Colonel Saunderson, speaking at Lurgan on Monday, described the Session
of Parliament which is going to open at the end of next month as probably the most important which this century has seen (Colonel Saunderson, of coarse, excepts the Session in which the Act of Union was passed). The whole theme of his speech was the evidence given in Meath of the high-handed action of Bishop Nulty and his priests in carrying the Anti-Parnellite against the Parnellite candi- dates; and the inference he drew was that if a Home-rule Bill was passed, the Protestants would be trodden down under the heels of the Roman Catholics. To our mind, the danger of civil war is still greater. We cannot conceive the Ulster Protestants submitting to be trodden down by the Roman Catholics, nor can we conceive that England would tolerate the intervention of the British Army to compel their an bmis- sion. Moreover, we are quite sure that if the four provinces should gain separate political organisations, there would be quite as much danger of the Roman Catholics being trodden down under the heels of the Protestants in Ulster, as there would be of the converse operation in the other three pro- vinces. The reasonable inference is that the Government of the United Kingdom ought to uphold the present system, and prevent either catastrophe as it is prevented now.
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