Ulster's Stand For Union. Ronald McNeill
as the occasion required, when important meetings of the delegates took place. Distinguished political visitors from England could always be invited over without thought for their entertainment, since a welcome at Mount Stewart was never wanting. His financial support of the political movement was equally open-handed.
But, helpful as were his hospitality and his subscriptions, it was the countenance and support of a man who had held high Cabinet office, and especially the great position of Viceroy of Ireland, that made Lord Londonderry's full participation an asset of incalculable value to the cause he espoused. Moreover, while he was always ready to cross the Channel, even if for a few hours only, when wanted for any conference or public meeting, never pleading his innumerable social and political engagements in London or the North of England as an excuse for absence, his natural modesty of character made it easy for him to act under the leadership of another. Indeed, he underrated his own abilities; but there are probably not many men of his prominence and antecedents who, if similarly placed, would have been able to give, without a trace of amour-propre, to a leader who had in former years been his own official subordinate, the consistently loyal backing that Lord Londonderry gave to Sir Edward Carson.
But, although there never was the slightest friction between the two men, a difference of opinion between them on an important point showed itself within a few months of Carson's acceptance of the leadership. In July 1911 the excitement over the Parliament Bill reached its climax. When the Government announced that the King had given his assent to the creation of whatever number of peerages might be required for carrying the measure through the Upper House, the party known as "Die Hards" were for rejecting it and taking the consequences; while against this policy were ranged Lord Lansdowne, Lord Curzon, and other Unionist leaders, who advocated the acceptance of the Bill under protest. On the 20th of July Carson told Lansdowne that in his judgment "the disgrace and ignominy of surrender on the question far outweighed any temporary advantage" to be gained by the two years' delay of Home Rule which the Parliament Bill would secure.[12] Lord Londonderry, on the other hand, supported the view taken by Lord Lansdowne, and he voted with the majority who carried the Bill on the 10th of August. This step temporarily clouded his popularity in Ulster, but not many weeks passed before he completely regained the confidence and affection of the people, and the difference of opinion never in the smallest degree interrupted the harmony of his relations with Sir Edward Carson.
The true position of affairs in relation to Home Rule had not yet been grasped by the British public. As explained in a former chapter, it had not been in any real sense an issue in the two General Elections of the previous year, and throughout the spring and summer of 1911 popular interest in England and Scotland was still wholly occupied with the fight between "Peers and People" and the impending blow to the power of the Second Chamber; and the coronation festivities also helped to divert attention from the political consequences to which the authors of the Parliament Bill intended it to lead.
The first real awakening was brought about by an immense demonstration held at Craigavon, on the outskirts of Belfast, on the 23rd of September. The main purpose of this historic gathering was to bring the populace of Ulster face to face with their new leader, and to give him an opportunity of making a definite pronouncement of a policy for Ulster, in view of the entirely novel situation resulting from the passing of the Parliament Act.
For that Act made it possible for the first time for the Liberal Home Rule Party to repeal the Act of Union without an appeal to the country. It enacted that any Bill which in three successive sessions was passed without substantial alteration through the House of Commons might be presented for the Royal Assent without the consent of the Lords; and an amendment to exclude a Home Rule Bill from its operation had been successfully resisted by the Government. It also reduced the maximum legal duration of a Parliament from seven to five years; but the existing Parliament was still in its first session, and there was therefore ample time, under the provisions of the new Constitution, to pass a Home Rule Bill before the next General Election, as the coalition of parties in favour of Home Rule constituted a substantial majority in the House of Commons.
The question, therefore, which the Ulster people had now to decide was no longer simply how they could bring about the rejection of a Home Rule Bill by propaganda in the British constituencies, as they had hitherto done with unfailing success, although that object was still kept in view, but what course they should adopt if a Home Rule Act should be placed on the Statute-book without those constituencies being consulted. Was the day at last approaching when Lord Randolph Churchill's exhortation must be obeyed? Or were they to be compelled, because the Cabinet had coerced the Sovereign and tricked the people by straining the royal prerogative in a manner described by Mr. Balfour as "a gross violation of constitutional liberty," to submit with resignation to the government of their country by the "rebel party "—the party controlled by clerical influence, and boasting of the identity of its aims with those of Wolfe Tone and Robert Emmet? This was the real problem in the minds of those who flocked to Craigavon on Saturday, the 23rd of September, 1911, to hear what proposals Sir Edward Carson had to lay before his followers.
Craigavon was the residence of Captain James Craig, Member of Parliament for East Down. It is a spacious country house standing on a hill above the road leading from Belfast to Holywood, with a fine view of Belfast Lough and the distant Antrim coast beyond the estuary. The lawn in front of the house, sloping steeply to the shore road, forms a sort of natural amphitheatre offering ideal conditions for out-of-door oratory to an unlimited audience. At the meeting on the 23rd of September the platform was erected near the crest of the hill, enabling the vast audience to spread out fan-wise over the lower levels, where even the most distant had the speakers clearly in view, even if many of them, owing to the size of the gathering, were unable to hear the spoken word.
It was on this occasion that Captain Craig, by the care with which every minute detail of the arrangements was thought out and provided for, first gave evidence of his remarkable gift for organisation that was to prove so invaluable to the Ulster cause in the next few years. The greater part of the audience arrived in procession, which, starting from the centre of the city of Belfast, took over two hours to pass a given point, at the quick march in fours. All the Belfast Orange Lodges, and representative detachments from the County Grand Lodges, together with Lord Templetown's Unionist Clubs, and other organisations, including the Women's Association, took part in the procession. But immense numbers of people attended the meeting independently; it was calculated that not less than a hundred thousand were present during the delivery of Sir Edward Carson's speech, and although there must have been very many of them who could hear nothing, the complete silence maintained by all was a remarkable proof—or so it appeared to men experienced in out-door political demonstrations—of the earnestness of spirit that prevailed. To some it may appear still more remarkable that, with such a concourse of people within a couple of miles of Belfast, not a single policeman was present, and that none was required; no disturbance of any sort occurred during the day, nor was a single case of drunkenness observed.
It had been intended that the Duke of Abercorn, whose inspiring exhortation as chairman of the Ulster Convention in 1892 had never been forgotten, should preside over the meeting; but, as he was prevented by a family bereavement from being present, his place was taken by the Earl of Erne, Grand Master of the Orange Order. The scene, when he rose to open the proceedings, was indescribable in its impressiveness. Some members of the Eighty Club happened to be in Ireland at the time, for the purpose of "seeing for themselves" in the familiar fashion of such political tourists; but they did not think it worth while to witness what Ulster was doing at Craigavon. If they had, they could have made a report to their political leaders which, had it been truthful, might have averted some irreparable blunders; for they could hardly have looked upon that sea of eager faces, or have observed the enthusiasm that possessed such a host of earnest and resolute men, without revising the opinion, which they had accepted from Mr. Redmond, that there was "no Ulster question."
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,