Unionists, on the other hand, whose danger had been fully recog- nized by Mr. O'Brien, failed to be won over by the inadequate safeguards provided for them in the bill. The Synod of the Church of Ireland, with only five dissentients, protested against it, and the protest was reechoed in a great meeting of Southern Unionists at Cork on April 20. In Ireland, at least, no one was convinced by Mr. Redmond's assertion, during the second reading debate, that the bill would be accepted by the Irish, in Ireland and out of it, as a final settlement.
The debate on the committee stage of the bill, which opened on June n, is mainly memorable owing to the fact that in it the question of the exclusion of Ulster was first definitely Question raised, the proposal being to exclude from the scope "ton." f ^e bill the four predominantly Protestant coun- ties of Antrim, Armagh, Down and Londonderry. The motion was defeated, Mr. Asquith asserting that it was impossible to split Ireland, for which he claimed " a fundamental unity of race, temperament and tradition," while Mr. Redmond said that Home Rule was put forward as a national demand and that the Irish nation must not be partitioned. There was, how- ever, little sign in Ireland of the correctness of Mr. Birrell's forecast th'at there would be no civil war and that the minority would accept the situation. The temper of the Protestant North was rapidly rising, and fortified by Mr. Bonar Law's declaration at the meeting at Blenheim on July 27 that he could imagine no length of resistance to which the Ulster people might go in which he would not be ready to support them the northern Protes- tants organized numerous demonstrations against Home Rule, culminating on " Ulster Day " (Sept. 28) in the signing at Belfast of the solemn Covenant pledging the signa- e tories to stand by one another in defending for them-
Coveaaat. se l ves an( l their children their cherished position of equal citizenship in the United Kingdom, and in using all means which might be found necessary to defeat the con- spiracy to set up a Home Rule Parliament in Ireland.
The impression made by this event was immense. The pro- ceedings were attended by a vast concourse of people, and a deep religious significance was given to them by the fact that in some 500 Protestant churches of various denominations special services were held on the same day, with appropriate hymns and lessons, and closing with the National Anthem. The impression made by it was not lessened when, on Nov. 22, it was announced that the Covenant had been signed by half a million people. Apart from a certain number of agrarian outrages, there were during this year ominous signs that the old religious antago- nisms, which had all but died down, were beginning t0 revive - ( - )n J une 2 9 members of the Ancient Order f Hibernians, armed with pikes, attacked a Belfast Presbyterian Sunday School procession consisting mainly of women and children, 1 and the Protestant shipyard workers of Belfast retaliated by an assault on their Catholic fellow-workmen. On Sept. 14 a serious political riot broke out on the Celtic football ground in Belfast, in which 100 people were injured.
While the Home Rule bill, twice thrown out by the House of Lords, was making its painful way through Parliament, the realities of the situation in Ireland itself were becoming more and more apparent. Mr. Birrell was right when he said in the House of Commons that " a new movement and a new spirit were springing up in Ireland a national movement, full of Irish sentiment." He went much too far, or not nearly far enough, when he described the Ulster opposition to this move- ment as " based on religious bigotry." It was based on the broad conviction that in any Irish National Parliament the religious and material interests of the Protestants and industrial North would be sacrificed to those of the Catholic and agricul- tural South. Their attitude was not modified by such " safe- guards " as Mr. Asquith and Mr. Redmond were prepared to
1 Twenty-three of the Hibernians were convicted at the winter assizes of riot and condemned by Mr. Justice Wright to three months' imprisonment with hard labour. After a few weeks in prison they were released by order of the Lord Lieutenant, Lord Aberdeen.
offer, e.g. disproportionate representation in the Irish Parliament, which they rejected as undemocratic and fallacious, since it would still leave them in the minority; and Mr. Asquith's refusal to meet their views they interpreted as a " declaration of war." During 1913, accordingly, the organization of resistance in Ulster proceeded apace, and by the autumn it was complete. On Sept. 25 the Ulster Unionist organizes. Council formally organized itself as a Provisional Government consisting of a central authority of 76 mem- bers, under the chairmanship of Sir Edward Carson; with committees for the volunteers, legal subjects, education and Customs, excise and posts; and on the following day Sir Edward Carson began a tour of inspection of the volunteers in various centres, the whole force estimated at 100,000 being under the supreme command of Gen. Sir George Richardson.
In making these warlike preparations the Ulster leaders were careful to insist that they were actuated solely by the determina- tion to maintain their traditional rights and liberties; they reaffirmed their complete loyalty to the Empire, and undertook to place the whole armed force of Ulster at its disposal in the event of its being attacked. But the arming of the North was bound to have an unfortunate repercussion in the. South. The Sinn Fein organ Irish Freedom, Jan. 1913, pointed out that war between England and Germany was practically inevit- able, and declared such a war to be " Ireland's oppor- sla &'" tunity"; and this was elaborated by Sir Roger armaay. Casement in an article on " Ireland, Germany and the next War," contributed to the July number of the same review. 2 On Jan. 23 the Sinn Fein National Council passed a resolution refusing to be content with anything short of inde- pendence, and affirming it to be the duty of all Irishmen to possess a knowledge of arms. 3 A vigorous anti-recruiting cam- paign was started, and every effort was made to pour contempt on the British army. " Rifles would hardly be needed, fly- paper would surely suffice to capture the greater part of the little ' Yorks ' and ' Berks,' " wrote a popular Nationalist paper. " By the way, we have pigs of these breeds in Tipperary already. Poor kiddies, poor little boy soldiers! How will they withstand the onrush of conquering German uhlans some day?" 4 Mean- while the arming of Ulster was hailed among Sinn Feiners as a practical step worthy of imitation.
On the initiative of a provisional committee, consisting of members of the Sinn Fein League, the Gaelic Athletic Associa- tion, the Gaelic League and the Irish Republican Th Brotherhood, a mass meeting was held on Nov. 25 in National the Rotunda Rink in Dublin, under the presidency of Voiun- Prof . John MacNeill of the National University, to in- augurate the National Volunteers. It was noted that the Ancient Order of Hibernians and the United Irish League, which were attached to Mr. Redmond's party, were not officially represented at the meeting, though many of their members were present. The Transport Workers' Union, on the other hand, sent a con- . tingent with bands. As the immediate result of the meeting 4,000 men were enrolled, and on the following day a committee was established for their drilling and organization. The object of the volunteers, as defined in the form of application for mem- bership, was " to secure and maintain the rights and liberties common to all the people of Ireland without distinction of class, creed or politics."
A new and more dangerous element was added to this welter by the strike of transport workers which began in Dublin in August. The conditions of life to which labour in Dublin was subjected were described in the report of rratt fP ort
.IT,,-, T*-. .. i Workers
the Local Government Board Commission on the strike.
strike as " the worst in Europe "; 5 and at first public sympathy was largely enlisted on the side of the strikers. But this sympathy was soon alienated by the violence of Larkin's
2 Under the pseudonym of " Shan Van Vocht."
3 Reported in the Gaelic American, New York, Feb. 8 1913.
4 Tipperary Star, Sept. 20 1913.
6 In Dublin 21,000 families were found to live in one-room tene- ments, of which 9,000 were occupied by four or more persons.
