Irish question; Ulster (Northern Ireland and Ireland) -- Politics and government
It will be remembered that the original resolution by which the Council
decided to set up a Provisional Government limited its duration until
Ulster should "again resume unimpaired her citizenship in the United
Kingdom,"[48] and at a later date it was explicitly stated that it was
to act as trustee for the Imperial Parliament. All the forms prepared
for use while it remained in being purported to be issued in the name of
the King. And the Resolution adopted by the Unionist Council immediately
after constituting itself the Central Authority of the Provisional
Government, in which the reasons for that policy were recorded,
concluded with the statement that "we, for our part, in the course we
have determined to pursue, are inspired not alone by regard to the true
welfare of our own country, but by devotion to the interests of our
world-wide Empire and loyalty to our beloved King." If this was the
language of rebels, it struck a note that can never before have been
heard in a chorus of disaffection.
The demonstrations against the Government's policy which had been held
during the last eighteen months, of which some account has been given,
were so impressive that those which followed were inevitably less
remarkable by comparison. They were, too, necessarily to a large
extent, repetitions of what had gone before. There might be, and there
were, plenty of variations on the old theme, but there was no new theme
to introduce. Propaganda to the extent possible with the resources at
the disposal of the Ulster Unionist Council was carried on in the
British constituencies in 1913, the cost being defrayed chiefly through
generous subscriptions collected by the energy and influence of Mr.
Walter Long; but many were beginning to share the opinion of Mr. Charles
Craig, M.P., who scandalised the Radicals by saying at Antrim in March
that, while it was incumbent on Ulstermen to do their best to educate
the electorate, "he believed that, as an argument, ten thousand pounds
spent on rifles would be a thousand times stronger than the same amount
spent on meetings, speeches, and pamphlets."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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