had addressed on the 12th of July, crossed the Channel to lend a helping
hand, and spoke at five meetings on the tour. Others who took part--in
addition to local men like Mr. Thomas Sinclair and Mr. John Young, whose
high character always made their appearance on political platforms of
value to the cause they supported--were Lord Charles Beresford, Lord
Salisbury, Mr. James Campbell, Lord Hugh Cecil, Lord Willoughby de
Broke, and Mr. Harold Smith; while the Marquis of Hamilton and Lord
Castlereagh, by the part which they took in the programme, showed their
desire to carry on the traditions which identified the two leading
Ulster families with loyalist principles.

A single resolution, identical in the simplicity of its terms, was
carried without a dissenting voice at every one of these meetings: "We
hereby reaffirm the resolve of the great Ulster Convention of 1892: 'We
will not have Home Rule.'" These words became so familiar that the
laconic phrase "We won't have it," was on everybody's lips as the Alpha
and Omega of Ulster's attitude, and was sometimes heard with unexpected
abruptness in no very precise context. A ticket-collector, when clipping
the tickets of the party who were starting from Belfast in a saloon for
Enniskillen, made no remark and no sign of recognition till he reached
Carson, when he said almost in a whisper and without a glimmer of a
smile, as he took a clip out of the leader's ticket: "Tell the
station-master at Clones, Sir Edward, that we won't have it." He
doubtless knew that the political views of that misguided official were
of the wrong colour. A conversation overheard in the crowd at
Enniskillen before the speaking began was a curious example of the habit
so characteristic of Ulster--and indeed of other parts of Ireland
also--of thinking of

"Old, unhappy, far-off things, and battles long ago"