Ulster's Stand For Union

by Ronald McNeill

This was the unpleasant tale that Sir Edward Carson had to unfold to the Ulster Unionist Council on the 3rd of September. After explaining how and why he had consented to the indefinite postponement of the Amending Bill, he continued:

"And so, without any condition of any kind, we agreed that the Bill should be postponed without prejudice to the position of either party. England's difficulty is not Ulster's opportunity. England's difficulty is our difficulty; and England's sorrows have always been, and always will be, our sorrows. I have seen it stated that the Germans thought they had hit on an opportune moment, owing to our domestic difficulties, to make their bullying demand against our country. They little understood for what we were fighting. We were not fighting to get away from England; we were fighting to stay with England, and the Power that attempted to lay a hand upon England, whatever might be our domestic quarrels, would at once bring us together—as it has brought us together—as one man."

In order to avoid controversy at such a time, Carson declared he would say nothing about their opponents. He insisted that, however unworthily the Government might act in a great national emergency, Ulstermen must distinguish between the Prime Minister as a party leader and the Prime Minister as the representative of the whole nation. Their duty was to "think not of him or his party, but of our country," and they must show that "we do not seek to purchase terms by selling our patriotism." He then referred to the pride they all felt in the U.V.F.; how he had "watched them grow from infancy," through self-sacrificing toil to their present high efficiency, with the purpose of "allowing us to be put into no degraded position in the United Kingdom." But under the altered conditions their duty was clear:

"Our country and our Empire are in danger. And under these circumstances, knowing that the very basis of our political faith is our belief in the greatness of the United Kingdom and of the Empire, I say to our Volunteers without hesitation, go and help to save your country. Go and win honour for Ulster and for Ireland. To every man that goes, or has gone, and not to them only, but to every Irishman, you and I say, from the bottom of our hearts, 'God bless you and bring you home safe and victorious.'"

The arrangements with the War Office for forming a Division from the Ulster Volunteers were then explained, which would enable the men "to go as old comrades accustomed to do their military training together." Carson touched lightly on fears that had been expressed lest political advantage should be taken by the Government or by the Nationalists of the conversion of the U.V.F. into a Division of the British Army, which would leave Ulster defenceless. "We are quite strong enough," he said, "to take care of ourselves, and so I say to men, so far as they have confidence and trust in me, that I advise them to go and do their duty to the country, and we will take care of politics hereafter." He concluded by moving a resolution, which was unanimously carried by the Council, urging "all Loyalists who owe allegiance to our cause" to join the Army at once if qualified for military service.

From beginning to end of this splendidly patriotic oration no allusion was made to the Nationalist attitude to the war. Few people in Ulster had any belief that the spots on the leopard were going to disappear, even when the Home Rule Bill had been placed on the Statute-book. The "difficulty" and the "opportunity" would continue in their old relations. People in Belfast, as elsewhere, did justice to the patriotic tone of Mr. Redmond's speech in the House of Commons on the 3rd of August, which made so deep an impression in England; but they believed him mistaken in attributing to "the democracy of Ireland" a complete change of sentiment towards England, and their scepticism was more than justified by subsequent events.

But they also scrutinised more carefully than Englishmen the precise words used by the Nationalist leader. Englishmen, both in the House of Commons and in the country, were carried off their feet in an ecstasy of joy and wonder at Mr. Redmond's confident offer of loyal help from Ireland to the Empire in the mighty world conflict. Ireland was to be "the one bright spot." Ulstermen, on the other hand, did not fail to observe that the offer was limited to service at home. "I say to the Government," said Mr. Redmond, "that they may to-morrow withdraw every one of their troops from Ireland. I say that the coast of Ireland will be defended from foreign invasion by her armed sons, and for this purpose armed Nationalist Catholics in the South will be only too glad to join arms with the armed Protestant Ulstermen in the North."

These sentences were rapturously applauded in the House of Commons. When they were read in Ulster the shrewd men of the North asked what danger threatened the "coast of Ireland"; and whether, supposing there were a danger, the British Navy would not be a surer defence than the "armed sons" of Ireland whether from South or North. It was not on the coast of Ireland but the coast of Flanders that men were needed, and it was thither that the "armed Protestant Ulstermen" were preparing to go in thousands. They would not be behind the Catholics of the South in the spirit of comradeship invoked by Mr. Redmond if they were to stand shoulder to shoulder under the fire of Prussian batteries; but they could not wax enthusiastic over the suggestion that, while they went to France, Mr. Redmond's Nationalist Volunteers should be trained and armed by the Government to defend the Irish coast—and possibly, later, to impose their will upon Ulster.

The organisation and the training of the Ulster Division forms no part of the present narrative, but it must be stated that after Carson's speech on the 3rd of September, recruiting went on uninterruptedly and rapidly, and the whole energies of the local leaders and of the rank and file were thrown into the work of preparation. Captain James Craig, promoted to be Lieutenant-Colonel, was appointed Q.M.G. of the Division; but the arduous duties of this post, in which he tried to do the work of half a dozen men, brought about a complete breakdown of health some months later, with the result that, to his deep disappointment, he was forbidden to go with the Division to France. No one displayed a finer spirit than his brother, Mr. Charles Craig, M.P. for South Antrim. He had never done any soldiering, as his brother had in South Africa, and he was over military age in 1914; but he did not allow either his age, his military inexperience, or his membership of the House of Commons to serve as excuse for separating himself from the men with whom he had learnt the elements of drill in the U.V.F. He obtained a commission as Captain in the Ulster Division, and went with it to France, where he was wounded and taken prisoner in the great engagement at Thiepval in the battle of the Somme, and had to endure all the rigours of captivity in Germany till the end of the war. There was afterwards not a little pungent comment among his friends on the fact that, when honours were descending in showers on the heads of the just and the unjust alike, a full share of which reached members of Parliament, sometimes for no very conspicuous merit, no recognition of any kind was awarded to this gallant Ulster officer, who had set so fine an example and unostentatiously done so much more than his duty.

The Government's act of treachery in regard to "controversial business" was consummated on the 18th of September, when the Home Rule Bill received the Royal Assent. On the 15th Mr. Asquith put forward his defence in the House of Commons. In a sentence of mellifluous optimism that was to be woefully falsified in a not-distant future, he declared his confidence that the action his Ministry was taking would bring "for the first time for a hundred years Irish opinion, Irish sentiment, Irish loyalty, flowing with a strong and a continuous and ever-increasing stream into the great reservoir of Imperial resources and Imperial unity." He acknowledged, however, that the Government had pledged itself not to put the Home Rule Bill on the Statute-book until the Amending Bill had been disposed of. That promise was not now to be kept; instead he gave another, which, when the time came, was equally violated, namely, to introduce the Amending Bill "in the next session of Parliament, before the Irish Government Bill can possibly come into operation." Meantime, there was to be a Suspensory Bill to provide that the Home Rule Bill should remain in abeyance till the end of the war, and he gave an assurance "which would be in spirit and in substance completely fulfilled, that the Home Rule Bill will not and cannot come into operation until Parliament has had the fullest opportunity, by an Amending Bill, of altering, modifying, or qualifying its provisions in such a way as to secure the general consent both of Ireland and of the United Kingdom." The Prime Minister, further, paid a tribute to "the patriotic and public spirit which had been shown by the Ulster Volunteers," whose conduct has made "the employment of force, any kind of force, for what you call the coercion of Ulster, an absolutely unthinkable thing."