This information arrived too late to influence the decision on the main question, but it confirmed its wisdom and set at rest the doubts which some of the Committee had at first entertained. It was reported at the time that there had been a dissenting minority consisting of Lord Londonderry, Mr. Sinclair, and Mr. John Young, the last-mentioned being a Privy Councillor, a trusted leader of the Presbyterians, and a man of moderate views whose great influence throughout the north-eastern counties was due to his high character and the soundness of his judgment. There was, however, no truth in this report, which Londonderry publicly contradicted; but it is probable that the concurrence of the men mentioned, and perhaps of others, was owing to their well-founded conviction that the course decided upon, however high-handed it might appear to onlookers at a distance, was in reality the only means of averting much more deplorable consequences.
On the following day, January 17th, an immense sensation was created by the publication of the Resolution which had been unanimously adopted on the motion of Captain James Craig, M.P. It was:
"That the Standing Committee of the Ulster Unionist Council observes with astonishment the deliberate challenge thrown down by Mr. Winston Churchill, Mr. John Redmond, Mr. Joseph Devlin, and Lord Pirrie in announcing their intention to hold a Home Rule meeting in the centre of the loyal city of Belfast, and resolves to take steps to prevent its being held."
There was an immediate outpouring of vituperation by the Ministerial Press in England, as had been anticipated by the Standing Committee. Special Correspondents trooped over to Belfast, whence they filled their papers with telegrams, articles, and interviews, ringing the changes on the audacity of this unwarranted interference with freedom of speech, and speculating as to the manner in which the threat, was likely to be carried out. Scribes of "Open Letters" had a fine opportunity to display their gift of insolent invective. Cartoonists and caricaturists had a time of rare enjoyment, and let their pencils run riot. Writers in the Liberal Press for the most part assumed that Mr. Churchill would bid defiance to the Ulster Unionist Council; others urged him to do so and to fulfil his engagement; some, with more prudence, suggested that he might be extricated from the difficulty without loss of dignity if the Chief Secretary would prohibit the meeting, as likely to produce a breach of peace, and it was pointed out that Dublin Castle would certainly forbid a meeting in Tipperary organised by the Ulster Unionist Council, with Sir Edward Carson as principal speaker.
However, on the 25th of January Mr. Churchill addressed a letter, dated from the Admiralty, to Lord Londonderry at Mount Stewart, in which he said he was prepared to give up the idea of speaking in the Ulster Hall, and would arrange for his meeting to be held elsewhere in the city, as "it was not a point of any importance to him where he spoke in Belfast." He did not explain why, if that were the case, he had ever made a plan that so obviously constituted a direct premeditated challenge to Ulster. Lord Londonderry, in his reply, said that the Ulster Unionist Council had no intention of interfering with any meeting Mr. Churchill might arrange "outside the districts which passionately resent your action," but that, "having regard to the intense state of feeling" which had been aroused, the Council could accept no responsibility for anything that might occur during the visit. Mr. Churchill's prudent change of plan relieved the extreme tension of the situation, and there was much speculation as to what influence had produced a result so satisfactory to the Ulster Unionist Council. The truth seems to be that the Council's Resolution had impaled the Government on the horns of a very awkward dilemma, completely turning the tables on Ministers, whose design had been to compel the Belfast Unionists either to adopt, on the one hand, an attitude of apparent intolerance which would put them in the wrong in the eyes of the British public, or, on the other, to submit to the flagrant misrepresentation of their whole position which would be the outcome of a Nationalist meeting in the Ulster Hall presided over by the President of the illusory "Ulster Liberal Association," and with Lord Randolph Churchill's son as the protagonist of Home Rule. The threat to stop the meeting forced the Government to consider how the First Lord of the Admiralty and his friends were to be protected and enabled to fulfil their programme. The Irish Executive, according to the Dublin Correspondent of The Times, objected to the employment of troops for this purpose; because—
"If the Belfast Unionists decided to resist the soldiers, bloodshed and disorder on a large scale must have ensued. If, on the other hand, they yielded to the force majeure of British bayonets, and Mr. Churchill was enabled to speak in the Ulster Hall, they would still have carried their point; they would have proved to the English people that Home Rule could only be thrust upon Ulster by an overwhelming employment of military force. The Executive preferred to depend on the services of a large police force. And this meant that Mr. Churchill could not speak in the Ulster Hall; for the Belfast democracy, though it might yield to soldiers, would certainly offer a fierce resistance to the police. It seemed, therefore, that the Government's only safe and prudent course was to prevent Mr. Churchill from trying to speak in that Hall."[[16]]
The Government, in fact, had been completely out-manoeuvred. They had given the Ulster Unionist Council an opportunity to show its own constituents and the outside world that, where the occasion demanded action, it could act with decision; and they had failed utterly to drive a wedge between Ulster and the Unionist Party in England and in the South of Ireland, as they hoped to do by goading Belfast into illegality. On the other hand, they had aroused some misgiving in the ranks of their own supporters. A political observer in London reported that the incident had—
"Caused a feeling of considerable apprehension in Radical circles. The pretence that Ulster does not mean to fight is now almost abandoned even by the most fanatical Home Rulers."[[17]]
Unionist journals in Great Britain, almost without exception, applauded the conduct of the Council, and proved by their comments that they understood its motive, and sympathised with the feelings of Ulster. The Saturday Review expressed the general view when it wrote:
"With the indignation of the loyal Ulstermen at this proposal we are in complete sympathy. Where there is a question of Home Rule, the Ulster Hall is sacred ground, and to the Ulster mind and, indeed, to the mind of any calm outsider, there is something both impudent and impious in the proposal that this temple of Unionism should be profaned by the son of a man who assisted at its consecration."[[18]]