s followers did their best to drive a wedge between the Ulstermen and
the Southern Unionists, by contending that the former, in supporting the
amendment, were deserting their friends. Mr. Balfour declared in answer
to this that "nothing could relieve Unionists in the rest of Ireland
except the defeat of the measure as a whole"; and a crushing reply was
given by Mr. J.H. Campbell and Mr. Walter Guinness, both of whom were
Unionists from the South of Ireland. Mr. Guinness frankly acknowledged
that "it was the duty of Ulster members to take this opportunity of
trying to secure for their constituents freedom from this iniquitous
measure. It would be merely a dog-in-the-manger policy for those who
lived outside Ulster to grudge relief to their co-religionists merely
because they could not share it. Such self-denial on Ulster's part would
in no way help them (the Southerners) and it would only injure their
compatriots in the North."

Sir Edward Carson, in supporting the amendment, insisted that "Ulster
was not asking for anything" except to be left within the Imperial
Constitution; she "had not demanded any separate Parliament." He
accepted the "basic principle" of the amendment, but would not be
content with the four counties which alone it proposed to exclude from
the Bill. He only accepted it, however, on two assumptions--first, that
the Bill was to become law; and, second, that it was to be, as Mr.
Asquith had assured them, part of a federal system for the United
Kingdom. If the first steps were being taken to construct a federal
system, there was no precedent for coercing Ulster to form part of a
federal unit which she refused to join. He had been Solicitor-General
when the Act establishing the Commonwealth of Australia was being
discussed, and it never would have passed, he declared, "if every single
clause had not been agreed to by every single one of the communities
concerned." Ministers were always basing their Irish policy on Dominion
analogies, but could anyone, Carson asked, imagine the Imperial
Government sending troops to compel the Transvaal or New South Wales to
come into a federal system against their will?

The arguments in favour of the amendment were also stated with
uncompromising force by Mr. William Moore, Mr. Charles Craig, and his
brother Captain James Craig, the last-mentioned taking up a challenge
thrown down by Mr. Birrell in a maladroit speech which had expressed
doubt as to the reality of the da