I do not know whether my readers have ever participated in
an agreeable game known as odd man out. Each player tosses a penny, and
whoever disagrees with the rest, showing a head to their tails or vice
versa, captures the pool. Such is in all essential particulars the
"Ulster Question." We find ourselves there in presence of a minority
which, on the sole ground that it is a minority, claims that in the
government of Ireland it shall be not merely secure but supreme. Sir
Edward Carson as odd man out (and I do not deny that he is odd enough
for anything) is to be Dictator of Ireland. If eighty-four Irish
constituencies declare for Home Rule, and nineteen against Home Rule,
then, according to the mathematics of Unionism, the Noes have it. In
their non-Euclidean geometry the part is always greater than the whole.
In their unnatural history the tail always wags the dog. On the plane of
politics it is not necessary to press the case against "Ulster" any
farther than that. Even majorities have their rights. If a plurality of
nine to two is not sufficient to determine policy and conduct business
in a modern nation, then there is no other choice except anarchy, or
rather an insane atomism.
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