TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE ULSTER CENTRAL ASSEMBLY. AMID the weariness and apathy which this endless Irish controversy induces in us all, and from which even the Irish Nationalists themselves are not free, Ulster comes again with the invigorating reminder that there is one community within the bounds of the United Kingdom to whose members Home-rule can never be a subject of weariness or apathy, to whom it is a question of unfailing and supreme importance,—a question that comes home to and touches them at every point of their existence, a menace to everything in life that they cling to and treasure. The Assembly which met in Belfast on Tues- day last is a political phenomenon of very great and serious import. It is without precedent, probably, in the annals of British history ; or, if there be a precedent, it is to be found—where no one will care to search for it—in the doings in America on the eve of the Revolutionary War. That the Protestants of Ulster—for, though there are Catholics both among the Unionists of the province and in the Assembly, the line of religious demarcation may be roughly taken as the line of political demarcation likewise—that this community, with its bitter and long- standing feuds between landlords and tenants, Churchmen and Presbyterians, Orangemen and Liberals, but bound together by a sentiment of common origin, common Puri- tanism in religion, and ultimate common interest in politics, should agree to sink all differences for the present, and solemnly and deliberately proceed to the election of an Assembly responsible only to its own constituency, to watch, and if necessary guard against, the proceedings of the Imperial Parliament, can hardly be a subject of un- mixed satisfaction, even to Unionists. It is a strange comment on the profoundly unifying and conciliatory character which the promoters of the Home-rule policy so persistently claim for it ; and it is with them that the responsibility must rest for the appearance of this in- formal " Parliament," as the newspapers persist in call- ing it, though the men at the head of the movement have endeavoured, we believe, and very wisely, to exclude this dangerous and suggestive name. These Ulster people had learnt in the course of the last half-century to trust the Parliament of the Union. They have seen that Parlia- ment in the last Session subject to the control of a Govern- ment which has been devoting all its energies to getting rid of their allegiance, which is determined to place them under a domination that they detest and dread. Their own everyday experience, the lessons of history, the thinly-veiled threats of those who, under the new system, would govern them, all alike teach them that such government would be fatal to their best interests ; and, on the other side, they have only optimistic expressions of confidence from Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Asquith, and others as unfamiliar as they with the facts of Irish life. Is it any wonder that the Unionists of Ulster have had their confidence in the Imperial Parliament shaken, and have felt the need of a representative body of their own to stand between it and them ? If the precedent is ominons, if it forms a dan- gerous example for every element with any distinctness of its own, geographical or otherwise, in the British nation, the fault is with those who, in their blind pursuit of Home- rule, have driven loyal subjects to such an experiment. The story of the formation of this Central Assembly well illustrates the profound difference in character between the forces that make for Home-rule in Ireland, and those that are against it,—between the superior strength in everything but numbers of the one side, its unanimity, tenacity, and calm perseverance, and the fitful enthu- siasm, internal divisions, and personal jealousies of the other. Tho race which inhabits the North-East of Ire- land possesses none of that genius for histrionic display, and none of that desire to draw attention to itself by incessant noise-making, which are the characteristics of the Celtic Irish, or more accurately perhaps, of the Irish- men of the Pale. The people of the North were rather slow to realise the dangers which threatened them from the near approach of Home-rule, and to convey their senti- ments on the matter to the electorate of Great Britain. Their rivals had a very long start of them ; but once Aroused, they have worked with an energy and steadiness that more than atones for previous neglect. They have organised three great demonstrations, each of which has had a visible effect on public opinion in England,—the Ulster convention of June, 1892, the Balfour demonstra- tion in Belfast in Easter week of the present year, and the great meeting in the Albert Hall soon afterwards, held in conjunction with the Unionists from the rest of Ireland.
During the months of silence since then, they have not been idle. Soon after the introduction of the Home-rule Bill into the House of Commons, a manifesto was issued, signed by some of the leading Unionists of the province, constituting an Ulster Defence Union as a preparatory stage to the Assembly which has just held its first meet- ing. With vast labour and extraordinary forethought and precaution, a scheme of election was drawn up and sue- cessfully carried out, the first step being the formation of a register of 170,000 men in a Protestant population of about 700,000. The elections were conducted with every formality, and with wonderfully little friction—in the vast majority of cases without any contest—individuals emulat- ing each other in the zeal with which they sacrificed per- sonal claims to the interests of peace and unanimity. The result is an Assembly of 600 members, containing represen- tatives of every class and creed, and faithfully reflecting the sentiments of the Unionists throughout the province. The same harmony which attended the conduct of the elections prevailed at the first meeting of the Assembly, when officers were chosen and a Council of forty appointed, which, with the Ulster Unionist Members of both Houses of Parliament, is to form a standing Committee to watch the progress of events, This Council is also to manage and administer the Guarantee Fund which is being raised, and which has already attained to large proportions, though it is only to be called on in the event of a Home- rule Bill becoming law. If the Home-rule bubble col- lapses, as we trust it speedily may, all this machinery will disappear and be forgotten ; in any other case, these pre parations will only serve to deepen the resolve of Ulster- men not to submit to the rule of the Irish majority, and may well become the means of hurrying them into a course of open resistance. It is hopeless, we suppose, to expect that the Glad- stonia,ns will read aright the lesson of this movement, or that any one who has not already realised it will now come to realise the cardinal fact of the Irish situation,—the existence of a second nation in Ireland numbering one- third of the population, including nearly all its education and industry, and far more determined not to accept Home-rule than the rest of the population is to demand it, The Ghtdstonians will continue to ignore the pro- test of Ulster, or to compare it to the last feeble utterance of the ascendency party on the eve of the disestablishment of the Irish Church ; as if there were the slightest analogy between the demonstrations and threats of a few noisy Orangemen, and the deliberate utterance of a whole people, including the Presbyterians who in 1869 were warmly in favour of Disestablishment. Through the Orangemen and their leaders, Ulster has in some quarters acquired a reputation for boastfulness and bluster,—a reputation which, as regards the great body of the people, is utterly without foundation. The present movement has been conducted under very different auspices. The Orangemen have been comparatively in the background, and the Presbyterian farmers and men of business who have made a province almost destitute of natural resources the richest in Ireland, have been in the front. The grim and silent determination of these Ulster Scots is something very different from bluster, and when they make a, protestation with the energy and enthusiasm with which they have been protesting any time within the last few years their determination to stand by the Legis- lative Union, it is wiser to attend to them. Let us trust that the electorate of Great Britain, or a sufficient portion of it, will attend to them in time. As for the thick-and-thin Gladstonians, they, we suppose, are past redemption. They will continue to believe that the people of -Ulster are not in_ earnest in their denunciation of Home-rule, and that they have only to view a Home-rule Parliament in practical work- ing to fall in love with it. There are none so blind as those who will not see, and none so deaf as those who will not hear.
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