We cannot honestly see the least hope in this proposal.
Why should North-East Ulster,which wants nothing except to remain a part of the United Kingdom, be handed over to the mercy of its traditional enemies ? The plan seems to us to be much worse than the present Home Rule Bill. Lord Grey really proposes that we should yield to the coercion of crime what we declared could not be yielded to demands correctly and legally made. We are asked, in fine, to throw North-East Ulster to the wolves because we are weary of fighting. This, at least, we are sure, is the way it would work out in practice, though of course we know that Lord Grey's intentions are admirable. We cannot help feeling that if the Government had long ago consented to make North-East Ulster a County of England Ireland would be in a much better state now. Rather than try to deceive ourselves that there is any hope in Lord Grey's scheme we say plainly that we would much rather see the South and West of Ireland cut adrift. North-East Ulster would be a County of England; the loyalists of the South and West would be compensated; the republicans would be left to their own devices. "Ireland a Nation" would not, of course, be subsidized.
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