In the Right Hon. Thomas Sinclair, who died last Saturday
in his seventy-sixth year, Ulster Unionism has lost one of its ablest and most respected champions. A man of considerable academic distinction, a great Presbyterian, and a leader of the Ulster Liberal Party as far back as 1868, he found himself unable to follow Mr. Gladstone in 1886, and never faltered in his advocacy of the Unionist cause. lie was among the first to sign the Covenant in 1912, and, after Sir Edward Carson, no other leader exerted greater influence or inspired more confi- dence. This was doe not only to his high position as a business man—he was twice President of the Belfast Chamber of Commerce—but to his moderation, his patriotism, and his high character. He sat on Sir Horace Plunkett's Remise Com- mittee along with Mr. Redmond, and the Manchester Guardian, a Home Rule paper, pays him the well-earned tribute of admitting that "he eared for Ireland as a whole, and yet was a representative type of the Northern business man."
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