In other words, Mr. Asquith has made an offer of
an offer. The nature of the second or matured " offer " (not to be con- fused with the " offer " already made, though Mr. Birrell's language, we must say, rather encourages confusion), we are not to know till Mr. Asquith reveals it in Parliament. Mr. Asquith, we greatly fear, is, after all, only willing to offer Ulster something which she has said from the beginning she cannot and will not accept. It is the old story of the fish being asked what sauce they would like to be cooked with. When they say that they do not wish to be cooked at all, they are told that they wander from the point and are wicked and ungrateful creatures. There is only one genuine and sincere offer which can be made to the people who are determined to fight to the death rather than be placed under a Dublin Parliament, and that is to exclude them from the operation of the Act. Home Rule per se may be a good or a bad thing, but whatever the decision on that abstract point, it must be sinning against their own light for those who believe that the will of the local majority should prevail to shoot down the local majority in Ulster because they do not wish to pus tinder the authority of a Government which they detest. To kill men in Ulster for that reason is murder, and those who do such deeds will be guilty of murder.
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