How true ! Lord Grey has made a great discovery—but,
unfortunately, how tardy a discovery:! If Lord Grey had only known all this seven years ago ! He talked very little then of " the consent of Ulster having to be won by the rest of Ireland by consent." In those days it was to have been won by a battle cruiser in Belfast Lough and a division at the Curragh. As Lord Grey sat in that 1914 Cabinet, did no glimmer of his present knowledge—that Ulster must be won by consent—ever enter his head ? As he heard of the arrival of the ships before Belfast, did he never doubt whether an Ulster so " won " would really help an Irish settlement ? Apparently he did not. But now, at any rate, Lord Grey does know that Ulster can never be coerced, and that knowledge, late—perhaps too late—as it is, at any rate is something gained.
