From this point of view the Churchill meeting could only be regarded as a deliberate challenge and provocation to Ulster. It seemed probable that the First Lord of the Admiralty had been selected for the mission in preference to any other Minister precisely because he was Lord Randolph's son. All this bluster about "fight and be right" was traceable, so Liberal Ministers doubtless reasoned, to that unhappy speech of "Winston's father"; let Winston go over to the same place and explain his father away. If he obtained a hearing in the Ulster Hall in the company of Redmond, Devlin, and Pirrie the legend of Ulster as an impregnable loyalist stronghold would be wiped out, and Randolph's rant could be made to appear a foolish joke in comparison with the more mature and discriminating wisdom of Winston. It cannot, of course, be definitely asserted that the situation was thus weighed deliberately by the Cabinet, or by Mr. Churchill himself. But, if it was not, they must have been deficient in foresight; for there can be no doubt, as several writers in the Press perceived, that the transaction would so have presented itself to the mind of the public; the psychological result would inure to the benefit of the Home Rulers. But there was also another consideration which could not be ignored by the Standing Committee--namely, the attitude of that important individual, the "man in the street." Among the innumerable misrepresentations levelled at the Ulster Movement none was more common than that it was confined to a handful of lords, landlords, and wealthy employers of labour; and, as a corollary, that all the trouble was caused by the perversity of a few individuals, of whom the most guilty was Sir Edward Carson. The truth was very different. Even at the zenith of his influence and popularity Sir Edward himself would have been instantly disowned by the Ulster democracy if he had given away anything fundamental to the Unionist cause. More than to anything else he owed his power to his pledge, never violated, that he would never commit his followers to any irretraceable step without the consent of the Council, in which they were fully represented on a democratic basis. At the particular crisis now reached popular feeling could not be safely disregarded, and it was clearly understood by the Standing Committee that public excitement over the coming visit of Mr. Churchill was only being kept within bounds by the belief of the public that their leaders would not "let them down."