We are greatly surprised that more attention has not been
attracted to the long and important resolution passed by the Executive Committee of the Ulster Liberal Unionist Associa- tion at a meeting held at Belfast on November 3rd, under the presidency of the Right Hon. Thomas Sinclair, than whom Ulster has no abler or more respected citizen. The most important part of the resolution is that in which the policy we have so consistently and so strongly urged upon Ulster is adopted—namely, the policy of demanding that no county of Ireland shall, contrary to the wishes of the majority of its inhabitants, be turned out of the Legislative Union and placed under the Dublin Parliament instead of the Parliament at Westminster. Here are the actual words adopted:— "In conclusion the Executive Committee would observe that the claim of Ulster Liberal Unionists—in making which they believe they are safeguarding the interests of their fellow- Unionists in all parts of Ireland—is that, if the Government is determined to destroy the true prosperity of Ireland by inflicting Home Rule upon her, Ulster shall remain, as she is at present, an integral portion of the United Kingdom, enjoying unimpaired representation in Imperial Parliament. She desires no separate Parliament for herself, but simply that she shall continue, as now, in the Constitutional position of an Irish Lancashire or of an Irish Lanarkshire. Anything else would be a crime against her historical right to equal citizenship in the King's realm. But should her claim be disallowed, and if, through an unholy alliance of Irish Nationalists with British Socialists and Radicals unin- formed or misled as to the conditions of Ireland, a measure of Home Rule should be forced through a Single-Chamber Parlia- ment without appeal to the electorate, the Executive Committee declares that Ulster will be justified in resisting to the uttermost the authority of a local Legislature imposed upon her by such a criminal procedure. If Ulster should be plunged into civil war, the responsibility will rest on the Prime Minister and on his Cabinet, and on all who blindly support them."
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