"
It was, however, thoroughly understood by every member of the House of
Commons that argument, no matter how irrefutable, had no effect on the
situation, which was governed by the simple fact that the life of the
Ministry depended on the good-will of the Nationalist section of the
Coalition, which rigorously demanded the passage of the Bill in the
current session, and feared nothing so much as the judgment of the
English people upon it. Consequently, under the guillotine, great blocks
of the Bill, containing the most far-reaching constitutional issues,
and matters vital to the political and economic structure of the centre
of the British Empire, were passed through the House of Commons by the
ringing of the division bells without a word of discussion, exactly as
they had come from the pen of the official draftsman, and destined under
the exigencies of the Parliament Act procedure to be forced through the
Legislature in the same raw condition in the two following sessions.
This last-mentioned fact suggested a consideration which weighed heavily
on the minds of the Ulster leaders as the year 1912 drew to a close, and
with it the debates on the Bill in Committee.
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