completely turning the tables on Ministers, whose design had been to compel the Belfast Unionists either to adopt, on the one hand, an attitude of apparent intolerance which would put them in the wrong in the eyes of the British public, or, on the other, to submit to the flagrant misrepresentation of their whole position which would be the outcome of a Nationalist meeting in the Ulster Hall presided over by the President of the illusory “Ulster Liberal Association,” and with Lord Randolph Churchill’s son as the protagonist of Home Rule.  The threat to stop the meeting forced the Government to consider how the First Lord of the Admiralty and his friends were to be protected and enabled to fulfil their programme.  The Irish Executive, according to the Dublin Correspondent of The Times, objected to the employment of troops for this purpose; because—­

“If the Belfast Unionists decided to resist the soldiers, bloodshed and disorder on a large scale must have ensued.  If, on the other hand, they yielded to the force majeure of British bayonets, and Mr. Churchill was enabled to speak in the Ulster Hall, they would still have carried their point; they would have proved to the English people that Home Rule could only be thrust upon Ulster by an overwhelming employment of military force.  The Executive preferred to depend on the services of a large police force.  And this meant that Mr. Churchill could not speak in the Ulster Hall; for the Belfast democracy, though it might yield to soldiers, would certainly offer a fierce resistance to the police.  It seemed, therefore, that the Government’s only safe and prudent course was to prevent Mr. Churchill from trying to speak in that Hall."[16]

The Government, in fact, had been completely out-manoeuvred.  They had given the Ulster Unionist Council an opportunity to show its own constituents and the outside world that, where the occasion demanded action, it could act with decision; and they had failed utterly to drive a wedge between Ulster and the Unionist Party in England and in the South of Ireland, as they hoped to do by goading Belfast into illegality.  On the other hand, they had aroused some misgiving in the ranks of their own supporters.  A political observer in London reported that the incident had—­

     “Caused a feeling of considerable apprehension in Radical circles. 
     The pretence that Ulster does not mean to fight is now almost
     abandoned even by the most fanatical Home Rulers."[17]

Unionist journals in Great Britain, almost without exception, applauded the conduct of the Council, and proved by their comments that they understood its motive, and sympathised with the feelings of Ulster. The Saturday Review expressed the general view when it wrote: