Ulster's Stand For Union

by Ronald McNeill

On the 28th of April a further debate on the Curragh Incident took place in the House of Commons, which was a curious example of the rapid changes of mood that characterise that Assembly. Most of the speeches both from the front and back benches were, if possible, even more bitter, angry, and defiant than usual. But at the close of one of the bitterest of them all Mr. Churchill read a typewritten passage that was recognised as a tiny olive-branch held out to Ulster. Carson responded next day in a conciliatory tone, and the Prime Minister was thought to suggest a renewal of negotiations in private. For some time nothing came of this hint; but on the 12th of May Mr. Asquith announced that the third reading of the Home Rule Bill (for the third successive year, as required by the Parliament Act before being presented for the signature of the King) would be taken before Whitsuntide, but that the Government intended to make another attempt to appease Ulster by introducing "an amending proposal, in the hope that a settlement by agreement may be arrived at"; and that the two Bills—the Home Rule Bill and the Bill to amend it—might become law practically at the same time. But he gave no hint as to what the "amending proposal" was to be, and the reception of the announcement by the Opposition did not seem to presage agreement.

Mr. Bonar Law insisted that the House of Commons ought to be told what the Amending Bill would propose, before it was asked finally to pass the Home Rule Bill. But the real fact was, as every member of the House of Commons fully realised, that Mr. Asquith was not a free agent in this matter. The Nationalists were not at all pleased at the attempts already made, trivial as they were, to satisfy Ulster, and Mr. Redmond protested against the promise of an Amending Bill of any kind. Mr. Asquith could make no proposal sufficient to allay the hostility of Ulster that would not alienate the Nationalists, whose support was essential to the continuance of his Government in office.

On the same day as this debate in Parliament the result of a by-election at Grimsby was announced in which the Unionist candidate retained the seat; a week later the Unionists won a seat in Derbyshire; and two days afterwards crowned these successes with a resounding victory at Ipswich. The last-mentioned contest was considered so important that Mr. Lloyd George and Sir Edward Carson went down to speak the evening before the poll for their respective sides. Mr. Lloyd George, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, made his appeal to the cupidity of the constituency, which was informed that it would gain £15,000 a year from his new Budget, in addition to large sums, of which he gave the figure, for old age pensions and under the Government's Health Insurance Act.[^[88]] Sir Edward Carson laid stress on Ulster's determination to resist Home Rule by force. The Unionist candidate won the seat next day in this essentially working-class constituency by a substantial majority, although his Liberal opponent, Mr. Masterman, was a Cabinet Minister trying for the second time to return to Parliament. Out of seven elections since the beginning of the session the Government had lost four.

It happened that the two latest new members took their seats on the 25th of May, on which date the Home Rule Bill was passed by the House of Commons on third reading for the last time. The occasion was celebrated by the Nationalists, not unnaturally, by a great demonstration of triumph, both in the House itself and outside in Palace Yard. Men on the other side reflected that the tragedy of civil war had been brought one stage nearer.

The reply of Ulster to the passing of the Bill was a series of reviews of the U.V.F. during the Whitsuntide recess. Carson, Londonderry, Craig, and most of the other Ulster members attended these parades, which excited intense enthusiasm through the country, more especially as the arms brought by the Mountjoy were now seen for the first time in the hands of the Volunteers. Several battalions were presented with Colours which had been provided by Lady Londonderry, Lady Massereene, Mrs. Craig, and other local ladies, and the ceremony included the dedication of these Colours by the Bishop of Down and the Moderator of the Presbyterian Church. Many visitors from England witnessed these displays, and among them were several deputations of Liberal and Labour working men, who reported on their return that what they had seen had converted them to sympathy with Ulster.[^[89]]

After the recess the promised Amending Bill was introduced in the House of Lords on the 23rd of June by the Marquis of Crewe, who explained that it embodied Mr. Asquith's proposals of the 9th of March, and that he invited amendments. Lord Lansdowne at once declared that these proposals, which had been rejected as inadequate three months ago, were doubly insufficient now. But the invitation to amend the Bill was accepted, Lord Londonderry asking the pertinent question whether the Government would tell Mr. Redmond that they would insist on acceptance of any amendments made in response to Lord Crewe's invitation—a question to which no answer was forthcoming. Lord Milner, in the course of the debate, said the Bill would have to be entirely remodelled, and he laid stress on the point that if Ulster were coerced to join the rest of Ireland it would make a united Ireland for ever impossible, and that the employment of the Army and Navy for the purpose of coercion would give a shock to the Empire which it would not long survive; to which Lord Roberts added that such a policy would mean the utter destruction of the Army, as he had warned the Prime Minister before the incident at the Curragh.

On the 8th of July the Bill was amended by substituting the permanent exclusion of the whole province of Ulster—which Mr. Balfour had named "the clean cut"—for the proposed county option with a time limit; and several other alterations of minor importance were also made. The Bill as amended passed the third reading on the 14th, when Lord Lansdowne predicted that, whatever might be the fate of the measure and of the Home Rule Bill which it modified, the one thing certain was that the idea of coercing Ulster was dead.

In Ulster itself, meanwhile, the people were bent on making Lord Lansdowne's certainty doubly sure. Carson went over for the Boyne celebration on the 12th of July. The frequency of his visits did nothing to damp the ardour with which his arrival was always hailed by his followers. The same wonderful scenes, whether at Larne or at the Belfast docks, were repeated time after time without appearing to grow stale by repetition. They gave colour to the Radical jeer at "King Carson," for no royal personage could have been given a more regal reception than was accorded to "Sir Edward" (as everybody affectionately called him in Belfast) half a dozen times within a few months.

This occasion, when he arrived on the 10th by the Liverpool steamer, accompanied by Mr. Walter Long, was no exception. His route had been announced in the Press. Countless Union Jacks were displayed in every village along both shores of the Lough. Every vessel at anchor, including the gigantic White Star Liner Britannic, was dressed; every fog-horn bellowed a welcome; the multitude of men at work in the great ship-yards crowded to places commanding a view of the incoming packet, and waved handkerchiefs and raised cheers for Sir Edward; fellow passengers jostled each other to get sight of him as he went down the gangway and to give him a parting cheer from the deck; the dock sheds were packed with people, many of them bare-headed and bare-footed women, who pressed close in the hope of touching his hand, or hearing one of his kindly and humorous greetings. It was the same in the streets all the way from the docks to the centre of the city, and out through the working-class district of Ballymacarret to the country beyond, and in every hamlet on the road to Newtownards and Mount Stewart—people congregating to give him a cheer as he passed in Lord Londonderry's motor-car, or pausing in their work on the land to wave a greeting from fields bordering the road.

Radical newspapers in England believed—or at any rate tried to make their readers believe—that the "Northcliffe Press," particularly The Times and Daily Mail, gave an exaggerated account of these extraordinary demonstrations of welcome to Carson, and of the impressiveness of the great meetings which he addressed. But the accounts in Lord Northcliffe's papers did not differ materially from those in other journals like The Daily Telegraph, The Daily Express, The Standard, The Morning Post, The Observer, The Scotsman, and The Spectator. There was no exaggeration. The special correspondents gave faithful accounts of what they saw and heard, and no more. Editorial support was a different matter. Lord Northcliffe's papers were unfailing in their support of the Ulster cause, as were many other great British journals; and even when at a later period Lord Northcliffe's attitude on the general question of Irish government underwent a change that was profoundly disappointing to Ulstermen, his papers never countenanced the idea of applying coercion to Ulster. In the years 1911 to 1914 The Times remained true to the tradition started by John Walter, who, himself a Liberal, went personally to Belfast in 1886 to inform himself on the question, then for the first time raised by Gladstone; and, having done so, supported the loyalist cause in Ireland till his death. A series of weighty articles in 1913 and 1914 approved and encouraged the resistance threatened by Ulster to Home Rule, and justified the measures taken in preparation for it. Whatever may have been the reason for a different attitude at a later date, Ulster owed a debt of gratitude to The Times in those troubled years.