ULSTER LIBERALS AND HOME RULE

New Zealand Tablet, 4 June 1914, Page 17

ULSTER LIBERALS AND HOME RULE

FAILURE OF THE CARSONITE CAMPAIGN. The resolution of the Ulster Liberal Association was (says the Liverpool Daily Post), carried unanimously at the annual meeting of the association in Ulster Minor Hall, Belfast, attended by nearly 200 delegates from all parts of the province, and held under circumstances analogous to those attending the antiwar meetings held in England towards the beginning of the century. v ‘ It is always “Mafeking Day” in Ulster as far as the public expression •of opinion is concerned/ said one of the officials, ‘ for practically every hall in the province is closed to us, and our views seldom reach the outside world.’ The use even of the Y.M.C.A. buildings is now denied to Liberals, and everywhere, except in Belfast, all meetings have to be held in the open air. In Belfast, strange to say, the only hall available is the sacred Ulster Hall, which was denied to Mr. Winston Churchill, and the reason that it is available is that it belongs .to the Corporation, and could not be refused to prominent and responsible citizens without giving a too flagrant proof of intolerance. The meeting itself was an eye-opener as regards its composition and its size, as well as for its fearless expression of unpopular views on the platform. In addition to the veteran Sir Hugh Mack were the managing director of Messrs. Harland and Wolff (Mr. J. W. Kempster), two of the largest linen manufacturers in Ulster, a partner in one of the biggest woollen factories, the principal of the biggest and. oldest firm of warehousemen, an eminent K.C. who represents the Crown in County Down, three of the leading solicitors in the city, one of the biggest retail drapers in the country districts, and several of the most prominent farmers of the province. The audience consisted of almost equally solid men, including wholesale 'and retail merchants, professional men, farmers, and a sprinkling even of Presbyterian ministers, whose connection with the association is totally unsuspected by their congregations. Quaker-like Determination. The speeches made strange hearing to a man from Lancashire, and there was something positively weird in the bare fact that the reporters’ tables were unused.* In the busy heart and centre of this land of civil and religious freedom, served hourly with the news of the world, not a word of the speeches and their spirited protests will be published in the local daily press/ As I expected from some previous experience of these men, not a single note of fear or whining was sounded ; but speaker after speaker calmly and unflinchingly claimed and exercised the elementary British right of free speech and public meeting with a non-militant, Quaker-like determination which I have never known before in any part of Ireland. ‘ Are we living under the aegis of the British Constitution, or are we not?’ Thus spoke the vdice of the Ulster Protestant minority, daily subjected, not, indeed, to physical violence as yet, but to contempt and suspicion and ostracism as well in the church as in the school life and the market place. These men, Presbyterians- all , are the very salt of the soil of Ulster, and, being numerically too weak to defend themselves, must be considered in any settlement of the Ulster problem. - Volunteer , Movement a Sham. v /■•• Their cry to-day was for The Bill, the "whole Bill, and nothing but the - Bill/ ' From a civil war point of view, they declared the Volunteer movement to be ‘ a sham and a mockery,’ but they are aware of the tyranny that can be and is being exercised by its means, and warned Sir Edward . Carson and his - colleagues that if life be lost the guilt of * blood will rest on their shoulders. In the meantime,, they look 'to

the Government to protect them from immediate danger, and for the future their ambition is to join hands with the Catholic Liberals of Ireland and to work with them for the peace and prosperity of their native land. It is a fact worth pondering over that the best element in Protestant Ulster should prefer the Papal chains of Mr. John Redmond to the sweet liberty of Sir Edward Carson. ■. Awaiting Home Rule. The presept Ulster Liberal Association has been in existence for only eight years, and was formed by the stalwart remnant of a great force that once sent eight Liberal representatives to the House of Commons. Since its heroic reformation it has gone from strength to strength and has increased in members, in financial resources, and in the activity of its propaganda. It has branches in many parts of the provinces, including three flourishing ones in Belfast itself.. Eighty per cent, of the young Presbyterians of the city, 1 am told, are Liberals, and they and others are only awaiting the passing of Home Rule and the breaking down of the Orange tyranny to declare themselves openly, and join the organisation. In the rural districts, too, the position is distinctly hopeful. The Carsonite campaign has failed to capture the farmers and the farm laborers of the province, and it is not without significance that a good half of the time of to-day’s meeting was devoted to the discussion of the grievances of the tenant farmers of Ulster, and that loud applause greeted a proposition that the farmers should collaborate with the laborers with a view of securing compulsory purchase on fairterms for the former and a living wage for the latter. Under the present system of purchase, declared one speaker pithily, the landlord walks away not only with the price of the farms, but also with the labourers’ wages. It sounded like an echo from Limehouse. A Queen’s Island Fire. Mr. Kempster, the managing director of' Messrs. Harland and Wolff, spoke out fearlessly against the present regime of terrorism in Belfast, and expressed the view that the Government were perfectly justified in moving troops to the North. He had been told, he said, that if Home Rule was passed the Queen’s Island works would be burnt down. Such an idea did not do much credit to the intelligence of the men who were dependent on the yards for their livelihood, but the threat showed the kind of feeling that they had to deal with.