Rome, and all the years to retribution. This is your year; you have met
the messengers on your threshold. Your soul is in your own wardship. But
yet we cannot wholly separate your destiny from ours. Dedicated as we
are to the general progress of humanity and to all the generosities of
life, we await expectantly your election between the good and the evil
side.




CHAPTER VII

THE HALLUCINATION OF "ULSTER"


Ulster Unionism, in the leaders, is not so much a programme of ideas as
a demand for domination. In the rank and file it is largely a phenomenon
of hysteria. I do not know whether my readers have ever participated in
an agreeable game known as odd man out. Each player tosses a penny, and
whoever disagrees with the rest, showing a head to their tails or vice
versa, captures the pool. Such is in all essential particulars the
"Ulster Question." We find ourselves there in presence of a minority
which, on the sole ground that it is a minority, claims that in the
government of Ireland it shall be not merely secure but supreme. Sir
Edward Carson as odd man out (and I do not deny that he is odd enough
for anything) is to be Dictator of Ireland. If eighty-four Irish
constituencies declare for Home Rule, and nineteen against Home Rule,
then, according to the mathematics of Unionism, the Noes have it. In
their non-Euclidean geometry the part is always greater than the whole.
In their unnatural history the tail always wags the dog. On the plane of