EXCLUSION.
[To vu EDITOR or Ts. SIMCMOB...1
Sin,—Permit me once again to protest against the suggestion, repeated in your issue of February 28th, that, in the event of "Exclusion," "the province of Ulster as a whole should not be the unit to be excluded, but only the six Plantation counties." Such a breach of historic continuity is in any case to be deprecated, and in this particular instance seems likely to lead to disaster. The province of Ulster is no arbitrary figment of the geographic brain, but the organic development of 'centuries of evolution. The four provinces of Ireland are historically derived from the Pentarehate of Milesian king- ships, known to mediaevalists as Ulster, Munster, Leinster, Connacht, and Meath ; and these historic boundaries are not lightly to be altered under the pressure of any particular political crisis. But apart from the historic point of view, the whole of the present troubles arise from the racial and religious variations of the Irish nation. The Irish Celts are essentially sychic, whilst the Northern Scots are as equally mental in sir respective development and outlook. Now your proposal I segregate Catholic Celts and Protestant Norse into separate c mpg of mutual mistrust and illwill can only intensify the present difficulties, and still further postpone that realization of Irish unity which is the vital essence of the persistent aspirations of Home Rule, and the only foundation of true Imperial unity. Unionists must look for some better policy than your suggestion of racial division, and they must con- trive some method by which the ancient landmarks of historic continuity may be maintained, and by which the true issue of Irish unity may be advanced.
The Southern provinces of Ireland ask for liberty to rule themselves in accordance with their own or Celtic ideas ; the Northern province demands with equal resolution that it should be permitted to rule itself according to Nome ideas. Both these requirements are met by the exclusion of the whole province of Ulster from the present Home Rule Bill; and provided that guarantees are given (as Lord Lansdowne properly insists) for the protection of Anti-Nationalists and Protestants in the Southern provinces, and of Nationalists and Catholics in the Northern province, such an arrange- ment leaves the road open for the development of that local autonomy which the North and South of Ireland respectively desire and demand. In this way only can the racial and religious differences of centuries find conciliation and appease- ment, and all the while each party will be learning from the other some of those secrete of mutual respect and self-govern. meat which seem at present to be hid from their eyes. Under such arrangements, constitutional compromises, whether of the Federal or Nationalist variety, can be worked out in fear and trembling by their respective partisans and patentees; and when the touchstone of experience has been put to these experiments in self-control, then the way will be open for fruitfully applying that experience to the varying conditions of England. Scotland, and Wales.—I am, Sir, &a.,
Ham merfield, Penshurst, Bent. ARNOLD F. HILLS.
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