Some regard, however, was still to be paid to the promise of an Amending
Bill. The Prime Minister repeated that no one contemplated the coercion
of Ulster; that an attempt must be made to come to agreement about the
terms on which the Home Rule Act could be brought into immediate
operation; and that the Cabinet had deputed to Mr. Lloyd George the task
of negotiating to this end with both parties in Ireland. Accordingly,
Mr. Lloyd George, then Secretary of State for War, interviewed Sir
Edward Carson on the one hand and Mr. Redmond and Mr. Devlin on the
other, and submitted to them separately the proposals which he said the
Cabinet were prepared to make.[93]
On the 6th of June Carson explained the Cabinet's proposals at a special
meeting of the Ulster Unionist Council held in private. His task was an
extremely difficult one, for the advice he had to offer was utterly
detestable to himself, and he knew it would be no less so to his
hearers. And the latter, profound as was their trust in him as their
leader, were men of singularly independent judgment and quite capable of
respectfully declining to take any course they did not themselves
approve.
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