THE ATTITUDE OF ULSTER.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1810, 6 April 1918, Page 4

THE ATTITUDE OF ULSTER.

During - an address to 1 ho Standing Committee of the Ulster Council recently, Sir Edward Carson explained that he had resigned from (lie Government, not because of any disagreement with his colleagues over any special scheme in relation to Ireland' —the Government could not consider any scheme while the convention was sitting—but circumstances had arisen at the convention which indicated that questions were likely to arise as to what was the proper step for the Government, to take in the event of the convention’s breaking down. There he came to the conclusion that the Government should he absolutely free to discuss the matter, and he was personally not free. It was the duty of Ulster' to stay in the convention to the end and to consider every proposal, with a view to seeing whether there, could be a solution satisfactory to the people of Ulster. A satisfactory settlement would enable their people in Ulster to feel that they still maintained their status as citizens of the British Empire. “I want to make it perfectly clear,” Sir Edward Carson continued, “that if by ‘settlement’ people have in their minds ‘surrender/ I here will be no settlement. On the other.hand we will examine in the most reasonable way any proposals which may be put forward; all the more because I know it still is your wish,,as it is mine, that so far.as possible we should relieve the Government, engaged , in the anxieties (hat are of mbnentary occurrence, as I know too well, in relation to this war, as' far as possible and as far as our duty will allow us. While we will consider every proposal that either the conventipn of His Majesty’s Government may make with a single eye to the benefit of the Empire and the prusecutioa of the wui'j

we cannot believe, and we do not believe, for one moment that any Government would be mad enough to try to force upon us a settlement which we could not accept.”