The declared purpose of the Ulster Unionist Council was to form a union of all local Unionist Associations in Ulster; to keep the latter in constant touch with their parliamentary representatives; and “to be the medium of expressing Ulster Unionist opinion as current events may from time to time require.”  It consisted at first of not more than 200 members, of whom 100 represented local Associations, and 50 represented the Orange Lodges, the remaining 50 being made up of Ulster members of both Houses of Parliament and of certain “distinguished residents in or natives of Ulster” to be co-opted by the Council.  As time went on the Council was considerably enlarged, and its representative character improved.  In 1911 the elected membership was raised to 370, and included representatives of local Associations, Orange Lodges, Unionist Clubs, and the Derry Apprentice Boys.  In 1918 representatives of the Women’s Associations were added, and the total elected membership was increased to 432.  The delegates elected by the various constituent bodies were in the fullest sense representative men; they were drawn from all classes of the population; and, by the regularity with which they attended meetings of the Council whenever business of any importance was to be transacted, they made it the most effective political organisation in the United Kingdom.

A campaign of public meetings in England and Scotland conducted jointly by the Ulster Unionist Council and the Irish Unionist Alliance in 1908 led to a scheme of co-operation between the two bodies, the one representing Unionists in the North and the other those in the southern Provinces, which worked smoothly and effectively.  A joint Committee of the Unionist Associations of Ireland was therefore formed in the same year, the organisations represented on it being the two already named and the Ulster Loyalist Anti-Repeal Union.  The latter, which in earlier years had done excellent spade-work under the fostering zeal of Lord Ranfurly and Mr. William Robert Young, was before 1911 amalgamated with the Unionist Council, so that all rivalry and overlapping was thenceforward eliminated from the organisation of Unionism in Ulster.  The Council in the North and the Irish Unionist Alliance in Dublin worked in complete harmony both with each other and with the Union Defence League in London, whose operations were carried on under the direction of its founder, Mr. Walter Long.

The women of Ulster were scarcely less active than the men in the matter of organisation.  Although, of course, as yet unenfranchised, they took as a rule a keener interest in political matters—­meaning thereby the one absorbing question of the Union—­than their sex in other parts of the United Kingdom.  When critical times for the Union arrived there was, therefore, no apathy to be overcome by the Protestant women in Ulster.  Early in 1911 the “Ulster Women’s Unionist Council” was formed under the presidency of the Duchess of Abercorn, and very