At all events, the autumn produced more than the usual plethora of political meetings addressed by “front bench” politicians on both sides, each answering each like an antiphonal choir; scraps of olive-branch were timidly held out, only to be snatched back next day in panic lest someone had blundered in saying too much; while day by day a clamorous Liberal Press, to whom Ulster’s loyalty to King and Empire was an unforgivable offence, alternated between execration of Ulster wickedness and affected ridicule of Ulster bluff.  But it was evident that genuine misgiving was beginning to be felt in responsible Liberal quarters.  A Correspondent of The Manchester Guardian on the 25th of November made a proposal for special treatment of Ulster; on the 1st of December Mr. Massingham, in The Daily News, urged that an effort should be made to conciliate the northern Protestants; and on the 6th Mr. Asquith displayed a more conciliatory spirit than usual in a speech at Manchester.  A most active campaign of propaganda in England and Scotland was also carried on during the autumn by Ulster speakers, among whom women bore their full share.  The Ulster Women’s Unionist Association employed 93 voluntary workers, who visited over 90 constituencies in Great Britain, addressing 230 important meetings.  It was reckoned that not less than 100,000 electors heard the Ulster case from the lips of earnest Ulster women.

On the 5th of December two Royal Proclamations were issued by the Government, prohibiting the importation of arms and ammunition into Ireland.  But during the Christmas holidays the impression gained ground that the Government contemplated making concessions to Ulster, and communications in private between the Prime Minister and Sir Edward Carson did in fact take place at this time.  The truth, however, was that the Government were not their own masters, and, as Mr. Bonar Law bluntly declared at Bristol on the 15th of January, 1914, they were compelled by the Nationalists, on whom they depended for existence, to refuse any genuine concession.  In the same speech Mr. Bonar Law replied to the allegation that Ulster was crying out before she was hurt, by saying that the American colonies had done the same thing—­they had revolted on a question of principle while suffering was still distant, and for a cause that in itself was trivial in comparison with that of Ulster.[58]

Most of the leaders on both sides were speaking on various platforms in January.  On the 17th Carson, at an inspection of the East Belfast U.V.F., said he had lately visited Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, and that the dying statesman, clear-sighted and valiant as ever, had said to him at parting, “I would fight it out.”  In the same spirit Mr. Austen Chamberlain, in a speech at Skipton a fortnight later, ridiculed any concession that fell short of the exclusion of Ulster from the Irish Parliament, and asserted that what the policy of the Government amounted to was that England was to conquer a province and hold it down at the expense of her friends for the benefit of her enemies.[59]