o the Dublin
Correspondent of _The Times_, objected to the employment of troops for
this purpose; because--

"If the Belfast Unionists decided to resist the soldiers, bloodshed
and disorder on a large scale must have ensued. If, on the other
hand, they yielded to the _force majeure_ of British bayonets, and
Mr. Churchill was enabled to speak in the Ulster Hall, they would
still have carried their point; they would have proved to the
English people that Home Rule could only be thrust upon Ulster by
an overwhelming employment of military force. The Executive
preferred to depend on the services of a large police force. And
this meant that Mr. Churchill could not speak in the Ulster Hall;
for the Belfast democracy, though it might yield to soldiers, would
certainly offer a fierce resistance to the police. It seemed,
therefore, that the Government's only safe and prudent course was
to prevent Mr. Churchill from trying to speak in that Hall."[16]

The Government, in fact, had been completely out-manoeuvred. They had
given the Ulster Unionist Council an opportunity to show its own
constituents and the outside world that, where the occasion demanded
action, it could act with decision; and they had failed utterly to drive
a wedge between Ulster and the Unionist Party in England and in the
South of Ireland, as they hoped to do by goading Belfast into
illegality. On the other hand, they had aroused some misgiving in the
ranks of their own supporters. A political observer in London reported
that the incident had--

"Caused a feeling of considerable apprehension in Radical circles.
The pretence that Ulster does not mean to fight is now almost
abandoned even by the most fanatical Home Rulers."[17]

Unionist journals in Great Britain, almost without exception, applauded
the conduct of the Council, and proved by their comments that they
understood its motive, and sympathised with the feelings of Ulster. _The
Saturday Review_ expressed the general view when it wrote:

"With the indignation of the loyal Ulstermen at this proposal we
are in complete sympathy. Where there is a question of Home Rule,
the Ulster Hall is sacred ground, and to the Ulster mind and,
indeed, to the mind of any calm outsider, there is something both
impudent and impious in the proposal that this temple of Unionism
should be profaned by the son of a ma