meeting at the Albert Hall in London on the 22nd of April, 1893, Dr.
Alexander, Bishop of Derry, poet, orator, and divine, declared in an
eloquent passage that was felt to be the exact expression of Ulster
conviction, that the people of Ulster, when exhorted to show confidence
in their southern fellow-countrymen, "could no more be confiding about
its liberty than a pure woman can be confiding about her honour."

Here was the irreconcilable division. The Nationalist talked of
centuries of "oppression," and demanded the dissolution of the Union in
the name of liberty. The Ulsterman, while far from denying the
misgovernment of former times, knew that it was the fruit of false ideas
which had passed away, and that the Ireland in which he lived enjoyed as
much liberty as any land on earth; and he feared the loss of the true
liberty he had gained if put back under a regime of Nationalist and
Utramontane domination. And so for more than thirty years the people of
Ulster for whom Bishop Alexander spoke made good his words. If in the
end compromise was forced upon them it was not because their standpoint
had changed, and it was only in circumstances which involved no
dishonour, and which preserved them from what they chiefly dreaded,
subjection to a Dublin Parliament inspired by clericalism and disloyalty
to the Empire.

The development which brought about the change from Ulster's resolute
stand for unimpaired union with Great Britain to her reluctant
acceptance of a separate local constitution for the predominantly
Protestant portion of the Province, presents a deeply interesting
illustration of the truth of a pregnant dictum of Maine's on the working
of democratic institutions.

"Democracies," he says, "are quite paralysed by the plea of nationality.