that quarter, his cards were
placed on the table.

On the 3rd of October Mr. Winston Churchill told his followers at Dundee
that the Government would introduce a Home Rule Bill next session "and
press it forward with all their strength," and he added the
characteristic injunction that "they must not take Sir Edward Carson too
seriously." But that advice did not prevent Mr. Herbert Samuel, another
member of the Cabinet, from putting in an appearance in Belfast four
days later, where he threw himself into a ludicrously unequal combat
with Carson, exerting himself to calm the fears of business men as to
the effect of Home Rule on their prosperity; while, in the same week,
Carson himself, at a great Unionist demonstration in Dublin, described
the growth of Irish prosperity in the last twenty years as "almost a
fairy tale," which would be cut short by Home Rule. On the 19th of the
same month Mr. Birrell, the Chief Secretary for Ireland, in a speech at
Ilfracombe, gave some scraps of meagre information in regard to the
provisions that would be included in the coming Home Rule Bill; and on
the 21st Mr. Redmond announced that the drafting of the Bill was almost
completed, and that the measure would be "satisfactory to Nationalists
both in principle and detail."[13]

So the autumn of 1911 wore through--Ministers doling out snippets of
information; members of Parliament and the Press urging them to give
more. The people of Ulster, on the other hand, were not worrying over
details. They did not require to be told that the principle would be
"satisfactory to Nationalists," for they knew that the Government had to
"toe the line"; nor were they in doubt that what was satisfactory to
Nationalists must be unsatisfactory to themselves. What they were
thinking about was not what the Bill would or would not contain, but the
preparations they were making to resist its operation.

A day or two after Craigavon the leader spoke at a great meeting in
Portrush, after receiving, at every important station he passed _en
route_ from Belfast, enthusiastic addresses expressing confidence in
himself and approval of the Craigavon declaration; and in this speech he
considerably amplified what he had said at Craigavon. After explaining
how the whole outlook had been changed by the Parliament Act, which cut
them off from appeal to the sympathies of Englishmen, he pointed out to
his hearers the only course now open to them, namely, that resolved upon
a