Moyne, goaded on I suppose by Lady Moyne, wrote a letter to the papers--perhaps I should say published a manifesto--urging the extreme importance of Babberly's demonstration. This was necessary because McNeice and O'Donovan, in _The Loyalist_, had lately adopted a sneering tone about demonstrations. And _The Loyalist_ was becoming an effective force in the guidance of Ulster opinion. Thanks to the exertions of Crossan, Malcolmson and some others the paper was very widely circulated and wherever it went it was read. Lady Moyne, I knew, disliked _The Loyalist_ and was uneasy about the tone of its articles. She felt it necessary to stimulate the popular taste for demonstrations, and wrote Moyne's manifesto for him. It was a very good manifesto, full of weighty words about the present crisis and the necessity of standing shoulder to shoulder against the iniquitous plot of the Government for the dismemberment of the Empire. Very much to my surprise, and I am sure to Lady Moyne's, _The Loyalist_ printed a strong article in support of the proposed demonstration. Nothing could have been more flattering than its reference to Babberly and Lord Moyne; nothing better calculated to insure the success of the performance than the way in which it urged all Unionists to attend it. "Assemble in your Thousands" was the phrase used four times over in the course of the article. There was only one sentence in it which could cause any one the slightest uneasiness. "Previous demonstrations," so the article concluded, "have served their purpose as expressions of our unalterable convictions. This one must do something more. _It must convince the world that we mean what we say._" That, of course, was nothing more than Babberly had proclaimed a dozen times in far more eloquent language. Nor was the fact that McNeice printed the last sentence in italics particularly startling. Babberly had emphasized the same statement with all the violence possible. But, so tense was the public mind at this time, everybody was vaguely anxious and excited. We felt that McNeice attached more meaning to the words than Babberly did. A member of the Cabinet happened to be speaking two days later at a large public meeting in Croydon. He was supposed to be explaining the advantages of the new Insurance Act to the mistresses and servants of the smaller middle-class households. There were, I believe, very few people with sufficient faith in his power of apology to go to hear him; but, of course, there were plenty of newspaper reporters. The Cabinet Minister addressed them, and, ignoring for the time the grievances of the British house-and-parlourmaid, he announced that the Government was going to stand no nonsense from Ulster.