won two signal victories, one in Cambridgeshire, and one in Cheshire, where the Altrincham Division sent a staunch friend of Ulster to Parliament in the person of Mr. George C. Hamilton, who in his maiden speech declared that he had won the contest entirely on the Ulster Question.  Even more significant, perhaps, were two elections which were fought while the interchange of party strokes over the Loreburn letter was in progress, and the results of both were declared on the 8th of November.  At Reading, where the Unionists retained the seat, the Liberal candidate was constrained by pressure of opinion in the constituency to promise support for a policy of “separate and generous treatment for Ulster.”  At Linlithgow, a Liberal stronghold, where no such promise was forthcoming, the Liberal majority, in spite of a large Nationalist vote, was reduced by 1,500 votes as compared with the General Election.  There were signs that Nonconformists, whose great leaders like Spurgeon and Dale had been hostile to Home Rule in Gladstone’s time, were again becoming uneasy about handing over the Ulster Presbyterians and Methodists to the Roman hierarchy.  A memorial against Home Rule, signed by 131,000 people, which had been presented to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in June, had no doubt had some effect on Nonconformist opinion in England, and it was just about the time when these elections took place that Carson was described at a large gathering of Nonconformists in London as “the best embodiment at this moment of the ancient spirit of Nonconformity."[53]

Meanwhile the people in Ulster were steadily maturing their plans.  The arrangements already mentioned for setting up a Provisional Government were confirmed and finally adopted by the Unionist Council in Belfast on the 24th of September, and the Council by resolution delegated its powers to the Standing Committee, while the Commission of Five was at the same time appointed to act as an Executive.  Carson, in accepting the chairmanship of the Central Authority, used the striking phrase, which precisely epitomised the situation, that “Ulster might be coerced into submission, but in that case would have to be governed as a conquered country.”  The Nationalist retort that the rest of Ireland was now being so treated, appeared forcible to those Englishmen only who could see no difference between controlling a disaffected population and chastising a loyal one.

At the same meeting of the Ulster Unionist Council on the 24th of September a guarantee fund was established for providing means to compensate members of the U.V.F. for any loss or disability they might suffer as a result of their service, and the widows and dependents of any who might lose their lives.  This was a matter that had caused Carson anxiety for some time.  He was extremely sensitive to the moral responsibility he would incur towards those who so eagerly followed his lead, in the event of their suffering loss of