But while, naturally, resentment at the conduct of the Government found forcible expression, and the policy that would be pursued “after the war” was outlined, the keynote of the speeches at this Council Meeting, and also at the overwhelming demonstration addressed by Mr. Bonar Law in the Ulster Hall in the evening, was “country before party.”  As the Unionist leader truly said:  “This is not an anti-Home Rule meeting.  That can wait, and you are strong enough to let it wait with quiet confidence.”  But before passing to the great issues raised by the war, introduced by a telling allusion to the idea that Germany had calculated on Ulster being a thorn in England’s side, Mr. Bonar Law gave the message to Ulster which he had specially crossed the Channel to deliver in person.

He reminded the audience that hitherto the promise of support to Ulster by the Unionists of Great Britain, given long before at Blenheim, had been coupled with the condition that, if an appeal were made to the electorate, the Unionist Party would bow to the verdict of the country.  “But now,” he went on, “after the way in which advantage has been taken of your patriotism, I say to you, and I say it with the full authority of our party, we give the pledge without any condition.”

During the two days which he spent in Belfast Mr. Bonar Law, and other visitors from England, paid visits to the training camps at Newcastle and Ballykinler, where the 1st Brigade of the Ulster Division was undergoing training for the front.  Both now, and for some time to come, there was a good deal of unworthy political jealousy of the Division, which showed itself in a tendency to belittle the recruiting figures from Ulster, and in sneers in the Nationalist Press at the delay in sending to the front a body of troops whose friends had advertised their supposed efficiency before the war.  These troops were themselves fretting to get to France; and they believed, rightly or wrongly, that political intrigue was at work to keep them ingloriously at home, while other Divisions, lacking their preliminary training, were receiving preference in the supply of equipment.

One small circumstance, arising out of the conditions in which “Kitchener’s Army” had to be raised, afforded genuine enjoyment in Ulster.  Men were enlisting far more rapidly than the factories could provide arms, uniforms, and other equipment.  Rifles for teaching the recruits to drill and manoeuvre were a long way short of requirements.  It was a great joy to the Ulstermen when the War Office borrowed their much-ridiculed “dummy rifles” and “wooden guns,” and took them to English training camps for use by the “New Army.”

But this volume is not concerned with the conduct of the Great War, nor is it necessary to enter in detail into the controversy that arose as to the efforts of the rest of Ireland, in comparison with those of Ulster, to serve the Empire in the hour of need.  It will be sufficient to cite the testimony of two authorities, neither of whom can be suspected of bias on the side of Ulster.  The chronicler of the Annual Register records that: