loyal subject of His Majesty. The purpose for which the licence was
requested was stated with literal exactness and without subterfuge.
There was nothing seditious or revolutionary in it, and the desire of
men to make themselves more efficient citizens for maintaining the
established government of their country, and their rights and liberties
under it, was surely not merely innocent of offence, but praiseworthy.

Such, at all events, was the view taken by numbers of strictly
conscientious holders of the Commission of the Peace throughout Ulster,
with the result that the Ulster Volunteer Force sprang into existence
within a few months without the smallest violation of the law.
Originating in the Orange Lodges and the Unionist Clubs, it soon
enrolled large numbers of men outside both those organisations. Men with
military experience interested themselves in training the volunteers in
their districts; the local bodies were before long drawn into a single
coherent organisation on a territorial basis, which soon gave rise to an
_esprit de corps_ leading to friendly rivalry in efficiency between the
local battalions.

This Ulster Volunteer Force had as yet no arms in their hands, but, as
the first act of the Liberal Government on coming into power in 1906 had
been to drop the "coercion" Act which prohibited the importation of
firearms into Ireland, there was no reason why, in the course of time,
the U.V.F. should not be fully armed with as complete an avoidance of
illegality as that with which in the meantime they were acquiring some
knowledge of military duties. But for the present they had to be content
with wooden "dummy" rifles with which to learn their drill, an expedient
which, as will be seen later on, excited the derisive mirth of the
English Radical Press.