twentieth-century Liberalism wears a somewhat drab and
serious aspect, but this ultra-fashionable example of gilded youth would
have been in his place among the votaries of Charles James Fox. The
climax of his incongruity was a vehement and rather antiquated
Protestantism; he was, for instance, among the few who opposed the
alteration of the Coronation oath to a formula less offensive to
Catholics. Nobody doubted that his Cornish constituents would endorse
what