criminal classes on the police. Yet, after much hard hitting in speech,
he once more led the way in retreat from the Government's position. Sir
Edward Grey had declared, speaking for the Government, that beyond the
six years' limit they could not go. Mr. Churchill himself had declared
the Government's offer would be and should be their last word. Yet now,
avowedly on his own account, and not speaking for the Cabinet, he
proposed that a new negotiation should be opened with Sir Edward Carson.

This proposal elicited no response, and the debate continued that day in
a line of violent recrimination. But next day Sir Edward Carson rose and
affirmed that he had previously declared his willingness to advise
Ulster to close with a proposal giving exclusion until a Federal scheme
had been considered, when the whole matter should be reviewed "in the
light of the action of the Irish Parliament and how they got on." Now he
said:

"I shall try to make an advance on what I said before. I will say
this--and I hope the House will believe me, because, though I do not
want to be introducing my own personality into it, I am myself a
southerner in Ireland--I would say this: That if Home Rule is to pass,
much as I detest it, and little as I will take any responsibility for
the passing of it, my earnest hope, and indeed I would say my most
earnest prayer, would be that the Government of Ireland for the South
and West would prove, and might prove, such a success in the future,
notwithstanding all our anticipations, that it might be even for the
interest of Ulster itself to move towards that Government, and come in
under it and form one unit in relation to Ireland. May I say something
more than that? I would be glad to see such a state of things arising in
Ireland, in which you would find that mutual confidence and goodwill
between all classes in Ireland as would lead to a stronger Ireland as an