ULSTER’S CHOICE.

Hokitika Guardian, 13 May 1920, Page 3

ULSTER’S CHOICE.

t—© 0 'i “THE NEW BILL (ill THE ACT OF 1 ' " V JI - 4 ” . Slit E. CARSON’S SPEECH. The Ulster Unionist. Council “in Belfast in March considered the new Home Rule 11(11, but no decision was arrived at and the mooting wits adjourned till Wednesday to allow the delegates to consult their local Unionist organisations. Sir Edward Carson presided, blit the proceedings were private and no report of his speech was published. At a luncheon Sir Edward.said: . “Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to find that the whole of the south and west had ,y;ganiscd itself to accept and giro a fair trial to the new prs>[>osids. if such a state of facts as that existed we would undertake to govern this province -with a toleration and an example which would be well worthy of the consideration of any Government in the Empire. “If those who have been our opponents would come forward and say ‘We are going to work our Parliament hi the south and west for- the benefit of all classes and all conditions of men, and with a pride in the Empire,’ we would be the very first to shake hands with those men and say, ‘As brother Irishmen we wish you well and we promise you w© will do the same.’ CONFIRMED UNIONISTS. “There are no signs of any such a. jjiappy solution. I look with terror at

wlmt may take place when a new Government is set up (by Act of Parliament in the south west. Ulster’s one desire was to do- the best for the country and the (Empire, but they were as confirmed Unionists to-day as at any time in the whole fight;, (Lour cheers). In all the Bills, from the betrayal of 1885 to the last, no solution equalled Pitt’s when lie proposed the union of the United Kingdom.”

By consent of everybody, the present Bill was about the worst solution that •could havo been proposed, but they had to accept icircumstances. They were not as free as before the Act of 1914, and the matter presented itself, not in a proposition of Home Rule, or no Home Rule, but in a. proposition of the Act of 1914, or the proposals now tabled by the Government. Sir Edward deplored the outrages committed in Ulster and said Unionists were prepared to organise the whole of society there to put an end to dastardly assassinations.