ARMING THE U.V.F.
If the "evil-disposed persons" who so excited the fancy of Colonel Seely were supposed to be Ulster Loyalists, the whole story was an absurdity that did no credit to the Government's Intelligence in Ireland; and if there ever was any "information," such as the War Office alleged, it must have come from a source totally ignorant of Ulster psychology. Raids on Government stores were never part of the Ulster programme. The excitement of the Curragh Incident passed off without causing any sort of disturbance, and, as we have seen, the troops who were sent North received everywhere in Ulster a loyal welcome. This was a fine tribute to the discipline and restraint of the people, and was a further proof of their confidence in their leaders.
Those leaders, it happened, were at that very moment taking measures to place arms in the hands of the U.V.F. without robbing Government depots or any one else. That method was left to their opponents in Ireland at a later date, who adopted it on an extensive scale accompanied by systematic terrorism. The Ulster plan was quite different. All the arms they obtained were paid for, and their only crime was that they successfully hoodwinked Mr. Asquith's colleagues and agents.
Every movement has its Fabius, and also its Hotspur. Both are needed—the men of prudence and caution, anxious to avoid extreme courses, slow to commit themselves too far or to burn their boats with the river behind them; and the impetuous spirits, who chafe at half-measures, cannot endure temporising, and are impatient for the order to advance against any odds. Major F.H. Crawford had more of the temperament of a Hotspur than of a Fabius, but he nevertheless possessed qualities of patience, reticence, discretion, and coolness which enabled him to render invaluable service to the Ulster cause in an enterprise that would certainly have miscarried in the hands of a man endowed only with impetuosity and reckless courage. If the story of his adventures in procuring arms for the U.V.F. be ever told in minute detail, it will present all the features of an exciting novel by Mr. John Buchan.
Fred Crawford, the man who followed a family tradition when he signed the Covenant with his own blood,[[84]] began life as a premium apprentice in Harland and Wolf's great ship-building yard, after which he served for a year as an engineer in the White Star Line, before settling down to his father's manufacturing business in Belfast. Like so many ardent Loyalists in Ulster, he came of Liberal stock. He was for years honorary Secretary of the Reform Club in Belfast. The more staid members of this highly respectable establishment were not a little startled and perplexed when it was brought to their attention in 1907 that advertisements in the name of one "Hugh Matthews," giving the Belfast Reform Club as his address, had appeared in a number of foreign newspapers—French, Belgian, Italian, German, and Austrian—inquiring for "10,000 rifles and one million rounds of small-arm ammunition." The membership of the Club included no Hugh Matthews; but inquiry showed that the name covered the identity of the Hon. Secretary; and Crawford, who sought no concealment in the matter, justified the advertisements by pointing out that the Liberal Government which had lately come into power had begun its rule in Ireland by repealing the Act prohibiting the importation of arms, and that there was therefore nothing illegal in what he was doing. But he resigned his secretaryship, which he felt might hamper future transactions of the same kind. The advertisement was no doubt half bravado and half practical joke; he wanted to see whether it would attract notice, and if anything would come of it. But it had also an element of serious purpose.
Crawford regarded the advent to power of the Liberal Party as ominous, as indeed all Ulster did, for the Liberal Party was a Home Rule Party; and he had from his youth been convinced that the day would come when Ulster would have to carry out Lord Randolph Churchill's injunction. That being so, he was not the man to tarry till solemn assemblies of merchants, lawyers, and divines should propound a policy; if there was to be fighting, Crawford was going to be ready for it, and thought that preparation for such a contingency could not begin too soon. And the advertisements were not barren of practical result. There was an astonishing number of replies; Crawford purchased a few rifles, and obtained samples of others; and, what was more important, he gained knowledge of the Continental trade in second-hand firearms, which had its centre in the free port of Hamburg, and of the men engaged in that trade. This knowledge he turned to account in 1912 and the two following years.
He had been for nearly twenty years an officer of Artillery Militia, and when the U.V.F. was organised in 1912 he became its Director of Ordnance on the headquarters staff. He was also a member of the Standing Committee of the Ulster Unionist Council, where he persistently advocated preparation for armed resistance long before most of his colleagues thought such a policy necessary. But early in 1912 he obtained leave to get samples of procurable firearms, and his promptitude in acting on it, and in presenting before certain members of the Committee a collection of gleaming rifles with bayonets fixed, took away the breath of the more cautious of his colleagues.
From this time forward Crawford was frequently engaged in this business. He got into communication with the dealers in arms whose acquaintance he had made six years before. He went himself to Hamburg, and, after learning something of the chicanery prevalent in the trade, which it took all his resourcefulness to overcome, he fell in with an honest Jew by whose help he succeeded in sending a thousand rifles safely to Belfast. Other consignments followed from time to time in larger or smaller quantities, in the transport of which all the devices of old-time smuggling were put to the test. Crawford bought a schooner, which for a year or more proved very useful, and, while employing her in bringing arms to Ulster, he made acquaintance with a skipper of one of the Antrim Iron Ore Company's coasting steamers, whose name was Agnew, a fine seaman of the best type produced by the British Mercantile Marine, who afterwards proved an invaluable ally, to whose loyalty and ability Crawford and Ulster owed a deep debt of gratitude, as they also did to Mr. Robert Browne, Managing Director of the Antrim Iron Ore Company, for placing at their disposal both vessels and seamen from time to time.
Now and then the goods fell a victim to Custom House vigilance; for although there was at this time nothing illegal in importing firearms, it was not considered prudent to carry on the trade openly, which would certainly have led to prohibition being introduced and enforced; and, consequently, infringements of shipping regulations had to be risked, which gave the authorities the right to interfere if they discovered rifles where zinc plates or musical instruments ought to have been.
On one occasion a case of arms was shipped on a small steamer from Glasgow to Portrush, but was not entered in the manifest, so that the skipper (being a worthy man) knew nothing—officially—of this box which lay on deck instead of descending into the hold. But two Customs officials, who noticed it with unsatisfied curiosity, decided, just as the boat cast off, to make the trip to Portrush. Happily it was a dirty night, and they, being bad sailors, were constrained to take refuge from the elements in the Captain's cabin. But when Portrush was reached search and research proved unavailing to find the mysterious box; the skipper could find no mention of it in the manifest and thought the Customs House gentlemen must have been dreaming; they, on the other hand, threatened to seize the ship if the box did not materialise, and were told to do so at their peril. But exactly off Ballycastle, which had been passed while the officials were poorly, there was a float in the sea attached to a line, which in due course led to the recovery of a case of valuable property that was none the worse for a few hours' rest on the bottom of the Moyle.