Next day (July 8) the Lords proceeded completely to transform the Amending Bill. They struck out, by 158 to 35, the provision that any county in Ulster might vote itself out of the Home Rule Scheme for six years, the Earl of Selborne, who moved this deletion, laying stress on various complications which the provision would set up, and explaining that, as an advocate of the Referendum, he desired that it should not be associated with an experiment that could only end in disaster; and Lord Killanin said that if no time-limit were imposed, Ulster would be free to come in voluntarily. Next, the House rejected, by 196 to 20, Lord Macdonnell's scheme for establishing in Ulster "Home Rule within Home Rule," in the form of local administrative control through an Ulster Council elected by proportional representation. To this Council would be transferred the Departments concerned with education, local government, and agriculture and technical instruction, and possibly portions of others. The expenses incurred by the Ulster Council would be provided by the Irish Parliament, or, in default, deducted from the transferred sum by the Joint Exchequer Board. The Marquess of Crewe said that the proposal would be rejected by the various parties to the controversy; Earl Loreburn, Lord Courtney of Penwith, and, later, Viscount Bryce supported it; the Lord Chancellor, while admitting that the exclusion of Ulster was a most unfortunate solution, said that the Government only proposed it because the Opposition were deaf to all appeals. The latter were forcing the country into proximity to a great danger. They hoped soon to take office, but had no clear idea how they would deal with the situation.' To this Earl Curzon of Kedleston retorted that they at any rate had a consistent policy and would not flinch from the issue. After this division the Marquess of Lansdowne moved an amendment permanently excluding the whole of Ulster from the operation of the Home Rule Bill, advocating this course as the most likely way to avert a conflict, though the Opposition could not guarantee that it would do so. The Archbishop of Canterbury thought that a division based on religious differences was the worst possible, and that only a geographical division was practicable. Lord Macdonnell protested strongly against the exclusion of Cavan, Donegal, and Monaghan from the control of the Irish Parliament, but the amendment was passed by 138 to 39. Among other amendments passed one substituted a Secretary of State for the Lord-Lieutenant as the executive authority in the excluded area. Another reduced the representation of Ireland in the Imperial House of Commons from 42 members to 27. A third, moved by the Earl of Halsbury, continued the existing method of judicial appointments and of appeal, to the House of Lords instead of to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council as provided in the Bill. This was supported next day by several Unionist Peers, the Earl of Desart