The result of the debate was the announcement of the
Government that the Amending Bill will be introduced into the Lords next Tuesday. As to its form nothing was said, but, after all, this does not matter, as the Government expect, nay, have invited, "extensive alterations." As we have said elsewhere, the Unionists must not be driven into a policy of despair even if the Government tell them in the Lords that their (i e., the Unionist) amendments to the Amending Bill cannot possibly be accepted. The business of the Lards is to send down to the Commons a Bill which is adequate for its purpose—the avoidance of civil war. They must not ask for a line more, nor accept a line less. Then the issue will be plain. The Commons must decide whether they will take on them- selves the awful responsibility of rejecting amendments which will prevent bloodshed. We cannot believe that when the issue is thus made clear they will care to provoke war, or, if they do, that the country will allow them their fill of blood. No doubt the policy we hare sketched means great self-sacrifice on the part of the Unionists, and involves grave risks and grave chances of misunderstanding and ill-feeling arising among the Irish loyalists. But in spite of these evils—and that they are many and great we freely admit—the Unionists must persist for this policy is ten times better than civil war. "Support Lord Lansdowne and give him your fullest confidence." That is our message to our fellow-Unionists. In that sign we shall yet save the nation.
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