11 JULY 1914, Page 2

Lord Lansdowne moved the essential motion—namely, that "the Government of

Ireland Bill, 1914, should not apply to the excluded area as hereinafter defined "—the excluded area being " the province of Ulster." His amendment was designed to provide an area and to get rid of the time-limit, of which no defence whatever had been given. " Let us," he said, "deal in a common-sense way with the question of the duration of the period of Exclusion. Do not let us earmark it either as tem- porary or permanent. Leave it to Parliament at a future time to modify the arrangement when it pleases, under what condition it pleases, and by such procedure as it may consider desirable when the time comes." Surely that is the language of political sanity and political honesty.