Sir Edward Carson and Lord Londonderry were both in London on the 24th of April.  At an early hour next morning a telegram was delivered to each of them, containing the single word “Lion.”  It was a code message signifying that the landing of the arms had been carried out without a hitch.  Before long special editions of the newspapers proclaimed the news to all the world, and as fresh details appeared in every successive issue during the day the public excitement grew in intensity.  Wherever two or three Unionists were gathered together exultation was the prevailing mood, and eagerness to send congratulations to friends in Ulster.

Soon after breakfast a visitor to Sir Edward Carson found a motor brougham standing at his door, and on being admitted was told that “Lord Roberts is with Sir Edward.”  The great little Field-Marshal, on learning the news, had lost not a moment in coming to offer his congratulations to the Ulster leader.  “Magnificent!” he exclaimed, on entering the room and holding out his hand, “magnificent! nothing could have been better done; it was a piece of organisation that any army in Europe might be proud of.”

But it was not to be expected that the Government and its supporters would relish the news.  The Radical Press, of course, rang all the changes of angry vituperation, especially those papers which had been prominent in ridiculing “Ulster bluff” and “King Carson’s wooden guns”; and they now speculated as to whether Carson could be “convicted of complicity” in what Mr. Asquith in the House of Commons described as “this grave and unprecedented outrage.”  Carson soon set that question at rest by quietly rising in his place in the House and saying that he took full responsibility for everything that had been done.  The Prime Minister, amid the frenzied cheers of his followers, assured the House that “His Majesty’s Government will take, without delay, appropriate steps to vindicate the authority of the law.”  For a short time there was some curiosity as to what the appropriate steps would be.  None, however, of any sort were taken; the Government contented itself with sending a few destroyers to patrol for a short time the coasts of Antrim and Down, where they were saluted by the Ulster Signalling Stations, and their officers hospitably entertained on shore by loyalist residents.

On the 28th of April a further debate on the Curragh Incident took place in the House of Commons, which was a curious example of the rapid changes of mood that characterise that Assembly.  Most of the speeches both from the front and back benches were, if possible, even more bitter, angry, and defiant than usual.  But at the close of one of the bitterest of them all Mr. Churchill read a typewritten passage that was recognised as a tiny olive-branch held out to Ulster.  Carson responded next day in a conciliatory tone, and the Prime Minister was thought to suggest a renewal of negotiations in private.  For some time nothing