[ 20 ] and admittedly put forward that because Ulster is opposed to Home Rule, Ireland as a whole is not to get Home Rule. It is a claim to a veto, an absolute veto I” The purpose of the amendment was explained beyond the possibility of misconception by the very able Irish correspondent of The Times as “a shrewd and perfectly legitimate piece of tactics.” In its editorials the J7zs4 Times, by far the most widely circulating and most influential organ of Unionism in Ireland, was equally candid in its appreciation of the amendment. It had declared the amendment of Mr, Agar-Robartes for the exclusion of four Ulster counties as “a trap to induce Ulster Unionists to desert their brethren south of the Boyne.” Of Sir Edward Carson’s amendment for the exclusion of all Ulster, it wrote :— “We have the strongest objection to the segregation of Ulster from the rest of Unionist Ireland. A strictly Southern Parliament would be hopeless from the begin- ning, and the lot of the Southern Unionists, deserted by their brethren in Ulster, would be intolerable. The Irish Unionist members contemplate no such desertion. The amendment is legitimate tactics on their part, they assume doubtless that the Government will reject it, but if the Government rejects this formal amendment then it must accept in the sight of all men the responsibility of civil war.” The amendment was, as its authors expected and desired, rejected by a big majority. The Home Rule Bill was passed for a United Ireland, the threats of civil war in Ulster grew fiercer and fiercer, and the mustering and arming of Ulster volunteers progressed apace. It is idle to inquire if the Ulster threat of civil war was really intended to be carried into effect, or if it was, like the Ulster exclusion proposals, what the [risk Times would call “perfectly legitimate tactics ” for the defeat of Home Rule. The same threats had been uttered by the same party when