the line," while the "boom" which they had erected by the Parliament Act
cut off Ulster from access to the British constituencies, unless that
boom could be burst as the boom across the Foyle was broken by the
_Mountjoy_ in 1689. The Unionist leader had warned the Ulstermen that
in these circumstances they must expect nothing from Parliament, but
must trust in themselves. They did not mistake his meaning, and they
were quite ready to take his advice.

Coming, as it did, two days before the introduction of the Government's
Bill, the Balmoral demonstration profoundly influenced opinion in the
country. The average Englishman, when his political party is in a
minority, damns the Government, shrugs his shoulders, and goes on his
way, not rejoicing indeed, but with apathetic resignation till the
pendulum swings again. He now awoke to the fact that the Ulstermen meant
business. He realised that a political crisis of the first magnitude was
visible on the horizon. The vague talk about "civil war" began to look
as if it might have something in it, and it was evident that the
provisions of the forthcoming Bill, about which there had been so much
eager anticipation, would be of quite secondary importance since neither
the Cabinet nor the House of Commons would have the last word.

Supporters of the Government in the Press could think of nothing better
to do in these circumstances than to pour out abuse, occasionally varied
by ridicule, on the Unionist leaders, of which Sir Edward Carson came in
for the most generous portion. He was by turns everything that was bad,
dangerous, and absurd, from Mephistopheles to a madman. "F.C.G."
summarised the Balmoral meeting pictorially in a _Westminster Gazette_
cartoon as a costermonger's donkey-cart in which Carson, Londonderry,
and Bonar Law, refreshed by "Orangeade," took "an Easter Jaunt in
Ulster," and other caricaturists used their pencils with less humour and