he as yet
knew little of Ulster, he admired her resolute stand for the Union, her
passionate loyalty to the Crown; he watched with disgust the way in
which her defences were being sapped by the Liberal Party in England;
and the thought that such a people were perhaps on the eve of being
driven into subjection to the men whose character he had had so much
opportunity to gauge in the days of the Land League filled him with
indignation.

If, therefore, he could be of service in helping to avert so great a
wrong Sir Edward Carson came to the conclusion that it would be shirking
a call of duty were he to decline the leadership that had been offered
him. Realising to the full all that it meant for himself--inevitable
sacrifice of income, of ease, of chances of promotion, a burden of
responsibility, a probability of danger--he gave his consent; and the
day he gave it--the 21st of February, 1910--should be marked for all
time as a red-letter day in the Ulster calendar.

FOOTNOTES:

[9] _Lord Randolph Churchill_, by the Right Hon. W.S. Churchill, vol.
ii, p. 62.

[10] _The Times_, June 16th, 1892.

[11] He expressed this conviction to the author in 1911.

CHAPTER IV

THE PARLIAMENT ACT: CRAIGAVON

A good many months were to elapse before the Unionist rank and file in
Ulster were brought into close personal touch with the new leader of the
Irish Unionist Parliamentary Party. The work to be done in 1910 lay
chiefly in London, where the constitutional struggle arising out of the
rejection of the "People's Budget" was raging. But shortly before the
General Election of December a demonstration was held in the Ulster Hall
in Belfast, in the hope of opening the eyes of the English and Scottish
electors to the danger of Home Rule. Mr. Walter Long was the principal
speaker, and Sir Edward Carson, in supporting the resolution, ended his
speech by quoting Lord Randolph Churchill's famous jingling phrase,
"Ulster will fight, and Ulster will be right."

On the 31st of January, 1911, when the elections were over, he went over
from London to preside at an important meeting of the Ulster Unionist
Council. The Annual Report of the Standing Committee, in welcoming his
succession to Mr. Long in the leadership, spoke of his requiring no
introduction to Ulstermen; and it is true that he had occasionally
spoken at meetings in Belfast, and that his recent speech in the Ulster
Hall had made an excellent impression. But he was not y