unced his intention of holding another
Unionist demonstration in Belfast. He did not mean any harm by this.
He intended nothing worse than another eloquent speech and expected
nothing more serious than the usual cheers. He regards demonstrations
very much as my nephew Godfrey does garden-parties. They are
troublesome functions, requiring a good deal of labour and care for
their successful accomplishment, but they are necessary. People expect
something of the kind from time to time; and--if I do not give
garden-parties, I should not, so Godfrey says, keep up my position in
the county. If Babberly did not, so to speak, give demonstrations he
would lose his position in the political world. Babberly's position
is, of course, vastly more important than mine.

Moyne, goaded on I suppose by Lady Moyne, wrote a letter to the
papers--perhaps I should say published a manifesto--urging the extreme
importance of Babberly's demonstration. This was necessary because
McNeice and O'Donovan, in _The Loyalist_, had lately adopted a
sneering tone about demonstrations. And _The Loyalist_ was becoming an
effective force in the guidance of Ulster opinion. Thanks to the
exertions of Crossan, Malcolmson and some others the paper was very
widely circulated and wherever it went it was read. Lady Moyne, I
knew, disliked _The Loyalist_ and was uneasy about the tone of its
articles. She felt it necessary to stimulate the popular taste for
demonstrations, and wrote Moyne's manifesto for him. It was a very
good manifesto, full of weighty words about the present crisis and the
necessity of standing shoulder to shoulder against the iniquitous plot
of the Government for the dismemberment of the Empire.

Very much to my surprise, and I am sure to Lady Moyne's, _The
Loyalist_ printed a strong article in support of the proposed
demonstration. Nothing could have been more flattering than its
reference to Babberly and Lord Moyne; nothing better calculated to
insure the success of the performance than the way in which it urged
all Unionists to attend it. "Assemble in your Thousands" was the
phrase used four times over in the course of the article. There was
only one sentence in it which could cause any one the slightest
uneasiness.

"Previous demonstrations," so the article concluded, "have served
their purpose as expressions of our unalterable convictions. This one
must do something more. _It must convince the world that we mean what
we say._"

That, o