The debates on the Bill turned on Ulster. And it
is on Ulster, so far as we can see, that the fate of a Conference must also hang. Ulster cannot possibly be sacrificed. With a political penetration that pierced the essential and hopeless illogicality of the Home Rule Bill, the Unionists at length concentrated their whole attention on proving that what was logic for the local majority of the South was also logic for the local majority of the North. This meant, of course, when practically expressed, the exclusion of Ulster from the Bill. Both Nationalists and Liberals refused that demand. It is assumed that as they have refused it once they will refuse it again. We are not sure of that. Personally we should like to see a Conference summoned, so that the Government and the Nationalists might again have an opportunity to agree to the principle of the exclusion of Ulster from any Dublin regime. No harm could come, at all events, of showing that under conditions of autonomy the difficulty of safeguarding one local majority against a neighbouring and much larger local majority has been reduced to a working solution in the Roman Catholic province of Quebec. The atmosphere of a Conference would be a change from that of the House of Commons, and the tone and temper might also be different. We might apply to the fresher atmosphere of a Conference the words which Pope used in apostrophizing Silence.
"Afflicted sense thou kindly dost set free, Oppress'd with argumental tyranny,
And routed reason finds asafe retreat in thee."
Reason has been routed by the argumental tyranny—including the gag—of the House of Commons. In spite of many tmfavourable- signs we do not abandon the hope that a Conference might possibly yet fikt It free. -
