“the Uncrowned King” of Ulster.  When critics condemn the Nationalists of the South for their alleged communications with Germany, let them not, in all fairness, forget Sir Edward Carson was the man who first showed the way.  To whom then—­if guilt there be—­does the greater guilt belong?  When the news of this audacious gun-running expedition was published, Ireland waited breathless to know what was going to happen.  Warships were posted on the Ulster coast, ostensibly to stop further gun-running, and the Prime Minister announced in the House of Commons that “in view of this grave and unprecedented outrage the Government would take appropriate steps without delay to vindicate the authority of the law.”

But in view of what The Westminster Gazette termed “the abject surrender to the Army” of the Government over the Curragh incident, when officers were declared to have refused to serve against Ulster, not much in the way of stern measures was to be expected now.  The Government on the occasion of the Curragh incident had declared:  “His Majesty’s Government must retain their right to use all the forces of the Crown in Ireland or elsewhere to maintain law and order and to support the civil power in the ordinary execution of its duty.  But they have no intention whatever of taking advantage of this right to crush political opposition to the policy or principles of the Home Rule Bill.”

As Mr Balfour was not slow in pointing out, this statement made “it impossible to coerce Ulster.”  The officers who had refused to obey orders, including General Gough, were in effect patted on the back, told they were splendid fellows, and that they would not be asked to march against Ulster.  It was the same thing over again in the case of the Fanny exploit, Sir Edward Carson unblushingly improving the occasion by laying stress on the weakening of Great Britain’s position abroad that followed as a consequence of his own acts.  The Irish Party leaders, who had a few months before still persisted in describing the Ulster preparations as “a masquerade” and “a sham,” were now in a state of funk and panic.  They found the solid ground they thought they had stood on rapidly slipping from under them.  There was to be no prosecution of the Ulster leaders, no proclamation of their organisation, nothing to compel them to surrender the arms they had so brazenly and illegally imported.

Why was not Carson arrested at this crisis, as he surely ought to have been by any Government which respected its constitutional forms and authority, not to speak of its dignity?  Captain Wedgwood Benn having in the Parliamentary Session of 1919 taunted Sir Edward Carson with his threat that if Ulster was coerced he intended to break every law that was possible, there followed this interchange: 

Sir E. Carson:  I agree that these words are perfectly correct.

A Labour Member:  Anyone else would have been in prison.

Sir E. Carson:  Why was I not put in prison?