consequence of these dissensions, Mr. Balfour resigned the leadership of
the Unionist Party. This event was regarded in Ulster as a calamity. Mr.
Balfour was the ablest and most zealous living defender of the Union,
and the great services he had rendered to the country during his
memorable Chief Secretaryship were not forgotten. Ulstermen, in whose
eyes the tariff question was of very subordinate importance, feared that
no one could be found to take command of the Unionist forces comparable
with the Achilles who, as they supposed, was now retiring to his tent.

What happened in regard to the vacant leadership is well known--how Mr.
Walter Long and Mr. Austen Chamberlain, after presenting themselves for
a day or two as rival candidates, patriotically agreed to stand aside
and give united support to Mr. Bonar Law in order to avoid a division in
the ranks of the party. It is less generally known that Mr. Bonar Law,
before consenting to his name being proposed, wrote and asked Sir Edward
Carson if he would accept the leadership, and that it was only when he
received an emphatic reply in the negative that he assumed the
responsibility himself. If this had been known at the time in Ulster
there can be little doubt that consternation would have been caused by
the refusal of their own leader to place himself at the head of the
whole Unionist Party. It is quite certain that Sir Edward Carson would
have been acceptable to the party meeting at the Carlton Club, for he
was then much better known to the party both in the House of Commons and
in the country than was Mr. Bonar Law, whose great qualities as
parliamentarian and statesman had not yet been revealed; but it is not
less certain that, if his first thought was to be of service to Ulster,
Carson acted wisely in maintaining a position of independence, in which
all his powers could continue to be concentrated on a single aim of
statecraft.