Ulster's Stand For Union Part 3

The meeting took the form of according a welcome to Sir Edward Carson as the new leader of Irish Loyalism, and of Ulster in particular. But before he rose to speak a significant note had already been sounded.

Lord Erne struck it when he quoted words which were to become very familiar in Ulster--the letter from Gustavus Hamilton, Governor of Enniskillen in 1689, to "divers of the n.o.bility and gentry in the north-east part of Ulster," in which he declared: "We stand upon our guard, and do resolve by the blessing of G.o.d to meet our danger rather than to await it." And the veteran Liberal, Mr. Thomas Andrews, in moving the resolution of welcome to the leader, expressed the universal sentiment of the mult.i.tude when he exclaimed, "We will never, never bow the knee to the disloyal factions led by Mr. John Redmond. We will never submit to be governed by rebels who acknowledge no law but the laws of the Land League and illegal societies."

A great number of Addresses from representative organisations were then presented to Sir Edward Carson, in many of which the determination to resist the jurisdiction of a Dublin Parliament was plainly declared. But such declarations, although they undoubtedly expressed the mind of the people, were after all in quite general terms. For a quarter of a century innumerable variations on the theme "Ulster will fight, and Ulster will be right," had been fiddled on Ulster platforms, so that there was some excuse for the belief of those who were wholly ignorant of North Irish character that these utterances were no more than the commonplaces of Ulster rhetoric. The time had only now come, however, when their reality could be put to the test. Carson's speech at Craigavon crystallised them into practical politics.

Sir Edward Carson's public speaking has always been entirely free from rhetorical artifice. He seldom made use of metaphor or imagery, or elaborate periods, or variety of gesture. His language was extremely simple and straightforward; but his mobile expression--so variable that his enemies saw in it a suggestion of Mephistopheles, and his friends a resemblance to Dante--his measured diction, and his skilful use of a deep-toned voice, gave a remarkable impressiveness to all he said--even, indeed, to utterances which, if spoken by another, would sometimes have sounded commonplace or obvious. Sarcasm he could use with effect, and a telling point was often made by an epigrammatic phrase which delighted his hearers. And, more than all else, his meaning was never in doubt. In lucidity of statement he excelled many much greater orators, and was surpa.s.sed by none; and these qualities, added to his unmistakable sincerity and candour, made him one of the most persuasive of speakers on the platform, as he was also, of course, in the Law Courts.

The moment he began to speak at Craigavon the immense mult.i.tude who had come to welcome him felt instinctively the grip of his power. The contrast to all the previous scene--the cheering, the enthusiasm, the marching, the singing, the waving of handkerchiefs and flags--was deeply impressive, when, after a hushed pause of some length, he called attention without preface to the realities of the situation in a few simple sentences of slow and almost solemn utterance:

"I know full well what the Resolution you have just pa.s.sed means; I know what all these Addresses mean; I know the responsibility you are putting upon me to-day. In your presence I cheerfully accept it, grave as it is, and I now enter into a compact with you, and every one of you, and with the help of G.o.d you and I joined together--giving you the best I can, and you giving me all your strength behind me--we will yet defeat the most nefarious conspiracy that has ever been hatched against a free people. But I know full well that this Resolution has a still wider meaning. It shows me that you realise the gravity of the situation that is before us, and it shows me that you are here to express your determination to see this fight out to a finish."

He went on to expose the hollowness of the allegation, then current in Liberal circles, that Ulster's repugnance to Home Rule was less uncompromising than it formerly had been. On the contrary, he believed that "there never was a moment at which men were more resolved than at the present, with all the force and strength that G.o.d has given them, to maintain the British connection and their rights as citizens of the United Kingdom." Apart from principle or sentiment, that was an att.i.tude, he maintained, dictated by practical good sense. He showed how Ireland had been "advancing in prosperity in an unparalleled measure,"

for which he could quote the authority of Mr. Redmond himself, although the Nationalist leader had omitted to notice that this advance had taken place under the legislative Union, and, as Carson contended, in consequence of it. He laid special emphasis on the point, never forgotten, that the danger in which they stood was due to the hoodwinking of the British const.i.tuencies by Mr. Asquith's Ministry.

"Make no mistake; we are going to fight with men who are prepared to play with loaded dice. They are prepared to destroy their own Const.i.tution, so that they may pa.s.s Home Rule, and they are prepared to destroy the very elements of const.i.tutional government by withdrawing the question from the electorate, who on two previous occasions refused to be a party to it."

He ridiculed the "paper safeguards" which Liberal Ministers tried to persuade them would amply protect Ulster Protestants under a Dublin Parliament, giving a vivid picture of the plight they would be in under a Nationalist administration, which, he declared, meant "a tyranny to which we never can and never will submit"; and then, in a pregnant pa.s.sage, he summarised the Ulster case:

"Our demand is a very simple one. We ask for no privileges, but we are determined that no one shall have privileges over us. We ask for no special rights, but we claim the same rights from the same Government as every other part of the United Kingdom. We ask for nothing more; we will take nothing less. It is our inalienable right as citizens of the British Empire, and Heaven help the men who try to take it from us."

It was all no doubt a mere restatement--though an admirably lucid and forcible restatement--of doctrine with which his hearers had long been familiar. The great question still awaited an answer--how was effect to be given to this resolve, now that there was no longer hope of salvation through the sympathy and support of public opinion in Great Britain? This was what the eager listeners at Craigavon hoped in hushed expectancy to hear from their new leader. He did not disappoint them:

"Mr. Asquith, the Prime Minister, says that we are not to be allowed to put our case before the British electorate. Very well.

By that determination he drives you in the ultimate result to rely upon your own strength, and we must follow all that out to its logical conclusion.... That involves something more than that we do not accept Home Rule. We must be prepared, in the event of a Home Rule Bill pa.s.sing, with such measures as will carry on for ourselves the government of those districts of which we have control. We must be prepared--and time is precious in these things--the morning Home Rule pa.s.ses, ourselves to become responsible for the government of the Protestant Province of Ulster. We ask your leave at the meeting of the Ulster Unionist Council, to be held on Monday, there to discuss the matter, and to set to work, to take care that at no time and at no intervening interval shall we lack a Government in Ulster, which shall be a Government either by the Imperial Parliament, or by ourselves."

Here, then, was the first authoritative declaration of a definite policy to be pursued by Ulster in the circ.u.mstances then existing or foreseen, and it was a policy that was followed with undeviating consistency under Carson's leadership for the next nine years. To be left under the government of the Imperial Parliament was the alternative to be preferred, and was a.s.serted to be an inalienable right; but, if all their efforts to that end should be defeated, then "a government by ourselves" was the only change that could be tolerated. Rather than submit to the jurisdiction of a Nationalist legislature and administration, they would themselves set up a Government "_in those districts of which they had control_." It was because, when the first of these alternatives had to be sorrowfully abandoned, the second was offered in the Government of Ireland Act of 1920 that Ulster did not actively oppose the pa.s.sing of that statute.

FOOTNOTES:

[12] _Annual Register_, 1911, p. 175.

CHAPTER V

THE CRAIGAVON POLICY AND THE U.F.V.

No time was lost in giving practical shape to the policy outlined at Craigavon, and in taking steps to give effect to it. On the 25th of September a meeting of four hundred delegates representing the Ulster Unionist Council, the County Grand Orange Lodges, and the Unionist Clubs, was held in Belfast, and, after lengthy discussion in private, when the only differences of opinion were as to the most effective methods of proceeding, two resolutions were unanimously adopted and published. It is noteworthy that, at this early stage in the movement, out of nearly four hundred popularly elected delegates, numbers of whom were men holding responsible positions or engaged in commercial business, not one raised an objection to the policy itself, although its grave possibilities were thoroughly appreciated by all present. Both Lord Londonderry, who presided, and Sir Edward Carson left no room for doubt in that respect; the developments they might be called upon to face were thoroughly searched and explained, and the fullest opportunity to draw back was offered to any present who might shrink from going on.

The first Resolution registered a "call upon our leaders to take any steps they may consider necessary to resist the establishment of Home Rule in Ireland, solemnly pledging ourselves that under no conditions shall we acknowledge any such Government"; and it gave an a.s.surance that those whom the delegates represented would give the leaders "their unwavering support in any danger they may be called upon to face." The second decided that "the time has now come when we consider it our imperative duty to make arrangements for the provisional government of Ulster," and for that purpose it went on to appoint a Commission of five leading local men, namely, Captain James Craig, M.P., Colonel Sharman Crawford, M.P., the Right Hon. Thomas Sinclair, Colonel R.H.

Wallace, C.B., and Mr. Edward Sclater, Secretary of the Unionist Clubs, whose duties were _(a)_ "to keep Sir Edward Carson in constant and close touch with the feeling of Unionist Ulster," and _(b)_ "to take immediate steps, in consultation with Sir Edward Carson, to frame and submit a Const.i.tution for a Provisional Government of Ulster, having due regard to the interests of the Loyalists in other parts of Ireland: the powers and duration of such Provisional Government to come into operation on the day of the pa.s.sage of any Home Rule Bill, to remain in force until Ulster shall again resume unimpaired her citizenship in the United Kingdom."

At the luncheon given by Lord Londonderry after this business conference, Carson took occasion to refer to a particularly contemptible slander to which currency had been given some days previously by Sir John Benn, one of the Eighty Club strolling seekers after truth. It was perhaps hardly worth while to notice a statement so silly as that the Ulster leader had been ready a few weeks previously to betray Ulster in order to save the House of Lords, but Carson did not yet realise the degree to which he had already won the confidence of his followers; moreover, the incident proved useful as an opportunity of emphasising the uninterrupted mutual confidence between Lord Londonderry and himself, in spite of their divergence of opinion over the Parliament Bill. It also gave those present a glimpse of their leader's power of shrivelling meanness with a few caustic drops of scorn.

The proceedings at Craigavon and at the Conference naturally created a sensation on both sides of the Channel. They brought the question of Ireland once more, for the first time since 1895, into the forefront of British politics. The House of Commons might spend the autumn ploughing its way through the intricacies of the National Insurance Bill, but everyone knew that the last and bitterest battle against Home Rule was now approaching. And, now that the Parliament Act was safely on the Statute-book, Ministers had no further interest in concealment. During the elections, from which alone they could procure authority for legislation of so fundamental a character, Mr. Asquith, as we have seen, regarded any inquiry as to his intentions as "confusing the issue." But now that he had the const.i.tuencies in his pocket for five years and nothing further was to be feared from that quarter, his cards were placed on the table.

On the 3rd of October Mr. Winston Churchill told his followers at Dundee that the Government would introduce a Home Rule Bill next session "and press it forward with all their strength," and he added the characteristic injunction that "they must not take Sir Edward Carson too seriously." But that advice did not prevent Mr. Herbert Samuel, another member of the Cabinet, from putting in an appearance in Belfast four days later, where he threw himself into a ludicrously unequal combat with Carson, exerting himself to calm the fears of business men as to the effect of Home Rule on their prosperity; while, in the same week, Carson himself, at a great Unionist demonstration in Dublin, described the growth of Irish prosperity in the last twenty years as "almost a fairy tale," which would be cut short by Home Rule. On the 19th of the same month Mr. Birrell, the Chief Secretary for Ireland, in a speech at Ilfracombe, gave some sc.r.a.ps of meagre information in regard to the provisions that would be included in the coming Home Rule Bill; and on the 21st Mr. Redmond announced that the drafting of the Bill was almost completed, and that the measure would be "satisfactory to Nationalists both in principle and detail."[13]

So the autumn of 1911 wore through--Ministers doling out snippets of information; members of Parliament and the Press urging them to give more. The people of Ulster, on the other hand, were not worrying over details. They did not require to be told that the principle would be "satisfactory to Nationalists," for they knew that the Government had to "toe the line"; nor were they in doubt that what was satisfactory to Nationalists must be unsatisfactory to themselves. What they were thinking about was not what the Bill would or would not contain, but the preparations they were making to resist its operation.

A day or two after Craigavon the leader spoke at a great meeting in Portrush, after receiving, at every important station he pa.s.sed _en route_ from Belfast, enthusiastic addresses expressing confidence in himself and approval of the Craigavon declaration; and in this speech he considerably amplified what he had said at Craigavon. After explaining how the whole outlook had been changed by the Parliament Act, which cut them off from appeal to the sympathies of Englishmen, he pointed out to his hearers the only course now open to them, namely, that resolved upon at Craigavon.

"Some people," he continued, "say that I am preaching disorder. No, in the course I am advising I am preaching order, because I believe that, unless we are in a position ourselves to take over the government of those places we are able to control, the people of Ulster, if let loose without that organisation, and without that organised determination, might in a foolish moment find themselves in a condition of antagonism and grips with their foes which I believe even the present Government would lament. And therefore I say that the course we recommend--and it has been solemnly adopted by your four hundred representatives, after mature discussion in which every man understood what it was he was voting about--is the only course that I know of that is possible under the circ.u.mstances of this Province which is consistent with the maintenance of law and order and the prevention of bloodshed."

Superficially, these words may appear boldly paradoxical; but in fact they were prophetic, for the closest observers of the events of the next three years, familiar with Irish character and conditions, were in no doubt whatever that it was the disciplined organisation of the Ulster Unionists alone that prevented the outbreak of serious disorders in the North. There was, on the contrary, a diminution even of ordinary crime, accompanied by a marked improvement in the general demeanour, and especially in the sobriety, of the people.

The speaker then touched upon a question which naturally arose out of the Craigavon policy of resistance to Home Rule. He had been asked, he said, whether Ulster proposed to fight against the forces of the Crown.

He had already contrasted their own methods with those of the Nationalists, saying that Ulstermen would never descend to action "from behind hedges or by maiming cattle, or by boycotting of individuals"; he now added that they were "not going to fight the Army and the Navy ...

G.o.d forbid that any loyal Irishman should ever shoot or think of shooting the British soldier or sailor. But, believe me, any Government will ponder long before it dares to shoot a loyal Ulster Protestant, devoted to his country and loyal to his King."

In newspaper reports of public meetings, sayings of pith and moment are often attributed to "A Voice" from the audience. On this occasion, when Sir Edward Carson referred to the Army and the Navy, "A Voice" cried "They are on our side." It was the truth, as subsequent events were to show. It would indeed have been strange had it been otherwise. Men wearing His Majesty's uniform, who had been quartered at one time in Belfast or Carrickfergus and at another in Cork or Limerick, could be under no illusion as to where that uniform was held in respect and where it was scorned. The certainty that the reality of their own loyalty was understood by the men who served the King was a sustaining thought to Ulstermen through these years of trial.

This Portrush speech cleared the air. It made known the _modus operandi_, as Craigavon had made known the policy. Henceforward Ulster Unionists had a definite idea of what was before them, and they had already unbounded confidence both in the sagacity and in the courage of the man who had become their leader.

The Craigavon meeting led, almost by accident as it were, to a development the importance of which was hardly foreseen at the time.

Among the processionists who pa.s.sed through Captain Craig's grounds there was a contingent of Orangemen from County Tyrone who attracted general attention by their smart appearance and the orderly precision of their marching. On inquiry it was learnt that these men had of their own accord been learning military drill. The spirit of emulation naturally suggested to others to follow the example of the Tyrone Lodges. It was soon followed, not by Orangemen alone, but by members of the Unionist Clubs, very many of whom belonged to no Orange Lodge. Within a few months drilling--of an elementary kind, it is true--had become popular in many parts of the country. Colonel R.H. Wallace, C.B., who had served with distinction in the South African War, where he commanded the 5th Royal Irish Rifles, was a prominent member of the Orange Inst.i.tution, in which he was in 1911 Grand Master of the Belfast Lodges, and Grand Secretary of the Provincial Grand Orange Lodge of Ulster; and, being a man of marked ability and widespread popularity, his influence was powerful and extensive. He was a devoted adherent of Carson, and there was no keener spirit among the Ulster Loyalist leaders. Colonel Wallace was among the first to perceive the importance of this military drilling that was taking place throughout Ulster, and through his leading position in the Orange Inst.i.tution his encouragement did much to extend the practice.

Having been a lawyer by profession before South Africa called him to serve his country in arms, Wallace was careful to ascertain how the law stood with regard to the drilling that was going on. He consulted Mr.

James Campbell (afterwards Lord Chancellor of Ireland), who advised that any two Justices of the Peace had power to authorise drill and other military exercises within the area of their jurisdiction on certain conditions. The terms of the application made by Colonel Wallace himself to two Belfast magistrates show what the conditions were, and, under the circ.u.mstances of the time, are not without a flavour of humour. The request stated that Wallace and another officer of the Belfast Grand Lodge were--

"Authorised on behalf of the members thereof to apply for lawful authority to them to hold meetings of the members of the said Lodge and the Lodges under its jurisdiction for the purpose of training and drilling themselves and of being trained and drilled to the use of arms, and for the purpose of practising military exercises, movements, and evolutions. And we are authorised, on their behalf, to give their a.s.surance that they desire this authority as faithful subjects of His Majesty the King, and their undertaking that such authority is sought and will be used by them only to make them more efficient citizens for the purpose of maintaining the const.i.tution of the United Kingdom as now established and protecting their rights and liberties thereunder."

The _bona fides_ of an application couched in these terms, which followed well-established precedent, could not be questioned by any loyal subject of His Majesty. The purpose for which the licence was requested was stated with literal exactness and without subterfuge.

There was nothing seditious or revolutionary in it, and the desire of men to make themselves more efficient citizens for maintaining the established government of their country, and their rights and liberties under it, was surely not merely innocent of offence, but praiseworthy.

Such, at all events, was the view taken by numbers of strictly conscientious holders of the Commission of the Peace throughout Ulster, with the result that the Ulster Volunteer Force sprang into existence within a few months without the smallest violation of the law.

Originating in the Orange Lodges and the Unionist Clubs, it soon enrolled large numbers of men outside both those organisations. Men with military experience interested themselves in training the volunteers in their districts; the local bodies were before long drawn into a single coherent organisation on a territorial basis, which soon gave rise to an _esprit de corps_ leading to friendly rivalry in efficiency between the local battalions.

This Ulster Volunteer Force had as yet no arms in their hands, but, as the first act of the Liberal Government on coming into power in 1906 had been to drop the "coercion" Act which prohibited the importation of firearms into Ireland, there was no reason why, in the course of time, the U.V.F. should not be fully armed with as complete an avoidance of illegality as that with which in the meantime they were acquiring some knowledge of military duties. But for the present they had to be content with wooden "dummy" rifles with which to learn their drill, an expedient which, as will be seen later on, excited the derisive mirth of the English Radical Press.

The application to the Belfast Justices for leave to drill the Orange Lodges was dated the 5th of January, 1912. For some months both before and after that date the formation of new battalions proceeded rapidly, so that by the summer of 1912 the force was of considerable strength and decent efficiency; but already in the autumn of 1911 it soon became apparent that the existence of such a force would give a backing to the Craigavon policy which nothing else could provide. At Craigavon the leader of the movement had foreshadowed the possibility of having to take charge of the government of those districts which the Loyalists could control. The U.V.F. made such control a practical proposition, and the consciousness of this throughout Ulster gave a solid reality to the movement which it must otherwise have lacked.

The special Commission of Five set to work immediately after the Craigavon meeting to carry out the task entrusted to them by the Council. But, as more than two years must elapse before the Home Rule Bill could become law under the Parliament Act, there was no immediate urgency in making arrangements for setting up the Provisional Government resolved upon by the Council on the 25th of September, 1911, and the outside public heard nothing about what was being done in the matter for many months to come.

Meantime the Ulster Loyalists watched with something akin to dismay the dissensions in the Unionist party in England over the question of Tariff Reform, which made impossible a united front against the revived attack on the Union, and woefully weakened the effective force of the Opposition both in Parliament and the country. Public opinion was diverted from the one thing that really mattered--had Englishmen been able to realise it--from an Imperial standpoint, no less than from the standpoint of Irish Loyalists. On the 8th of November, 1911, mainly in consequence of these dissensions, Mr. Balfour resigned the leadership of the Unionist Party. This event was regarded in Ulster as a calamity. Mr.

Balfour was the ablest and most zealous living defender of the Union, and the great services he had rendered to the country during his memorable Chief Secretaryship were not forgotten. Ulstermen, in whose eyes the tariff question was of very subordinate importance, feared that no one could be found to take command of the Unionist forces comparable with the Achilles who, as they supposed, was now retiring to his tent.

What happened in regard to the vacant leadership is well known--how Mr.

Walter Long and Mr. Austen Chamberlain, after presenting themselves for a day or two as rival candidates, patriotically agreed to stand aside and give united support to Mr. Bonar Law in order to avoid a division in the ranks of the party. It is less generally known that Mr. Bonar Law, before consenting to his name being proposed, wrote and asked Sir Edward Carson if he would accept the leadership, and that it was only when he received an emphatic reply in the negative that he a.s.sumed the responsibility himself. If this had been known at the time in Ulster there can be little doubt that consternation would have been caused by the refusal of their own leader to place himself at the head of the whole Unionist Party. It is quite certain that Sir Edward Carson would have been acceptable to the party meeting at the Carlton Club, for he was then much better known to the party both in the House of Commons and in the country than was Mr. Bonar Law, whose great qualities as parliamentarian and statesman had not yet been revealed; but it is not less certain that, if his first thought was to be of service to Ulster, Carson acted wisely in maintaining a position of independence, in which all his powers could continue to be concentrated on a single aim of statecraft.

At all events, the new leader of the Unionist Party was not long in proving that the Ulster cause had suffered no set-back by the change, and his constant and courageous backing of the Ulster leader won him the unstinted admiration and affection of every Irish Loyalist. Mr.

Balfour also soon showed that he was no sulking Achilles; his loyalty to the Unionist cause was undimmed; he never for a moment acted, as a meaner man might, as if his successor were a supplanter; and within the next few months he many times rose from beside Mr. Bonar Law in the House of Commons to deliver some of the best speeches he ever made on the question of Irish Government, full of cogent and crushing criticism of the Home Rule proposals of Mr. Asquith.

FOOTNOTES:

[13] _Annual Register_, 1911, p. 228.