The Ministry thus sat tight and defied its assailants, and the Opposition felt that their best chance lay in Ulster. Mr. Austen Chamberlain made it the chief theme of his speech at Shirley, Hants, on January 23, when he declared that Ulster, in the last resort, would save herself by her own right arm, and that England would follow her example. But within the Unionist party itself there was fresh trouble on fiscal reform. The Farmers' Tariff League appealed by advertisement to Unionist agriculturists, manufacturers, and those dependent on fixed incomes, to vote against supporters of the existing Unionist fiscal policy; Mr. Rowland Hunt, at the Horncastle branch of the Farmers' Union (Jan. 14), denounced the postponement of food duties (A. R., 1912, p. 267) as disastrous, and the existing tariff policy as "rotten." A 10 per cent. duty was too low for manufactured goods, and home food producers were left unprotected, although their contribution to rates and taxes was equivalent to a duty of 15 per cent. Mr. Hunt, of course, was an independent and irresponsible Unionist, but he did not stand alone. More responsible Unionists, too, were constrained by the Government programme to concede that something must be done to redress the alleged social grievances, and to propound an alternative and more moderate policy. Thus Mr. Long, speaking at the Holloway Empire (Jan. 17), after referring briefly to the threatening cloud of civil war, and promising that a Unionist Ministry would ask for power to make the Navy adequate, criticised the Chancellor of the Exchequer's statement in that hall (A. R., 1913, p. 247), pointing out that the number of separate freehold estates in St. Pancras was not ten, but 1,550. He went on to suggest that instead of the Chancellor's reform proposals, which would take some years to carry out and entail a horde of officials and much un-English Government interference, there should be (1) facility for continuity of tenure by industrial tenants in London and large towns under reasonable conditions, or else compensation for loss of tenancy; (2) reasonable compensation for tenants' improvements which increased the letting value; (3) protection or relief from unreasonable covenants restricting the development of property. The Unionists would give redress through a tribunal modelled on the Wreck Commissioners' Court, and a non-controversial Bill embodying these changes might be introduced in the coming session. This would redress the existing grievances in six or eight months, but, as with housing reform (A. R., 1912, p. 57) the Radicals were determined that the Unionist party should not have the credit of carrying a measure of social reform. [Other items of a Unionist "social programme" were understood to be in preparation.]