No settlement or alteration in the Bill is worth considering
that does not avoid the horrors of civil war ; nor can there be any general agreement to do anything unless as a result civil war is guarded against. Do not these undeniable facts, and Mr. Asquith's presentment of them, point, as we have suggested, to Mr. Asquith having come to the conclusion that the way out is to exclude Ulster " temporarily," as he would say, or at least till the whole subject is reopened by the adoption of a Federal system ? The door will be set open for a Federal system by reserving the Post Office and the Customs for the Imperial Parliament, and Ulster will be allowed to slip out of that open door. That is our reading of how the situation is going to develop. It is anything but an ideal arrangement, and seems madness compared with the maintenance of the Union for all Ireland, but at any rate it is better than civil war.
