Of this scheme we have only one remark to make,
It is as impracticable in fact as it is mild in intention. It assumes an attitude on the part of the men of Ulster which is not their attitude, never has been, and never will be. It assumes that they agree that Ireland, in- .eluding their part of Ireland, ought to be completely isolated from the rest of the once United Kingdom. But the great majority of the people in the Northern Province want closer, not less close, union with Britain and are much more concerned to maintain that union than to seek any form of union with Southern Ireland. They feel far more at home with the people of Western Scotland and North-West England, with the inhabitants of Glasgow and Liverpool, than they do with 'those of Dublin and Cork. Their attitude towards murder and their way of dealing with the matter is conclusive proof of it. If the Southern people really want unity, there is only one way to get it. They must convince the people of Ulster that they will never consent to union except at the urgent demand of Ulster herself. Ten or twelve years of honest persistence in this policy and the estab- lishment of a Government which shall be neither priest- ridden nor murder-ridden might, no doubt, change the whole attitude of the North. Nothing else will.
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