self, the Loyalist
sanctuary, be preserved from the threatened desecration? It was the
property of the Corporation, and the Unionist political organisation had
no exclusive title to its use. The meeting could only be frustrated by
force in some form, or by a combination of force and stratagem. The
Standing Committee, all men of solid sense and judgment, several of whom
were Privy Councillors, were very fully alive to the objections to any
resort to force in such a matter. They valued freedom of speech as
highly as any Englishman, and they realised the odium that interference
with it might bring both on themselves and their cause; and the last
thing they desired at the present crisis was to alienate public sympathy
in Great Britain. The force of such considerations was felt strongly by
several members, indeed by all, of the Committee, and not least by Lord
Londonderry himself, whose counsel naturally carried great weight.
But, on the other hand, the danger of a passive attitude was also fully
recognised. It was perfectly well understood that one of the chief
desires of the Liberal Government and its followers at this time was to
make the world believe that Ulster's opposition to Home Rule had
declined in strength in recent years; that there really was a
considerable body of Protestant opinion in agreement with Lord Pirrie,
and prepared to support Home Rule on "Liberal," if not on avowedly
"Nationalist" principles, and that the policy for which Carson,
Londonderry, and the Unionist Council stood was a gigantic piece of
bluff which only required to be exposed to disappear in general
derision.
From this point of view the Churchill meeting could only be regarded as
a deliberate challenge and provocation to Ulster. It seemed probable
that the First Lord of the Admiralty had been selected for the mission
in preference to any other Minister precisely because he was Lord
Randolph's son. All this bluster about "fight and be right" was
traceable, so Liberal Ministers doubtless reasoned, to that unhappy
speech of "Winston's father"; let Winston go over to the same place and
explain his father away. If he obtained a hearing in the Ulster Hall in
the company of Redmond, Devlin, and Pirrie the legend of Ulster as an
impregnable loyalist stronghold would be wiped out, and Randolph's rant
could be made to appear a foolish joke in comparison with the more
mature and discriminating wisdom of Winston.
It cannot, of course, be definit
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