h in the
spirit of comradeship invoked by Mr. Redmond if they were to stand
shoulder to shoulder under the fire of Prussian batteries; but they
could not wax enthusiastic over the suggestion that, while they went to
France, Mr. Redmond's Nationalist Volunteers should be trained and armed
by the Government to defend the Irish coast--and possibly, later, to
impose their will upon Ulster.

The organisation and the training of the Ulster Division forms no part
of the present narrative, but it must be stated that after Carson's
speech on the 3rd of September, recruiting went on uninterruptedly and
rapidly, and the whole energies of the local leaders and of the rank and
file were thrown into the work of preparation. Captain James Craig,
promoted to be Lieutenant-Colonel, was appointed Q.M.G. of the Division;
but the arduous duties of this post, in which he tried to do the work of
half a dozen men, brought about a complete breakdown of health some
months later, with the result that, to his deep disappointment, he was
forbidden to go with the Division to France. No one displayed a finer
spirit than his brother, Mr. Charles Craig, M.P. for South Antrim. He
had never done any soldiering, as his brother had in South Africa, and
he was over military age in 1914; but he did not allow either his age,
his military inexperience, or his membership of the House of Commons to
serve as excuse for separating himself from the men with whom he had
learnt the elements of drill in the U.V.F. He obtained a commission as
Captain in the Ulster Division, and went with it to France, where he was
wounded and taken prisoner in the great engagement at Thiepval in the
battle of the Somme, and had to endure all the rigours of captivity in
Germany till the end of the war. There was afterwards not a little
pungent comment among his friends on the fact that, when honours were
descending in showers on the heads of the just and the unjust alike, a
full share of which reached members of Parliament, sometimes for no very
conspicuous merit, no recognition of any kind was awarded to this
gallant Ulster officer, who had set so fine an example and
unostentatiously done so much more than his duty.

The Government's act of treachery in regard to "controversial business"
was consummated on the 18th of September, when the Home Rule Bill
received the Royal Assent. On the 15th Mr. Asquith put forward his
defence in the House of Commons. In a sentence of mellifluous opti