As Ulster gradually swings round to the inevitable, she will discover that there is a very bright silver lining to what seems to her so black a cloud. Ulster, while still represented at Westminster, will send 59 members to Dublin under the 1912 Bill. Thus she will have no small or mean representation in the future Irish Parliament. She may have far more power than she imagines, if she uses it with wisdom. A strong Progressive section from the industrial North may hold the balance between the parties of the South and centre. It would be rash to predict the future. But there are many causes--education, Free Trade, enlightened local government, to take a few--in which Ireland will gain immensely by a strong, clear progressive lead. "The best is yet to be." Why should not Belfast--Belfast Protestant united with Belfast Catholic--have in these matters a greater and nobler part to play under Home Rule than under the present system of distant, ignorant, absent-minded, rule? As for religious persecution, the thing would be absurdly impossible under any Home Rule Bill that possessed the guarantees and safeguards of the 1912 Bill. But, beyond those safeguards, Ulster will always have, in any such extreme and improbable event, an appeal to all the forces of the Empire--an appeal which would certainly not be in vain. The conviction of these truths will gradually penetrate the shrewd brain of Ulster and save her from the madness of rebellion or secession. The patience and moderation of the Government will gradually disarm these men. Who knows whether in the end the majority in Belfast, as in Ulster, as a whole may not voluntarily prefer to join rather than hold aloof from a great national restoration? * * * * * In one of his 1893 Home Rule speeches, Mr. Gladstone reminded the House of Commons, with impressive power, of the splendid reception given in 1793 to the Protestant delegates from Grattan's Parliament at Dublin, who had come to plead for the concession of their rights to the Catholics of Ireland. It was the Act of Union that destroyed all that generous feeling, and revived again the passions of ascendancy and fanaticism among the Orangemen of North-east Ulster. But the old, generous feelings may yet return again. SOUTHERN ULSTER The great majority of the Protestants in Ireland stand outside this ring. They have no more share in the good things than the average Catholic. Those men, Irishmen first and Protestants afterwards, are now taking their part in public life and earning their proper share in the rewards of public zeal.