As we write on Friday morning the Conference is stated
to be "hanging by a thread." We do not, however, mean even at the eleventh hour to give up hope that the final outcome of its deliberations will be peace. Though only the vaguest rumours have reached the outside world as to what has gone on in the Conference, it is, we think, safe to say that a settle- ment can at any moment be reached if the Nationalists will agree to the six Plantation Counties being treated as "the Ulster area "—i.e., the area to be excluded. It is true that Sir Edward Carson would probably have very considerable diffi- culty in persuading the Ulster Covenanters to agree to the six counties instead of the whole Province being the excluded area. We do not believe, however, that if he went straight from the Conference to Ulster with such a proposal the Covenanters of Donegal, Cavan, and Monaghan would in the last resort refuse to make a sacrifice which would bring peace to Ulster, to Ireland, and to the Empire. We know, of course, Mr. Redmond's difficulties in the matter, but we should have thought that circumstances must make him and Mr. Dillon recognize that they must ask the necessary sacrifice of their followers, telling them, what assuredly is the fact, that if they are not willing to take the three provinces, plus Donegal, Cavan, and Monaghan, they are only too likely to end in getting nothing.
