Government either by the Imperial Parliament, or by ourselves."

Here, then, was the first authoritative declaration of a definite policy
to be pursued by Ulster in the circumstances then existing or foreseen,
and it was a policy that was followed with undeviating consistency under
Carson's leadership for the next nine years. To be left under the
government of the Imperial Parliament was the alternative to be
preferred, and was asserted to be an inalienable right; but, if all
their efforts to that end should be defeated, then "a government by
ourselves" was the only change that could be tolerated. Rather than
submit to the jurisdiction of a Nationalist legislature and
administration, they would themselves set up a Government "_in those
districts of which they had control_." It was because, when the first of
these alternatives had to be sorrowfully abandoned, the second was
offered in the Government of Ireland Act of 1920 that Ulster did not
actively oppose the passing of that statute.

FOOTNOTES:

[12] _Annual Register_, 1911, p. 175.




CHAPTER V

THE CRAIGAVON POLICY AND THE U.F.V.


No time was lost in giving practical shape to the policy outlined at