of Irish prosperity in the last twenty years as “almost a fairy tale,” which would be cut short by Home Rule.  On the 19th of the same month Mr. Birrell, the Chief Secretary for Ireland, in a speech at Ilfracombe, gave some scraps of meagre information in regard to the provisions that would be included in the coming Home Rule Bill; and on the 21st Mr. Redmond announced that the drafting of the Bill was almost completed, and that the measure would be “satisfactory to Nationalists both in principle and detail."[13]

So the autumn of 1911 wore through—­Ministers doling out snippets of information; members of Parliament and the Press urging them to give more.  The people of Ulster, on the other hand, were not worrying over details.  They did not require to be told that the principle would be “satisfactory to Nationalists,” for they knew that the Government had to “toe the line”; nor were they in doubt that what was satisfactory to Nationalists must be unsatisfactory to themselves.  What they were thinking about was not what the Bill would or would not contain, but the preparations they were making to resist its operation.

A day or two after Craigavon the leader spoke at a great meeting in Portrush, after receiving, at every important station he passed en route from Belfast, enthusiastic addresses expressing confidence in himself and approval of the Craigavon declaration; and in this speech he considerably amplified what he had said at Craigavon.  After explaining how the whole outlook had been changed by the Parliament Act, which cut them off from appeal to the sympathies of Englishmen, he pointed out to his hearers the only course now open to them, namely, that resolved upon at Craigavon.

“Some people,” he continued, “say that I am preaching disorder.  No, in the course I am advising I am preaching order, because I believe that, unless we are in a position ourselves to take over the government of those places we are able to control, the people of Ulster, if let loose without that organisation, and without that organised determination, might in a foolish moment find themselves in a condition of antagonism and grips with their foes which I believe even the present Government would lament.  And therefore I say that the course we recommend—­and it has been solemnly adopted by your four hundred representatives, after mature discussion in which every man understood what it was he was voting about—­is the only course that I know of that is possible under the circumstances of this Province which is consistent with the maintenance of law and order and the prevention of bloodshed.”

Superficially, these words may appear boldly paradoxical; but in fact they were prophetic, for the closest observers of the events of the next three years, familiar with Irish character and conditions, were in no doubt whatever that it was the disciplined organisation of the Ulster Unionists alone that prevented the outbreak of serious disorders in the North.  There was, on the contrary, a diminution even of ordinary crime, accompanied by a marked improvement in the general demeanour, and especially in the sobriety, of the people.