[To Tor Bolros or THY "Sracraroa."1 811%, — Some Liberal papers, I
observe, still plainly believing that the talk of civil war in Ulster is bluff, and unwilling to face facts, make much of the objections of the Irish Times, Sir Horace Plunkett, and Southern Irish Unionists generally to the policy of Exclusion. No Irishman is taken with the idea of Exclusion—we all hate it. But as the choice between two tremendous evils, I have yet to meet the Southern Unionist who does not prefer Exclusion viewed nakedly as the alternative. to civil war. Yet it is an alternative which few are ready to face squarely or to approve publicly, as long as we hope, as most of us hope, that Home Rule is doomed in any case. It is as if a man were given the choice of imprisonment for life or instant execution. One who feels he merits neither may reasonably in such conditions "hum and haw," and point out, in the manner of the Irish Times, the gross inconveniences of imprisonment for life.
The one unanswerable argument for Exclusion is that it alone provides, apart from an appeal to the people, an escape from the horrors of civil and religious war. Exclusion is the only safety-valve for a desperate situation, the only honourable line of retreat left open to the Liberals, and the only way in which this measure of Home Rule can be given to Ireland without the immediate ruin of our country. The Earl of Arran speaks of Exclusion as treason to the Unionists of the South. But how does he think that Ulster can help us P How can he protect the isolated Protestants of the South and West from the fury of a religious fanaticism which will wrap all Ireland in flames, as surely as Roman Catholic blood is shed P I think that the Earl of Arran must perceive that, with the best of motives, his power to help does not exist. The Exclu- sion of Ulster, with power to "come in" of her own free will after a term of years, a step inevitable if Home Rule brings to Ireland a quarter of the blessings that Home Rulers paint, will provide Ulster with a useful test of Nationalist practice and profession, and thereby afford the best safeguard we Unionists in the South could possibly have. Even five years of Home Rule will be a decent index as to whether honesty, fair play, and tolerance, or Tammany methods and religious bias, are to stamp the methods of the new Parliament—I am,
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