We notice that the Irish Times professes some alarm on
the ground that " the official recognition of the Northern Volunteers, or of any large number of them, would complete the unhappy marshalling of Ireland into two armed camps. If the Northern forces are taken into the service of the Crown, the Republican armies will accept the challenge and the stage will be set for a tragedy of civil war." We cannot, however, Imagine that Ulstermen will cause more civil war than is thrust upon them. It was the Sinn Feiners who carried the war into Ulster. They pursued into peaceful Ulster the objects of their vengeance. That the result has been terrible and that unlawful reprisals and abominable acts have been committed on one side as on the other may be perfectly true. But the whole history of the Ulstermen shows them to be law-abiding, quiet and industrious people when left to themselves. When they are attacked they defend themselves like the wicked animal of the French saying, and sometimes they even do more, for feeling runs high and blood flows quickly in all parts of Ireland. But to say that Ulstermen who are armed for the special purpose of helping the police will use their arms to promote disorder—that is to say against the wishes of the Government, and therefore against the Crown— is an argument that springs from political prejudice and from nothing else. It is absolutely refuted by the history of loyal and prosperous Ulster.
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