Excerpt from The Alternatives to Civil WarQuebec or New South Wales), or what is called by its friends Nationalism and by its enemies Separatism the status of a self-governing Dominion). From the public utterances of prominent members of the coalition, up to the very eve of the introduction of the present bill, striking passages have been quoted to sup port the View that the meaning attached by the Govern ment side to the phrase Home Rule was sometimes of the first, sometimes of the second, and sometimes of the third, character. There was no agreement, even at this late date, as to the fundamental principle. Therefore, say the Unionists, it is absurd to contend that the country in 1910 could have approved even of the basis of the present bill.In View of this obvious uncertainty as to what was actually meant by Home Rule in December, 1910; in View of the vast extent and the fundamental character of the changes which the present bill, if passed into law, will introduce into our Constitution; in view of the strength of the disagreement between the political parties with regard to the principles on which it is founded - a disagreement which far tran scends the ordinary issues of domestic politics in View also of the imminent danger, indeed, the moral certainty, of civil war in Ulster if this bill be forced through without clear proof that the majority of the people of the United Kingdom are in favour of it for all these practical reasons, say the Unionists, there ought to be a General Election, no less than on grounds of high constitutional propriety.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.