Men may deride that ideal; they may say that it is a futile and unreliable ideal, but they cannot call it an ignoble one.

It is an ideal that we, at any rate, will cling to, and because we cling to it, and because it is there, embedded in our hearts and natures, it is an absolute bar to such a proposal as this amendment makes, a proposal which would create for all times a sharp, eternal dividing line between Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants, and a measure which would for all time mean the partition and disintegration of our nation.

To that we as Irish Nationalists can never submit." Later in the debate, Mr.Bonar Law admitted quite frankly the argument against treating all Ulster as Unionist, and he proceeded to suggest that any county in Ulster might be given power to decide whether or not it should come into the new Parliament.

It was plain, however, and Mr.
Churchill made it plainer, that the Unionist leader did not speak for Ulster; Ulster's intention was still to use its own opposition to Home Rule as a bar to self-government for the whole of Ireland.
Equally was it plain that the plebiscite by counties would not be unacceptable to Mr.Churchill.
The proposal for the exclusion of the entire province was defeated by a majority of 97 and the Third Reading was carried by 110.

A few days later the city of Derry returned a Home Ruler, and the Ulster representation became seventeen for the Bill and sixteen against.