• METHODS OPEN TO THE IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT IN DEALING WITH IT
• EFFECT ON VARIOUS CLASSES IN ULSTER AND ON DUBLIN PARLIAMENT
• EFFECT ON BRITISH ELECTORATE.

Not at all; there is at least one other possible course which naturally would commend itself to a Radical Government averse to war, or to any Government that had sense enough not to play the game of the other side, and that is the method known as a peaceful blockade.

Methods Open to the Imperial Government

The Post Office, Telegraphs, and Telephones, being Government departments, no difficulty will arise in their case; it is unlikely the railway or steamer companies will object provided their losses are guaranteed, and in case they do, a few gunboats will be ample to look after the communications by sea, while the organisers of the midnight raid on the Boyne bridge by the motor cyclist corps have obligingly suggested a method of dealing with those by land.

Let us assume for the sake of argument that all the counties and parts of counties that have ever returned Unionist members of Parliament are in revolt, how long do they think they could manage if they found themselves confronted with this state of things? It may perhaps be thought, if the Government adopt tactics of this kind, the matter can easily be brought to a head by marching to Cork - as at one time it was stated the Ulstermen would do, before Mr FE Smith discovered the doctrine of the homogeneous counties, and informed the world and his audience that they had no desire to dictate to the rest of Ireland - or even merely as far as Dublin, and doing for the Irish Parliament what Cromwell did for the English one.

Most of the Ulster Volunteers I have met have carried their ideas of warfare no further than potting a policeman from behind a hedge, or applying whatever force may be necessary to a political opponent to get him to contribute to the revenues of the Provisional Government, while one when asked if he would shoot when the time came, replied with all the emphasis of which he was capable: "Well, indeed I'll not"; but if any of them seriously think of marching to Cork, or Dublin, or even Dundalk, I would commend to his consideration, and that of his leaders, the following extracts from a recent work on military history, called "A Review of the History of Infantry," by Col EM Lloyd RE, which will give him some faint idea of the difficulties he will have to meet with, and the losses he will have to face in the prosecution of any such attempt.

Writing of the war between the Federals and the Confederates in the United States, Col Lloyd (1) says:-

"In the American Civil War the loose organisation, the inexperienced staff, and the thickly wooded country were additional reasons for fighting on the defensive. In the first battle of the war (Bull Run, July 21, 1861) the Federal regiments which attacked proved incapable of movement under fire. They showed no want of courage, but they broke into fragments, and their firing was wild. They gave way before Jackson's counter-stroke; but 'the same want of discipline that had driven them in rout to Washington had dissolved the victorious Confederates into a tumultuous mob'."

In regard to the Austro-Prussian war of 1866, he writes:-

"The difference of arms and tactics caused a striking disparity of losses in every engagement. At Nachod (June 27) the advanced guard of the 5th Prussian corps (six and a half battalions) held its ground for two hours against three Austrian brigades (21 battalions), giving time for the main body of the corps to debouch from a defile. The Austrians fell back defeated, having lost five times as many men as the Prussians. At Trantenau, on the same day, they were more successful; the 10th Austrian corps (Gablenz) drove the first Prussian corps back into the mountains. Yet here the loss of the victors was nearly four times as great as that of the troops they defeated."

The following passages from the same work must form pleasant reading for the possessor of an Italian rifle who is a member of a force that possesses no artillery, and the cavalry of which will require a good many fresh recruits if it is to form even two squadrons, while its training has hitherto mainly consisted in escort duty:-

"The Austrians were so heavily handicapped in this war by the difference of weapons that it is hardly necessary to look further for an explanation of the result. It was in infantry fighting they failed; in cavalry and artillery they more than held their own."

Another passage dealing with the causes of the Prussian defeat in 1806 is also worthy of his attention:-

"Many hard things were said of the Prussian army after its defeat; but it seems to have been painstaking, zealous, well drilled and disciplined. The muskets, says Clausewitz, were in a high state of polish, but they were the worst in Europe, and the artillery was inferior to the French. The chiefs were old men ...."

The Ulster general is 66, and is therefore a little younger than the Duke of Brunswick, who was 71, but he is a cavalry man, and the London correspondent of the Irish Times has blurted out the truth about his qualifications with that delightful candour which makes this paper sometimes so embarrassing to its own party. In its London Letter of September 23rd it is stated:-

"Sir George Richardson has had a distinguished career, and has done very well in subordinate positions, but his experience of high command has hardly been sufficient, in the opinion of his brother officers, to enable him to take control of the Ulster forces."

Therefore, before undertaking a campaign in which they have to assume the offensive, I would strongly advise them to provide themselves with an adequate force of cavalry and artillery, to arm their whole army with modern weapons, and teach it how to use them, if their march is not going to be a mere second edition of that of the Suffragettes from Edinburgh to London.

In any case a glance at the Army List will show so many Ladysmiths and Mafekings on the way, that when sufficient detachments are left to besiege them, and to hold down the surrounding country, the chances of reaching Cork vanish entirely, and the number likely to be available to seize the capital will be so small that even if Mr Asquith's nod prevents him from taking any steps to strengthen the garrison during the week or two that will have to be spent on the march, inexperienced commanders such as they possess will hardly risk such an extremely hazardous operation with raw and badly armed troops, and the force will have to fall back on its own frontier, or even beyond it, since the southern parts of Down and Armagh are mainly Nationalist.

The case of the South African Republics illustrates the difficulty of an amateur army in carrying on anything but defensive warfare, and there are certain differences in their respective situations which the people of Ulster would do well to consider before they commit themselves to the policy of a Provisional Government, which if it succeeds can only succeed at the cost of great loss of life and destruction of trade, and if it fails will have made their position ten times worse than before, by having exasperated public feeling and rendered them ridiculous as well as unsuccessful.

For one thing, there is this difference between the position of Ulster and that of the South African Republics. The Boers were practically a self-supporting people. They did not depend on oversea communications for the maintenance of their economic and industrial life. But the position of Ulster is the exact opposite of this. Not only does Ulster depend on railway and steamship communications in order to export the produce of her farms and factories, and import those articles which she cannot produce at home, but she depends on such communications for the very possibility of carrying on her manufactures. There are no coal fields in that part of Ulster over which the Provisional Government is likely to obtain control, unless a shaft at present under construction is finished by then.

Effect on People of Ulster

Would the employers go on paying wages to their workmen while their factories were idle, and they were earning nothing themselves? If not, what are the work-people going to live on? How will the farmers like to have their markets cut off, or rather to be provided with a large home demand for their produce on the part of people who have no money to pay for it?

In fact if a large portion of the population are not to starve, a regime of communistic socialism will be an absolute necessity, and the principle "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" will have to be applied by persons whose antipathy to socialism is only less bitter than their antipathy to Home Rule.

It will, if it takes place, be an exceedingly interesting political and social experiment, but in view of the small progress that such ideas have made in Ulster as yet, it is greatly to be feared that considerations of individual self-interest may begin to make themselves felt.

Employers may raise difficulties about paying workers who are idle, while the employed may think they have as good a right to be paid for fighting as for working, and may argue that it is not their fault if there is no fighting to be done. The farmer may conceivably feel obliged to say to both in the words of a recent Irish play, "What about my money ?"

Under such circumstances it is almost inevitable that there will be weak-kneed individuals in the camp who will begin to grumble and complain that the campaign is not nearly such a picnic as they were led to believe; when on the top of all these difficulties the Provisional Government is confronted with the problem of collecting taxes from people who are earning nothing, and about half of whom are living at other people's expense, it seems possible or even probable that the heads of the Provisional Government will consider it prudent statesmanship to slip away with that unobtrusive modesty which characterises the movements of revolutionaries who have failed and kings whose thrones have crumbled, and which, unfortunately, has been, sadly wanting in their attitude hitherto.

The great Ulster leader in speaking at Newbliss, if correctly reported, made use of an argument which, like the proverbial straw which indicates the direction of the wind, allows one to see how difficult it is for lawyer politicians, even when they put themselves at the head of provinces rightly struggling to be free, to shake off the point of view which has become second nature to them. The question he put is this:-

"May I say solemnly and seriously and with all sincerity and from the bottom of my heart one word of warning to those who differ from us, and who, I dare say, especially differ from me? May I ask them this question? Are they certain in their own minds that they can find in this Home Rule Bill and in this Home Rule policy any material benefits which can possibly arise to themselves?"

The question is one which cannot be answered in a word or two, for this reason, if for no other, that the advantage or otherwise to the nation and to the individuals composing it will largely depend on whether people determine on the introduction of the new regime to make the best of things, or, like the Right Honourable Gentleman and his friends, to make the worst.

In case the Unionists return to power, there are certain very tangible material benefits such as the salaries attached to certain legal appointments, and the bonuses which may be expected to accompany land purchase where the principle of compulsion is banned as "an unclean thing," and there is no way of getting landlords to sell except by bribing them to do so, but it may be safely laid down as a general principle that most of these material benefits will stop short at the edge of the platform, and very few of them will filter down to the audience.

Assuming for the sake of argument that Home Rule will bring no material benefits, or even some disadvantages, I would recall attention to the fact that the point at issue appears likely to be, not Home Rule versus the present state of things, but Home Rule versus anarchy or civil war under the auspices of a Provisional Government, and I would put the question to ordinary people who have to live by their business, or their farms, or their labour, and have no hopes or expectations of Government employment, "Can they find in this Provisional Government scheme and in this Provisional Government policy any material benefits which can possibly arise to themselves ?"

The business man is told that under Home Rule he will be crushed by unjust taxation. It will not be such an easy matter to arrange taxation the incidence of which will fall entirely on one class. Thanks to the excellent moral lessons conveyed in the readers provided by the Commissioners of National Education, most of the members of the Irish Parliament will be familiar with the story of the goose and the golden eggs. Few analogies are altogether perfect, and the points of discrepancy are all in favour of Ulster, the industries of which could not be suddenly cut off at one fell stroke like their prototype in the fable, but if they perish at all can only perish by one of those wasting diseases which give ample time for treatment, and can often be cured by a removal of the unhealthy conditions.

Besides, will the Provisional Government be able to live on air, unless it also consists of that element? And not merely to live, but to carry on warlike operations, which are always expensive, however much economies may be made by dispensing with artillery, and almost entirely with cavalry, and using black powder instead of smokeless.

The utmost that the Tariff Reformers ever hoped for was to make the foreigner pay, but the Provisional Government will have improved greatly on this if they make the enemy do so, and the good natured British administration is going to allow Customs duties to be collected which are to form the sinews of war to be used against it.

Is there not a chance that the Provisional Government will be compelled to levy contributions from its subjects, which if levied by anyone else its authors would have no hesitation in describing as crushing taxation? And will the damage to credit, and the interruption of trade, and all the disorganisation that is bound to ensue from a state even of excitement and disturbance, much more from civil war, not also involve very great loss, even if no property is looted or burnt in the course of the operations?

A business man who fails to see that so far as he is concerned, a Provisional Government and all that it involves is a case of out of the frying pan into the fire, must possess a brain singularly well provided with watertight compartments.

We will assume, however, that the business man is prepared to risk it, but what about those whom he employs, whether in a superior position, or as ordinary workers? Has such a person any guarantee that when business is interrupted and work at a standstill, he will continue to draw his pay, or that he will receive any allowance whatever? Or that the result of the civil war may not be to cause such ruin to the industries of Ulster that he will be thrown out of employment and have to start life again elsewhere?

All these are extremely practical questions, which one would expect to have seen discussed when the question of material benefits was being dealt with, but I have been able to find nothing about them in the newspaper reports, and am obliged to console myself with the reflection that possibly they fall into the class of affairs of state which have no doubt been carefully considered in private by the Provisional Government, but which it would be injurious to the cause to divulge at present.

The farmer is in a better position than the other two classes, since a civil war cannot do very much damage to his land, and may even improve its fertility should it happen to be the scene of an engagement, in which connection many of my readers will doubtless remember the following lines which they learned in their school days :-

"The unreturning brave, alas!
Ere evening to be trodden like the grass,
Which now beneath them, but above shall grow
In its next verdure when this fiery mass
Of living valour rolling on the foe,
And burning with high hope shall moulder cold and low."

A farmhouse, however, is just as combustible as a factory, and the contents of a farmyard a good deal more so, while that disagreeable practice known as commandeering, to which armies sometimes have resort, will press more hardly on the farmer than on anybody else, since the farmer will be the principal person who has anything to commandeer.

From our consideration of the probable condition of the other elements of society, it would appear extremely doubtful if supplies thus taken will be paid for in cash, or by anything but an expression of gratitude or a knock on the head with the butt of a rifle, according to the alacrity the farmer displays in providing what is required of him.

At the best, the most that can be hoped for is vouchers or paper money redeemable when the Unionists return to office, and this will involve special legislation. The possibility of such legislation has been overlooked by the British public, and probably by the Unionist leaders themselves, but it would seem to follow from Mr Bonar Law's pledge, read out at the meeting at Craigavon on 12th July, that in whatever action the Ulster leaders thought fit to take "under present circumstances" they would have the whole Unionist Party behind them.

Surely this, if it means anything, means that they will foot the bill? Surely the Unionists who have waxed so indignant over the betrayal of Ulster would not themselves be guilty of conduct which might be construed as a betrayal? The language used by leading members of the party on the subject of the delay in the promised reconstitution of the House of Lords justifies the hope that they at any rate will not attempt to wriggle out of even an implied promise, or one made by mistake through neglect to weigh their words with sufficient care.

It may, therefore, be assumed that they will do their duty to Ulster, especially as Ulster would have done its duty to them by cutting with the sword the Gordian knot with which Tariff Reform and other unprofitable adventures have bound them, and restoring them to office when their prospects seemed most gloomy. With the passing of the measure through both Houses of Parliament, however, its success will still be by no means assured, and this owing to a danger its authors have themselves gone out of their way to create.

One of the greatest difficulties that the Ulster leaders have to contend with, unless the fact that at least 45 per cent of the population are hostile, and a large proportion of the remainder indifferent or apathetic should be reckoned as one, is the necessity of employing principles, which in the case of the inhabitants of the other provinces used to excite their utmost abhorrence; however since the greatest of them (2) was constrained by a sense of duty to accept a brief rumoured to have been marked with four figures in the Marconi case, it is difficult to say how much of this feeling was personal, and how much was the maintenance of a correct professional attitude on the part of an officer charged with the enforcement of the law, and on whose consciousness the existence of that higher law which requires him at the proper time and place to break all laws not made according to his own formula, had not yet dawned.

In any case, when a disturbance takes place in one of the other three provinces, the persons taking part in it are rebels and traitors. Transfer the scene to Ulster, and they are loyal heroes preserving their birthright.

A corollary to this attitude is that their principles are not of universal application, and must on no account be put into operation by anybody but themselves, or the consequences might be extremely awkward. One such instance strikes me of a difficulty that may very well arise if their views are accepted. In spite of the outcry about dragging the King into politics that was made when, at the time the Budget was rejected, the Government adopted the only means known to the Constitution of putting an end to the deadlock, in the speeches of responsible leaders of the party, His Majesty has been deluged with suggestions to refuse to sign the Home Rule Bill, in other words, to disregard the whole constitutional theory and practice of the last two hundred years, and act on the advice of persons other than his Ministers.

The proposal has even received the countenance of the leader of the Opposition, who either despairs of ever obtaining office, or has failed to foresee the difficulties that may be created for him when he gets there, if the precedent he seeks to set up is established.

Let us assume that the plans of the Ulster leaders have proved successful, that the blood of the martyrs has had all the magical effect usually attributed to it, that after a short and glorious struggle between the RIC and the Ulster Volunteers the Unionists have come back to power, and Mr Bonar Law presents for His Majesty's signature the Bill throwing the expenses of both sides in the campaign on the Imperial Exchequer.

The King's affection for his Army and Navy is well known, and it is extremely probable that he would feel considerable sympathy for those unfortunate policemen who perished in the execution of their duty. Is it conceivable that in such circumstances he should refuse to sign the Bill, and express the sentiment, which would secure far more universal approval throughout the country than anything he might do in connection with the Home Rule Bill, that those who make war should pay for it?

In that case the only remedy of the farmer who has suffered in his person or his property owing to the civil war will be a suit in the courts, unless he receives compensation from the rates on the head of malicious injury; and as those of the Ulster leaders who have not obtained positions which preclude the necessity of private practice will flock to defend their henchmen, while quite possibly the judge who tries the case will be one of them who has gone to the place where good leaders go when they happen to belong to the legal profession, the result is likely to be a foregone conclusion, and the farmer will do well to rebuild his house at his own expense, cease to grumble about his contribution in provisions and supplies to the success of the cause he has, or ought to have, at heart, and in short remember that there is a great deal of truth in the old proverbs about the uselessness of crying over spilt milk and of throwing good money after bad.

In the absence of any detailed proposals as to the course the leaders propose to follow in some of the most elementary contingencies that any government must be prepared to face, I find it very difficult to see what material benefit can arise to anybody in Ulster, except the lawyers and landlords, from the attempted establishment of a Provisional Government, while there would seem to be very serious danger that it may cause very widespread loss, and in a good many cases total ruin.

A touch of humour is added to the situation by the fact that although all this would inconvenience the Imperial Government to some degree, and will inconvenience Ulster Unionists far more, it will not trouble the Dublin Parliament in the slightest; on the contrary, it may be a means of adding considerably to its income in the future if it causes an increase of expenditure on the RIC, which remains an Imperial Service for the first six years, and is then to be handed over to the Irish Government, because, no matter how high the cost at which it has been taken over, whatever savings it is subsequently found possible to make, go to the benefit of the Irish Government.

I cannot forbear quoting in this connection the opinion of a distinguished Unionist barrister who has written a book on the financial aspects of the Home Rule Bill:-

"This novel system of raising Irish Revenue at the expense of the British taxpayer can be exploited in infinite variety. It would pay the Irish Government to keep up as much agrarian and other disturbance in Ireland as possible during the first six years, and thus compel England to keep up a greater and more expensive Constabulary force. The Nationalists can also contemplate with complacency the determination of Ulster to pay no taxes under Home Rule. England is to be responsible for the collection of the taxes; and the bland idea of the Radical Ministry that they will check-mate Ulster by reserving the Royal Irish Constabulary for British control during the first six years to keep Ulster in hand, and to enforce the collection of taxes there as an Imperial Service, must commend itself to the embryo Irish Chancellor of the Exchequer as excellent statecraft.

"Ireland must get her six millions to supply the Transferred Services whether any Revenue is raised in Ulster or not raised. The Irish Government is not to be responsible for the peace during the first six years. With a judicious distribution of moonlighting in the South and with Ulster in revolt in the North, there would be a most satisfactory financial outlook for Ireland. The cost of the Constabulary would have to be increased rapidly by hundreds of thousands above its present figure £1,350,000, and then it would be taken over with the transferred sum swelled to the maximum figure." (Home Rule Finance, by AW Samuels, KC, p67)

Surely this is the 'reductio ad absurdum' of the whole scheme of forming a Provisional Government, unless the two parties have a secret understanding, and it is merely a device to squeeze more money out of England?

Effect on British Electorate

In regard to this subject the Unionist Party is, and must continue to be, so long as the present system continues, between the devil and the deep sea. One of the clauses in the Act of Union provides that Ireland shall send at least 100 members to the Parliament at Westminster. All the indications point to the fact that at least 80 of them will be Nationalists.

Assuming that the remainder are Conservatives, which, in view of the opposition of interests between the usual type of Conservative MP and the Ulster farmer or workingman, is a state of things which cannot last for ever, the Unionist Party has either to start with a deficit balance of over 60 votes, or to drive a coach and four through the Act of Union, which has hitherto been treated as its 'Ark of the Covenant'. The phrase is only intended metaphorically, but as recent events have also given it a more literal significance, it may also be read the other way without objection. Consequently it has either to give away its own case by repealing part of the Act of Union, or to sacrifice most of its chances of holding office.

The responsible leaders of the party, such as Mr Balfour and Lord Lansdowne, see this, and would apparently be glad of an opportunity of getting the Irish out of the way if they could do so with any show of consistency. The best that can be hoped for therefore is a respite from, and not a final settlement of, the Irish question.

If they fail to force a General Election, what is their next object? They are going to set up a Provisional Government for 'Ulster'. They will not desert the 'outposts' in Donegal, and doubtless those of Cavan and Monaghan, also, will find shelter under the protecting aegis of their government. On the other hand, if we may believe Mr FE Smith, they have no intention of annexing the rest of Ireland.

In his speech at Dungannon he said :- "We have never claimed - the Provisional Government itself does not claim - to dictate to the rest of Ireland." What is more, the Ulster Unionist members twice proposed the exclusion of Ulster from the Home Rule Bill. There are 300,000 Protestant 'outposts' in the three southern provinces. Presumably these are to be thrown to the wolves, for without Ulster they can have no representation except by the grace of their Catholic fellow-countrymen.

It is more likely that the Ulster leaders know perfectly well that these Southern Protestants will suffer nothing under Home Rule, otherwise the proposals to exclude Ulster, if seriously meant, would never have been made. If Protestants will suffer nothing under Home Rule where they are only 11 per cent of the population and cannot possibly have any representation by their own unaided efforts, what is the danger to Ulster under Home Rule, where the population is about evenly divided, and in many parts the majority of the people are Protestant?

Sir E Carson in his speech at Dungannon shows how powerless Mr Redmond would be to oppress Protestants in any part of Ireland:-

"The moment the Home Rule Bill passes, or even when Home Rule is brought into operation, Mr Redmond will have no soldiers, and he will have no police."

He will have no soldiers at any time, and except for the Dublin Metropolitan Police, who will probably be kept busy enough in the capital unless a great change takes place, he will have no police for six years. In other words, Mr Redmond can only use police or soldiers for the oppression of Protestants anywhere by permission of the British Government of the day. If actual oppression were proposed, is it possible that the British Government would give that permission?

Surely it would be well to postpone the civil war for six years, and by that time Sir Edward Carson and Mr Redmond, or their successors in the leadership of their respective parties, will have other problems to deal with, and may possibly have formed a Government to restrain the syndicalist tendencies of the working classes in Ireland. At any rate the religious question will have ceased to monopolise attention, as it has already ceased to do in Dublin.

Meanwhile the proposal to set up a Provisional Government for "Ulster" holds the field. In view of the fact that the vast majority of the inhabitants of Donegal, Monaghan, and Cavan are Nationalists, and the improbability of their being persuaded to accept its rule, I would suggest that the delimitation of the boundaries of the new state should be left to an international commission. No part of Ulster is homogeneous in matters of religion. Even Antrim. Down, and Belfast contain a strong minority of Catholics.

If it is proposed to coerce all non-Unionists, the proposal really amounts to a proposal to set up in Ulster, or parts of Ulster, a state of anarchy dignified by the name of civil war. The object of this move would seem to be so to inconvenience the Irish Parliament and the Imperial Government that the latter will have no choice except to force Home Rule on them at the point of the bayonet, or else surrender all along the line and repeal the Act.

The success of this policy depends on the Government's acting exactly as its Provisional rival wants it to act. As I have already shown, the Government will not have to send troops to force Home Rule on Ulster, although they may have to defend Government property with soldiers, and use armed force in order to prevent Ulster Unionists from forcing their Provisional Government on those who do not want it.

In the last resort they can always bring Ulster to her knees by the method I have indicated or something on similar lines. Ulster Unionists need not expect that British soldiers will fail to do their duty in these or any other circumstances. The Government will be much less inconvenienced by the attempt to carry out this policy than Ulstermen themselves will be, and the Irish Parliament will suffer no inconvenience at all. Consequently it is safe to prophesy that they will fail in this second object also.

One or two of the Ulster leaders have the reputation of being able men in their own departments, and it is difficult to believe that they do not realise that they are practically certain to fail in both their avowed objects. The leader par excellence says he does not conceal from himself the difficulties he is faced with in framing his Provisional Government. This is an attempt to make it no longer possible to conceal them from his followers. He has set up machinery for a Provisional Government which he must know is bound to collapse within a week or two after it begins to "govern", as a result of its own inherent absurdity.

In the meanwhile Ulster Unionists may profitably employ themselves in pondering the question as to whether the avowed objects of this agitation are its real objects, or whether its real objects have not hitherto been concealed, and the conjecture that I have made as to what they are is not a fairly probable one.

As a result of acute differences of opinion on questions of the interpretation of Christian doctrine, and of a tendency to make lack of unanimity on such points an excuse for appealing to the arm of the flesh, there is always in Ulster a lot of inflammable material which may at any moment take fire.

The conduct of the Ulster leader and his lieutenants, and the attitude of mind he has encouraged in his followers with reference to those who differ from them in religion, is not of such a kind as to allay feelings of sectarian bitterness and prevent religious discord from bringing about a state of social disorder.

In the original draft of this I had written:- "In short, the methods of the Ulster agitators are well calculated to cause riot and disturbance, whether they intend that result or not. It seems likely that the main result of this agitation will be to excite party feeling in Ulster to such a pitch that it will find its expression either in attacks on non-Unionist 'hostages' or in conflicts with policemen or soldiers."

Since then the subject has passed from the region of prophesy to that of history. The usual pilgrimage from Belfast to Derry took place on the anniversary of the Relief. As a result of all the talk about fighting that has been recently indulged in, almost every body, even the women, carried revolvers, which they blazed away indiscriminately as if they had been so many crackers. At a certain station on the way to Derry the excursion train had to be held up to allow another train to pass, and the celerity with which everybody on the platform succeeded in taking cover shows that perhaps some branches of the military art are more easily acquired than others, and that some modification may be necessary in the conclusions I arrived at when discussing that part of the subject.

However, I would seem to have been right about the necessity of learning to aim correctly, as the total casualties were one girl wounded and a telephone wire cut. In Derry itself every opportunity seems to have been taken of trying conclusions with the police, one of whom was shot while engaged in a high-handed attempt to arrest a loyalist who was merely following the universa1 human instinct of playing with a new toy.

Several non-combatants were also shot in the course of the rehearsal of the conditions under the Provisional Government which took place on this and the following days, but it is that with greater practice these accidents will be avoided, and that, in future, nobody will be hit except those wearing His Majesty's uniform.

Unfortunately, as most of the leaders were absent on the Continent and elsewhere, the affair was bungled, and, as it happened, nearly all the martyrs were on the wrong side, unless it can be shown that the man killed was shot by the police, which is rather difficult to prove in view of the medical evidence that the wound was of the nature to be expected if caused by an Italian rifle; but as it has now been discovered that the RIC are mainly recruited from the "hereditary enemies", and take much more kindly to civil war in Ulster than they did to evictions in their own country, there is every reason to hope that in a short time a supply of martyrs of the right kind will be forthcoming, and the Ulster leaders, whose present methods differ from those of the suffragettes mainly in the fact that they prefer to obtain their martyrs by proxy, having secured the fulfilment of their own prophesy, will be able to stump England and Scotland and proclaim:- "We told the Government so all along, but they would not be warned. They have proceeded on their dangerous course, and now this is the result."

Of course the leaders of the Ulster movement are loud in their protests that they are asking their followers to incur no risk to which they are not prepared to expose themselves. They are, however, mostly lawyers, and one will search the records of history in vain for an example of a lawyer politician who has become a martyr to his political or religious convictions.

It is more likely that while heads are being broken in Ulster by irresponsible youths, the responsible leaders of the party will either have important legal engagements on the other side of the Channel, or consider the opportunity a favourable one for enlightening the British public on the subject of the wickedness of the Government.

The Unionist leaders require martyrs, but unless the Government plays their game, they will not get the sort of martyrs they require. On the other hand, if the Government refuses to play their game, it can ensure that any Ulster Volunteers who lay down their lives will do so in the course of operations such as illegal tax-collecting which will secure very little sympathy elsewhere, and which, if persisted in in the face of opposition, will turn the whole public opinion of moderate men against this attitude of Ulster, with the result that Ulster, instead of staggering humanity is more likely to make herself the laughing stock of the civilised world, as the scene of the most realistic farce of modern times entitled "The Bluff that Failed".

Thus the promoters of the Provisional Government are likely to fail in all their objects, both those they profess, and those that are kept in modest retirement. Ulster Unionism was spoken of once as a card in the Tory pack. Let us hope that it will have sufficient sense to refuse to play the part of goat to the Tory huntsman.

The leaders know perfectly well that the Ulster army is about as fit to face the British Army as a goat is to face a tiger. It will be poor consolation to the dead or dying goat to know that the tiger has been shot, and the tragic nature of its fate will be still further aggravated by the fact that since the episode of the rejection of the Budget, it can have no great confidence in the accuracy of the sportsman's aim.

If Ulstermen possess the commonsense with which they credit themselves, they will cease to follow leaders who have either let their promises outrun their performances on the subject of taking them into their confidence, or who are only fit to lead a stage army in a comic opera.

There is, however, some limit to the gullibility of the British public, and there is always the possibility that a majority of the electors may saddle the responsibility for whatever disturbance takes place on those politicians who have abandoned all traditions of constitutional government, and played with imitation rifles, imitation governments, and imitation revolutions, in the midst of a credulous and excitable population, both elements of which are naturally among the most kindhearted people in the world, but are being driven by their encouragement and instigation to fly at each others throats.

But, on the other hand, there is always the chance that the British electors may take the other view, and eight years is a long time to have languished in the cold shades of opposition for politicians, over whose heads time has passed like those of others, however much their language and their proposals may seem to bear the stamp of the fiery recklessness of youth.

The risk, therefore, would seem to be worth taking from their point of view, though hardly from that of the crowd of followers whose part apparently it will be to be driven forward to draw the enemy's fire.

Notes and References

2. Carson played a professional legal role in the episode known as the 'Marconi scandal'; this was an episode not unlike what we are currently (1999) familiar with as the subject of tribunals of enquiry in the Irish Republic. Marconi himself had nothing to do with it. It related to prior knowledge of a government communications contract on the part of certain politicians (RJ 15/03/99).

Some navigational notes:

Copyright Dr Roy Johnston 1998.