ULSTER AND HOME RULE.
[To THE EDITOR OP TUE "SPECTATOR."' Ben,—The reason we Home Rulers, both in Ireland and in Great Britain, as you say, so obstinately refuse to insert in the Home Rule Bill a clause allowing any county in Ulster which so desires to remain under the Parliament at Westminster is that we do not see why a measure for Irish self-government should be treated differently from any other legislation, past, present, or proposed. When the Act of Union was being carried those parts of Ireland which desired to remain under an Irish Parliament were not offered the choice of so doing. When the Budget of 1909 was being debated even its bitterest opponents did not,urge that a piece- meal application of its provisions should be made in the United Kingdom, all those counties or districts that objected to it being left out, Do you go so far as to suggest that con- stituencies represented in England, Scotland, or Wales by Conservative members should be permitted to contract out of Liberal legislation affecting England, Scotland, or Wales as a whole P Would you, in urging that the Ulster counties where Unionism is predominant should be allowed to remain in the Parliament at Westminster, permit the portions of those counties where Nationalism is predominant, e.g., West Belfast, Newry, South Down, and South Armagh, to be represented in the Parliament at Dublin P Consistency demands that you answer Loth questions in the affirma- tive. But just as concession in regard to the first question means chaos in Great Britain, so concession upon the second means the wrecking of Irish self-government. There are thus two reasons why Home Rulers like myself cannot yield to your proposal, The first is that it is novel and alien to the course of British legislation; the second that it is unworkable, and both impliedly and avowedly designed not to secure the passing even of a truncated measure of Home Rule, but to wreck any Home Rule Bill of whatsoever hind. We fear the Greeks, not only when bringing gifts, but also when offering compromises. Regarding a question of fact, there are not six counties in Ulster, as you suggest, with a Unionist majority. The number of such is only four, viz., Londonderry, Antrim, Down, and Armagh. There are four with a Home Rule majority, Donegal, Monaghan, Tyrone, and Cavan, and one with the representation evenly divided, Fermanagh.—I am, Sir, &c., W. H. DAVEY. 46 Bawnmore Boad, Belfast.
[We deal in another part of our issue with the question whether we ought to drive out of the Union those Irish counties in which the majority of the voters object to being placed under a Dublin Parliament and desire to remain under the Parliament at Westminster. That the Imperial Perlin.. ment has the power to force them to go under a Dublin Parliament we do not, of course, deny. We ourselves do not admit that the will of the local majority must prevail, and therefore oppose Home Rule for Ireland. We ask, however : By what right do those who found the case for Home Rule on this principle of the local majority refuse to apply it to Ulster ? What is sauce for the South should be sauce for the North.—En. Spectator.]
Previous page
