As a matter of statesmanship there was much to be said for closing with the Ulstermen's original demand that the province should come in or stay out as a whole.
It satisfied Ulster's sentiment and lessened the chances of crystallizing a Protestant block of excluded territory, which would tend to become less and less Irish.
The answer to this was that Nationalists would never consent and did never consent to the possibility of permanent exclusion for any part.
Insistence on the time-limit was from this point of view a matter of absolute principle.

Yet many believed then, and believe now, that if any part of Ulster were excluded by legislation it would certainly come in voluntarily after a short period.

On the other hand, if any part were excluded even for a year, it was difficult to believe that it could ever be brought in except by its own consent.

The view, however, to which we were committed (with the party's general approval), was expressed by Redmond at the customary St.Patrick's Day Nationalist banquet in London.
"To agree to the permanent partition of Ireland would be," he said, "an outrage upon nature and upon history." He quoted a phrase used by Mr.
Austen Chamberlain, who had described it as "the statutory negation of Ireland's national claim." But, he argued, no such sacrifice of principle had been made.

The demand of Nationalists was for a Parliament for the whole of Ireland, having power to deal with "every purely Irish matter." Temporary limitations of this demand had already been accepted.
"We have agreed, as Parnell agreed in the Bill of 1886, and as we all agreed in the Bill of 1893, that the power of dealing with some of the most vital of Irish questions should not come within the purview of the new Parliament for a definite number of years." The control of police, for instance, was reserved to the Imperial Parliament in all those Bills for a term of years.