In the House of Commons on Monday Mr. Dillon moved
for a disclosure of the Cabinet's plans relative to Ireland. He denounced Lord Lansdowne, with gross injustice, as the chief wrecker of the tentative agreement to set up Home Rule in Ireland, excluding six Ulster counties. He had, he said, attached primary importance to the proposal that all the Irish Members should continue to sit at Westminster during the war, even if they were now granted a Parliament of their own m Dublin. Mr. Asquith at once made clear " the historical fact " that he and the Secretary for War had never been empowered, in their negotiations with the Nationalists, to bind their colleagues to accept every clause in the draft agreement. Furthermore, Mr. Asquith declared, every one was agreed that it would be impossible to bring any substantial part of Ulster into a Homo Rule Government without its consent. That is the vital fact which the Nationalist rank-and-file still refuse to recognize.
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