[ 19] It was not until the 13th of June, 1912, that the policy of exclusion was first raised, not by any member of the Unionist party, but by a Radical free-lance, Mr. Agar-Robartes, M.P., on an amend- ment in committee to exclude four counties in Ulster from the operation of the Home Rule Bill. This amendment was denounced by the /7isk Times as “a trap to secure the admission that the Northern Unijon- ists were willing to abandon the Unionists in the rest of Ireland to their fate”; but it was supported by Sir Edward Carson on the express grounds that it would wreck the Home Rule Biil if it were carried. : In January, 1913, on the Report stage of the Bill, Sir Edward Carson himself moved an amendment for the exclusion of the entire province of Ulster, But his object was still not to mend the Bill but to end it. That it was a mere wrecking amendment was abundantly proved both by the debate in Par- liament and the comment of the Unionist press. The frontal assault having failed, the frontal defence against Home Rule having collapsed, it was resolved to attack it in the flank by a proposal of the exclu- sion of Ulster. The claim of the Unionist majority in certain counties of Ulster not merely to reject Home Rule for themselves, but to deny it to the overwhelming Nationalist majority in the rest of Ireland, did not commend itself to the British sense of fair play. An attempt must, therefore, be made to put the same claim in a more plausible form. Sir Edward Carson and his colleagues did not expect to carry his amend- ment, they did not desire to carry it. Any stick is good enough to beat a dog. The amendment was framed and moved in the hope of wrecking Home Rule. In his reply to Sir Edward Carson, Mr. Asquith directly challenged the purpose of the amendment. “ Under the claim to exclude Ulster from the operation of the Bill [he said] is a claim, not ostensibly, but actually