In two others, Tyrone and Fermanagh, Nationalists were about 55 per cent of the electorate.

But the bulk of the population of Ulster resided in four counties of the north-east, so that Protestants over the whole province had a majority of some two hundred thousand.

An appeal to the province, therefore, might involve the exclusion from Home Rule of a very large area which was thoroughly Nationalist.

On the other hand, every scheme of exclusion had in view the possibility of the excluded area changing its mind on the question after a short trial.

To separate the four overwhelmingly Protestant counties was to set up a body in which a change of vote would be much harder to bring about than in the province.