William O'Brien and David Lloyd George

“ The greater number of those whom the Government arrangements will constitute a majority of the Convention would quite certainly be defeated if they were obliged to face their constituents at the polls. The will of the people is, therefore, rendered powerless to control the secret deliberations of the Convention, and would be forced to find other and regrettable means of resisting any such Partitionist compromise, as there is only too substantial reason to apprehend. ”

“ Recent experience has convinced me more deeply than ever that it is to a small Round Table Conference of thoughtful and competent Irishmen, and not to a heterogeneous assembly, mostly composed of pre-committed partisan politicians, we must look for the materials on which the country might with confidence be called upon for a judgment, and that a Referendum, giving the whole mass of the population a direct and influential voice, would be the only means of eliciting a decision so overpowering as to put an end to all further controversy among rational men. ”

“ It is consequently obvious that the chances of any agreement by the Ulster Unionist Council other than one based on the separation of the six counties are all but hopelessly handicapped from the start, and the temptation dangerously increased to those Nationalist politicians who have already committed themselves to dismemberment. ”

“ The fact that the scheme excludes from any direct representation whatever the 400,000 Ulster Nationalists whom any Partition proposal hitherto contemplated would cut off from their country; the agricultural and urban labourers, comprising one-third of the Irish population; the great farming interest in the area of the Rural District Councils, and the Universities and other teaching professions—must surely make it unnecessary to emphasise the latter point. ”