ULSTER READY TO FIGHT.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 958, 23 February 1911, Page 4

ULSTER READY TO FIGHT.

RIFLES TO RESIST HOME RULE. The London correspondent of the Auckland Herald writes to that paper as follows, under date 30th December, 1910 : One hardly knows how much weight to attach to the statements which are being made regarding the preparations ot the Ulster Unionists for civil war. I have already reported that the Ulster Unionists’ Council decided to purchase arms and organise, but the reliable Unionist papers have said so little about it that one hesitates to give any credence to the organ which arrested Crippen with great circumstance and detail exactly eight days before he was arrested.

However, here are the facts as stated by this paper’s correspondent :

“What I have discovered to-day, on behalf of the Express, should cause the glib English Radicals to shudder at the name of Home Rule.

“ Ulster is prepared to fight against Home Rule, if necessary, with loaded rifles. I make this statement after a careful inquiry, not among wild-cat political talkers but among the thoughtful leading men in the provinces—men of position and substance, business men with a stake in the country. I find that there is no doubt about the following grim steps that Ulster is ready to take if Home Rule is passed into law (1) Tenders for rifles have been asked for from German makers ; (2) preliminary promises of money to buy arms have been written down on a list, to the tune of thousands of pounds, by way of a beginning, with much more to come ; (3) a scheme of calling to arms under a commando system is ready to be put into operation. Under this system leading men are to control districts, and each commander of a district is to be able to call on a given number of armed men to be mobilised rapidly at certain streets ; (4) Ulster will not pay the taxes when they are levied by the Parliament of Redmond, Dillon, Devlin and Co., in their contemplated home at College Green, Dublin. “ Here, in all this inquiry, 1 am treading on extremely delicate ground, and I have promised to abstain from giving any details likely to indicate the strength of the movement to arm Ulster against what it believes would be a ruinous constitutional change. 1 ‘ There are men of peace in the movement, men who hate the idea of bloodshed, and who will do all in their power to avoid it, but they state that they cannot give up the liberty of prosperous, industrial, well-ordered Protestant Ulster to the Nationalist representatives of the poverty-stricken unindustrial portions of Ireland. “ The Rev. Dr. McDermott, exmoderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, says : —“ lam a man of peace, and I do not want to see fighting, but I am afraid civil war would break out all over this part of Ireland if Parliament gave Mr Redmond his Home Rule.

“ The Right Hon, T. Andrews, P. C., chairman of the County down railway, says : —‘ We shall never submit to having our families, our fortunes and our lives placed under the heel of secret societies, the boycotters, the moonlighters, and the cattlemaimers and drivers of the southern provinces. No, Ulster will never submit, and I doubt whether an officer could be found in the British Army to give the order to his men to fire on the loyalists of Ulster.’ “Here, finally, are the words of Colonel Robert Wallace, C. 8., commanding the South Down militia:—‘lt is absurd to think that when Home Rule is enacted we are going to ring a bell and command our men to shoot all the Papists. That is a sort of wild cat idea our Home Rule opponents discredit us with. There is no bluff about this arms business at all. If Home Rule is forced on us we must protect ourselves. We are the outpost of England. We are the English garrison in Ireland—we have kept up the English authority. If we are thrown over we must defend ourselves. Our men will be properly organised. Any Parliament that John Redmond would be able to accept would be a United Irish League, and we are not going to submit to the United Irish League Parliament.’ ”