d they
were quite ready to take his advice.

Coming, as it did, two days before the introduction of the Government's
Bill, the Balmoral demonstration profoundly influenced opinion in the
country. The average Englishman, when his political party is in a
minority, damns the Government, shrugs his shoulders, and goes on his
way, not rejoicing indeed, but with apathetic resignation till the
pendulum swings again. He now awoke to the fact that the Ulstermen meant
business. He realised that a political crisis of the first magnitude was
visible on the horizon. The vague talk about "civil war" began to look
as if it might have something in it, and it was evident that the
provisions of the forthcoming Bill, about which there had been so much
eager anticipation, would be of quite secondary importance since neither
the Cabinet nor the House of Commons would have the last word.

Supporters of the Government in the Press could think of nothing better
to do in these circumstances than to pour out abuse, occasionally varied
by ridicule, on the Unionist leaders, of which Sir Edward Carson came in
for the most generous portion. He was by turns everything that was bad,
dangerous, and absurd, from Mephistopheles to a madman. "F.C.G."
summarised the Balmoral meeting pictorially in a _Westminster Gazette_
cartoon as a costermonger's donkey-cart in which Carson, Londonderry,
and Bonar Law, refreshed by "Orangeade," took "an Easter Jaunt in
Ulster," and other caricaturists used their pencils with less humour and
more malice with the same object of belittling the demonstration with
ridicule. But ridicule is not so potent a weapon in England or in Ulster
as it is said to be in France. It did nothing to weaken the Ulster
cause; it even strengthened it in some ways. It was about this time that
hostile writers began to refer to "King Carson," and to represent him as
exercising regal sway over his "subjects" in Ulster. Those "subjects"
were delighted; they took it as a compliment to their leader's position
and power, and did not in the least resent the role assigned to
themselves.

On the other hand, they did resent very hotly the vulgar insolence often
levelled at their "Sir Edward." He himself was always quite indifferent
to it, sometimes even amused by it. On one occasion, when something
particularly outrageous had appeared with reference to him in some
Radical paper, he delighted a public meeting by solemnly reading the
passage, and when the