THE EXCLUSION OF ULSTER.
[To THE EDITOR OF TILE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,---YOU recommend the exclusion of Ulster from the Home Rule Bill as the only way out of civil war. There appears to me to be an insurmountable difficulty in the way of such a solution, which I venture to bring to your notice. The Ulster Covenanters have solemnly sworn to use all means necessary to defeat the present conspiracy to set up a Home Rule Parliament in Ireland (not Ulster only). It would certainly appear that if Ulster accepted the setting-up of a Home Rule Parliament in Ireland, on the condition that she was excluded from it, the Ulster Covenanters would be accepting a bribe to break their oath, since they have sworn to use all means necessary to defeat the present conspiracy to set up a Home Rule Parliament in Ireland. Surely the sanctity of an oath is more important than anything. I venture to hope that you will give your views on this difficulty.—I am, Sir, &c.,
[We have never suggested that the Ulstermen should say that they like exclusion or that they hold it makes the Home Rule Bill a good Bill. What we say is that exclusion should be settled over their heads and those of the Nationalists by agreement between the English Unionists and English Liberals in order to prevent civil war. Lord An•an forgets that the Ulster leaders have definitely declared that they have no inten- tion and no right to resort to civil war to prevent the Home Rule Bill being applied to the South and West. They admit that they would not be justified in taking up arms for such an object.—En. Spectator.]
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