gh the whole province were Unionist.
Virtually, all that is Unionist in Ireland is in Ulster, but it is very
far from the truth to say that all Ulster is Unionist. Not one of the
Counties of Donegal, Tyrone, Monaghan, or Cavan, out of the whole nine
of which the province consists, returns a Unionist. In the three
Counties of Down, Armagh, and Fermanagh, the representation is divided,
and as for the two Counties of Londonderry and Antrim, which are
ordinarily the sole strongholds of the Orangemen, even in them a breach
was effected in West Belfast, where the Labour vote returned a
Nationalist for the first time since Mr. Sexton sat for it from
1886-1892.

The obviousness and permanence of the Irish representation in Parliament
is apt to cause its significance to be forgotten. "It doesn't matter
what we say, but for God's sake _let_ us be consistent," Lord Palmerston
is reported to have said concerning some question of policy at a Cabinet
Council. The Irish people, its worst enemies must admit, have been
consistent for the last thirty years in the demands which their
representatives have made ever since Isaac Butt crystallised the Irish
antagonism to the _status quo_ in the "Home Government Association,"
which he formed and on the programme of which he returned, after the
general election of 1874, with 59 followers in the House of Commons,
pledged to support the demand for Irish self-government. If we exclude
the fact that the extension of the franchise in 1884 increased the
number of the popular representatives to more than 80, it is true to say
that since then there has been no change in the position of Irish
representation, just as there has been none in Irish demands. The
Liberalism of Non-conformist Wales, and to a lesser degree of
Presbyterian Scotland, are traditional, but their adherence to one side
or the other in politics appears vacillating if one studies the election
figures, compared with the unwavering permanence of the Irish returns.
When Lord Dudley declared that his aim as Viceroy would be to govern
Ireland according to Irish ideas a shout of protest arose from the
_Times_ and the Irish Unionists, whose organ the _Times_ has constituted
itself. Let us clear our minds of cant on the matter, and ask in view of
this open disclaimer of the democratic principles which are so much
vaunted in England, for what reason is maintained the travesty of
representative government, the decrees of which it is frankly avow