rnment neglected to do, and then, having
restored order, the small but mighty minority threw aside their arms
and went back to their work. They are before everything industrial.
Wars and rumours of wars they detest, as injurious to trade, as well
as to higher interests. But when they take off their coats they always
win. They put into their efforts, whether in war or peace, such a
strenuous determination, such an unwavering resolution to succeed,
that they become invincible. They have the confidence inspired by
invariable success. Their opponents have the flabbiness and the lack
of self-reliance resulting from seven hundred years of whining and
querulous complaint. If Mr. Gladstone were to offer complete
separation to-morrow the Irish leaders dare not take it. They know
what would happen if Ulster took the field. Spite of their boasting,
Dillon & Co. know full well that their vaunted numbers would avail
them naught.

The venerable William Arthur, a Nonconformist minister, says:--"We
will not be put under a Parliament in Dublin. The Imperial franchise
and all which that guarantees is our birthright. No man shall take it
from us. We will never sell it. If Englishmen and Scotchmen will not
let us live and die in the freedom we were born to, they will have to
come and kill us. On that ground stands the strongest party in
Ireland. For as sure as the Home Rule party is the larger, so surely
is the Unionist party the stronger. Ask any military man who has spent
a few years in the country. Settle the Irish question by putting the
stronger party under the weaker! You would only change a count of
heads into a trial of strength. Instead of the polling-booth, where
nothing counts but heads, you would set for the two parties another
trysting place. There brains count, education counts, purses count,
habits of hard work count, habits of command and habits of obedience
count, habits of success count, delight in overcoming difficulties
count, northern tenacity counts, and there are other things which I do
not mention that would count. Let not the two parties be summoned to
that trysting place!"

During my visit to Belfast I had exceptional opportunities of
ascertaining the probabilities of armed resistance to the authority of
a Dublin Parliament. I visited what might fairly be called the Ulster
War Department, and there saw regular preparation for an open
campaign, the arrangements being under the most able and expert
superintendenc