"
This appeared to be a notable change of attitude on the part of the
Government; but it was received with not a little suspicion by the
Unionist leaders. Whether or not the change was due, as Mr. William
Moore bluntly asserted, to the formation of the Ulster Volunteer Force,
which had now reached its full strength of 100,000 men, the question of
interest was whether the promised proposals would render that force
unnecessary. Mr. Austen Chamberlain asked why the Government's proposals
should be kept bottled up until a date suspiciously near All Fools' Day;
and Sir Edward Carson, in one of the most impressive speeches he ever
made in Parliament, which wrung from Mr. Lloyd George the acknowledgment
that it had "entranced the House," joined Chamberlain in demanding that
the country should not be kept in anxious suspense. The only proper way
of making the proposals known was, he said, by embodying them at once in
a Bill to amend the Home Rule Bill. He confirmed Chamberlain's statement
that nothing short of the exclusion of Ulster would be of the slightest
use.
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