Ulster was considered as a unit, yet the
distribution of population made it certain that a separate Parliament
for the whole Province would have a precarious existence, while its
administration of purely Nationalist districts would mean unending
conflict.

It was, therefore, decided that no proposal for extending the area
should be made by the Ulster members. Carson made it clear in the
debates on the Bill that Ulster had not moved from her old position of
desiring nothing except the Union; that he was still convinced there was
"no alternative to the Union unless separation"; but that, while he
would take no responsibility for a Bill which Ulster did not want, he
and his colleagues would not actively oppose its progress to the
Statute-book.

It did not, however, receive the Royal Assent until two days before
Christmas, and during all these months the condition of Ireland was one
of increasing anarchy. The Act provided that, if the people of Southern
Ireland refused to work the new Constitution, the administration should
be carried on by a system similar to Crown Colony government. Carson
gave an assurance that in Ulster they would do their best to make the
Act a success, and immediate steps were taken in Belfast to make good
this undertaking.

To the people of Ulster the Act of 1920, though it involved the
sacrifice of much that they had ardently hoped to preserve, came as a
relief to their worst fears. It was represented as a final settlement,
and finality was what they chiefly desired, if they could get it without
being forced to submit to a Dublin Parliament. The disloyal conduct of
Nationalist Ireland during the war, and the treason and terrorism
organised by Sinn Fein after the war, had widened the already broad gulf
between North and South. The determination never to submit to an
all-Ireland Parliament was more firmly fixed than ever. The Act of 1920,
which repealed Mr. Asquith's Act of 1914, gave Ulster what she had
prepared to fight for, if necessary, before the war. It was the
fulfilment of the Craigavon resolution--to take over the government "of
those districts which they could control."[107] The Parliament of
Northern Ireland established by the Act was in fact the legalisation of
the Ulster Provisional Government of 1913. It placed Ulster in a
position of equality with the South, both politically and economically.
The two Legislatures in Ireland possessed the same powers, and were
subject to an equal res