tinted admiration and affection of every Irish Loyalist. Mr.
Balfour also soon showed that he was no sulking Achilles; his loyalty to
the Unionist cause was undimmed; he never for a moment acted, as a
meaner man might, as if his successor were a supplanter; and within the
next few months he many times rose from beside Mr. Bonar Law in the
House of Commons to deliver some of the best speeches he ever made on
the question of Irish Government, full of cogent and crushing criticism
of the Home Rule proposals of Mr. Asquith.

FOOTNOTES:

[13] _Annual Register_, 1911, p. 228.

CHAPTER VI

MR. CHURCHILL IN BELFAST

At the women's meeting at the Ulster Hall on the 18th of January,
1912,[14] Lord Londonderry took occasion to recall once more to the
memory of his audience the celebrated speech delivered by Lord Randolph
Churchill in the same building twenty-six years before. That clarion
was, indeed, in no danger of being forgotten; but there happened at that
particular moment to be a very special reason for Ulstermen to remember
it, and the incident which was present in Londonderry's mind--a
Resolution passed by the Standing Committee of the Ulster Unionist
Council two days earlier--proved to be so distinct a turning-point in
the history of Ulster's stand for the Union that it claims more than a
passing mention.

"Diligence and vigilance should be your watchword, so that the blow, if
it is coming, may not come upon you as a thief in the night, and may not
find you unready and taken by surprise." Such had been Lord Randolph's
warning. It was now learnt, with feelings in which disgust and
indignation were equally mingled, that Lord Randolph's son was bent on
coming to Belfast, not indeed as a thief in the night, but with
challenging audacity, to give his countenance, encouragement, and
support to the adherents of disloyalty whom Lord Randolph had told
Ulster to resist to the death. And not only was he coming to Belfast; he
was coming to the Ulster Hall--to the very building which his father's
oration had, as it were, consecrated to the Unionist cause, and which
had come to be regarded as almost a loyalist shrine.

It is no doubt difficult for those who are unfamiliar with the
psychology of the North of Ireland to understand the anger which this
projected visit of Mr. Winston Churchill aroused in Belfast. His change
of political allegiance from the party which his father had so
brilliantly served and led, to the pa