Ministry, perhaps Ireland is not to blame. There was no intense grip of
any fact in the Government's attitude, and on one cardinal point they
were unstable as water. Sir Edward Carson, in opposing the introduction
of the Bill, had used the words: "What argument is there that you can
raise for giving Home Rule to Ireland that you do not equally raise for
giving Home Rule to that Protestant minority in the north-east
province?" Redmond, following him, made one of his few false moves in
debate. "Is that the proposal? Is that the demand?" he asked. Sir Edward
Carson shot the question at him: "Will you agree to it?" Seldom does the
House see a practised speaker so much embarrassed; Redmond in confusion
passed to another topic. He was soon to be confronted with that same
line of reasoning, pushed not dialectically by an opponent, but as a
step in parliamentary negotiation from the Treasury Bench. Mr.
Churchill, who introduced the Second Reading, made it apparent that the
demonstration in Belfast had not been wasted on him.

"Whatever Ulster's rights may be," he said, "they cannot stand in the
way of the whole of the rest of Ireland. Half a province cannot impose a
permanent veto on the nation. The utmost they can claim is for
themselves. I ask, do they claim separate treatment for themselves? Do
the counties of Down and Antrim and Londonderry, for instance, ask to be
excepted from the scope of this Bill? Do they ask for a parliament of
their own, or do they wish to remain here? We ought to know."

This was to proceed at once into the region of a bargain. Mr. Gladstone,
with his grip on the existence of a national spirit in Ireland, would
have known that concession on such point was a very different matter
from some alteration in the financial terms or in the composition of the
Parliament. It admitted, in fact, the contention that Ireland was not a
nation but a geographical expression.