I further challenge his Majesty's Ministers to deny that their home rule policy, if carried into effect, will make slaves of one part of Ireland or another.
If their bill for the better government of Ireland reaches the statute book without the amending bill it will make slaves of the Ulstermen. It will deprive them of half of the representation to which their population entitles them in the House of Commons, thus reducing them to a political inferiority, as compared with the peoples of Great Britain, which can hardly be distinguished from political slavery, and it will further compel them to accept the administration of a Dublin Parliament which they fear and detest in all matters relating to their local government. I have often wondered how any one rejoicing in the inheritance of old Liberal traditions could for a moment suppose that any group of free men would ever accept such dishonoring conditions.
Again, if the Home Rule bill is passed with the amending bill tacked on to it, the chains of slavery from which Ulster will be relieved will be riveted on the rest of Ireland. Ulster will have thirty-three representatives in the Imperial House of Commons, and the rest of Ireland twenty-seven! What germ of a settlement of the Irish question can any one discover in a policy which proposes that one-fourth of the people of Ireland should be able to outvote the other three-fourths in matters affecting their liberties and taxation?
No! The Ministerial bills of home rule are fundamentally bad and should be withdrawn, in order that a new attempt may be made to reach a settlement by general consent in accordance, as I believe, with the wishes of the overwhelming majority of the people.
Is it not better to wait a little for a settlement by consent on lines which will conduce to permanent peace and prosperity than to try to force on the pages of the statute book a measure which must lead to bloodshed and civil war? If party considerations veto the withdrawal of the Ministerial measure of home rule without the aid of a general election, then let us have a general election without one moment's unnecessary delay.
The times are too perilous to allow us even to contemplate with any other feeling than that of horror and dismay the Lord Chancellor's appeal to go forward unflinchingly to civil war.
I have the honor to remain, Sir,
Yours respectfully,
GREY.
22 South Street, Park Lane, July 26.