Lloyd George's proposals were. The
Cabinet offered on the one hand a "clean cut," not indeed of the whole
of Ulster, but of the six most Protestant counties, and on the other to
bring the Home Rule Act, so modified, into immediate operation. He
pointed out that none of them could contemplate using the U.V.F. for
fighting purposes at home after the war; and that, even if such a thing
were thinkable, they could not expect to get more by forcible resistance
to the Act than what was now offered by legislation.
But to Carson himself, and to all who listened to him that day, the
heartrending question was whether they could suffer a separation to be
made between the Loyalists in the six counties and those in the other
three counties of the Province. It could only be done, Carson declared,
if, after considering all the circumstances of the case as he unfolded
it to them, the delegates from Cavan, Monaghan, and Donegal could make
the self-sacrifice of releasing the other counties from the obligation
to stand or fall together.
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