I ask, do they claim separate treatment for themselves?
Do the counties of Down and Antrim and Londonderry, for instance, ask to be excepted from the scope of this Bill?
Do they ask for a parliament of their own, or do they wish to remain here?
We ought to know." This was to proceed at once into the region of a bargain.

Mr.Gladstone, with his grip on the existence of a national spirit in Ireland, would have known that concession on such point was a very different matter from some alteration in the financial terms or in the composition of the Parliament.

It admitted, in fact, the contention that Ireland was not a nation but a geographical expression.
As soon as the Bill went into Committee, the result was seen.

The first serious amendment proposed to exclude the four counties, Antrim, Down, Armagh, and Derry, and it was moved from the Liberal benches.

Three Liberal speakers supported it in the early stages of a debate which lasted to the third day--and on the division the majority, which had been 100 for the Second Reading, fell to 69.