In the evening Mr. Boner Law addressed a great meeting
in the Theatre Royal. How could Home Rule be more "inevitable" than in 1906? Yet that was the word used to describe it now. The Government had had to face the ignominy of seeing the "People's Budget" defeated by the representatives of the people, or buying a majority for their Budget. They bad chosen the second alternative. The only possible reason why the Government did not ask for the verdict of the people now was (1) that they knew it would be nnfavourable, or (2) that their hands were tied by a bargain with the Nationalists. "When I compare the speeches of the Prime Minister at Ladybank and at Leeds I fear that a bargain ties their hands, and that there is some evidence of it in writing which would damn them for evermore." Unionists admitted that the law was being undermined in Ulster, but the responsibility was not with Irish Protestants, who had no course but physical force left to them. " We cannot go back from the pledge given to Ulster. We shall not allow them to he coerced." At an overflow meeting Mr. Boner Law said that Unionists were ready to consider a system of devolution all round.
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