The Ulster Convention proved a complete success. The meeting on
Friday, in the great hall put up for the occasion in Belfast, near the Botanic Gardena, was attended by twenty thousand persons, of whom more than ten thousand were elected delegates representing the Unionists of all Ulster. Every variety of Protestant was present, and even Roman Catholics appeared upon the platform, where the Earl of Erne, the Grand Master of the Orange Association, sat side by side with the representatives of the Liberal Pro- testants who have fought against ascendancy. The Chair- man, the Duke of Abercorn, made an eloquent speech against Home-rule, as fatal to the future liberties and prosperity of Ulster, and was followed by Sir W. Q. Ewart, whose special point was the benefit the industry of Ulster had derived from the United Parliament ; by Mr. T. Sin- clair, ex-President of the Ulster Liberal Association, who declared that Ulster must and would " ignore " a Dublin Parliament ; by the Earl of Erne, who denied all wish for ascendancy, but dreaded clerical influence ; by the Rev. 0. McCutcheon, D.D., President of the Methodist College, who could not trust Protestant liberties to men with such intentions as the Nationalists have avowed ; by Mr. T. Andrews, mill-owner, who showed how Home-rule had alienated all Liberal Unionists in Ulster ; by Dr. Lynd, a representative Liberal Presbyterian, who declared that, Pro- testant or Catholic, the man who crossed the will of the Home-rule Vehmgericht, would be a marked man ; and by Dr. Kane, the Orange orator, who repudiated for Ulster any charge of bigotry, and only protested against a partition of the Kingdom which transferred one section of the population to the government of their natural enemies. There was no violence, but all present were struck with the determination and the religious tone of all who joined in the proceedings. The resolutions not to submit to a Dublin Parliament, which we published last week, were passed unanimously, and en- dorsed by monster meetings outside, said to have included two hundred thousand persons.
