ng considerations. First, there must be
established "a subordinate Irish legislature with an executive
responsible to it"; secondly, "nothing must be done to erect a permanent
and insuperable bar to Irish unity"; and thirdly, though the process of
relieving congestion in the Imperial Parliament could not be fully
accomplished by the present Bill, Ireland must not be made to wait till
a complete scheme of decentralization could be carried out.

The second of these conditions was plainly the most significant. It was
taken to mean that "county option"--the right for each county to decide
whether it would come under a Home Rule Government--would not create "a
permanent and insuperable" obstacle, since each county could be given
the opportunity to vote itself in at any time. Redmond's next important
speech in England showed by its emphasis that he felt a danger. He
denounced "the gigantic game of bluff and black-mail" which was in
progress. The proposed exclusion of Ulster was not a proposition that
could be considered. It would bring about, he thought, the ruin of
Ulster's prosperity. "For us it would mean the nullification of our
hopes and aspirations for the future." It would stereotype an old evil
in the region where it still existed. What Ulster really feared, he
said, was the loss, not of freedom or prosperity, but of Protestant
ascendancy.

This was the truth; Protestant ascendancy, which in his boyhood had
existed throughout all Ireland, was in consequence of the Irish party's
work dead in three provinces. It remained and must remain in Ulster,
where Protestants were a majority, but it would be qualified if that
region came under the control of a parliament elected by all Ireland.
That was and is the true reason of Ulster's resistance to national
self-government. What he would concede and what he would reject, Redmond
indicated in general words: "There is no demand, however extravagant and
unreasonable it may appear to us, that we are not ready carefully to
consider, so long as it is consistent with the principle for which
generations of our race have battled, the principle of a settlement
based on the national self-government of Ireland. I shut no door to a
settlement by consent, but ... we will not be intimidated or bullied
into a betrayal' of our trust."

It was noted at that time that he had said nothing to rule out Sir
Edward Grey's proposal, which would have left the local majority
predominant in Ulster's ow