These things being so, it seems to Ulster Unionists that a grave responsibility rests on their English and Scottish fellow-citizens, with regard to our position, should any constitutional changes be imposed upon our country.  We are in Ireland as their trustees, having had committed to us, through their and our forefathers, the development of the material resources of Ulster, the preservation of its loyalty, and the discharge of its share of Imperial obligations.

It cannot be denied, on an examination of the history of the last three centuries, and especially of that of the one hundred and ten years since the establishment of the Legislative Union, that, through good report and ill report, and allowing for all our shortcomings, we have not unsuccessfully fulfilled our trust.  Our forefathers found a province, the least favoured by nature of the four of which Ireland consists, and it is to-day the stronghold of Irish industry and commerce.  Its capital, Belfast, stands abreast of the leading manufacturing centres in Great Britain; it contains the foremost establishments in Europe, in respect of such undertakings as linen manufacturing, ship-building, rope-making, etc.  It is the fourth port in the United Kingdom in respect of revenue from Customs, its contributions thereto being L2,207,000 in 1910, as compared with L1,065,000 from the rest of Ireland.  Ulster’s loyalty to the British King and Constitution is unsurpassed anywhere in His Majesty’s dominions.

The North of Ireland has contributed to Imperial service some of its greatest ornaments.  England owes to Ulster Governors-General like Lord Dufferin and Lord Lawrence; soldiers like John Nicholson and Sir George White; administrators like Sir Henry Lawrence and Sir Robert Montgomery; great judges like Lord Cairns and Lord Macnaghten.  At the recent Delhi Durbar the King decorated three Ulster men, one of them being Sir John Jordan, British Ambassador at Pekin.  Ulster produced Sir Robert Hart, the incomparable Chinese administrator, who might also have been our Ambassador to China had he accepted the position.

The Ulster plantation is the only one which has fulfilled the purpose for which Irish plantations were made.  The famous colonisation on both sides of the Shannon by Cromwell entirely failed of its design, the great proportion of its families having, through inter-marriage, become absorbed in the surrounding population.

Ulster Unionists, therefore, having conspicuously succeeded in maintaining the trust committed to their forefathers, and constituting as they do a community intensely loyal to the British connection, believe that they present a case for the unimpaired maintenance of that connection which is impregnable on the grounds of racial sentiment, inherent justice, social well-being, and the continued security of the United Kingdom and of the Empire.  They cannot believe that their British fellow-citizens will, at this crisis, turn