The adjourned debate on Mr. Agar-Robartes's amendment excluding Ulster from
the provisions of the Home Rule Bill was resumed on Tuesday by Mr. F. E. Smith, who empha- sized the democratic character of the resistance to Home Rule in Belfast and challenged the Government to declare whether they would meet the opposition of Ulster by force. Mr. W. O'Brien, who followed, said there were few compromises to which he would not gladly consent in order to conciliate the Protestant minority, but this was intolerable and impossible. Some of them, at all events, would rather be ruled to the end of their days by the Grand Turk than assent to this mutilation of
their country. Mr. Backmaster, in an eloquent ultra-senti- mental speech, ascribed the apprehension of religious oppression to the hateful, abominable legacy of past misdeeds of oppression by the Protestant minority, while Mr. McMordie reminded Mr. O'Brien that his own life was scarcely safe in his own constituency. Mr. J. H. Campbell met the Prime Minister's charge that they were deserting the loyal minority outside Ulster by assuring him that since they decided to support the amendment he had not received a remonstrance from a single Unionist in Ireland. The reasres why no demand for separate treatment had been made in 1893 was that there was no Parliament Act in 1893.
Previous page
