26 AUGUST 1916, Page 3

The fixed resolve of the people of the six-county area

to obtain exclusion, that is to apply the Home Rule principle to themselves, was evidently regarded by the Home Rulers of the South and West with the utmost detestation. That the Ulster Protestants in the six counties should dare to choose their own way of government appeared to the majority of Celtic Roman Catholic Irishmen as nothing but the foulest treason. As long as this mood lasts Home Rule is clearly impossible. But does not all this prove, as we have said a thousand times in these pages, that, be the fact pleasant or unpleasant, the Act of Union remains the only practical method of regulating the relations between the two Irelands and the two Islands It is the only key that fits the lock.