aroused, the Council could accept no responsibility for anything that
might occur during the visit. Mr. Churchill's prudent change of plan
relieved the extreme tension of the situation, and there was much
speculation as to what influence had produced a result so satisfactory
to the Ulster Unionist Council. The truth seems to be that the Council's
Resolution had impaled the Government on the horns of a very awkward
dilemma, completely turning the tables on Ministers, whose design had
been to compel the Belfast Unionists either to adopt, on the one hand,
an attitude of apparent intolerance which would put them in the wrong in
the eyes of the British public, or, on the other, to submit to the
flagrant misrepresentation of their whole position which would be the
outcome of a Nationalist meeting in the Ulster Hall presided over by the
President of the illusory "Ulster Liberal Association," and with Lord
Randolph Churchill's son as the protagonist of Home Rule. The threat to
stop the meeting forced the Government to consider how the First Lord of
the Admiralty and his friends were to be protected and enabled to fulfil
their programme. The Irish Executive, according to the Dublin
Correspondent of _The Times_, objected to the employment of troops for
this purpose; because--

"If the Belfast Unionists decided to resist the soldiers, bloodshed
and disorder on a large scale must have ensued. If, on the other
hand, they yielded to the _force majeure_ of British bayonets, and
Mr. Churchill was enabled to speak in the Ulster Hall, they would
still have carried their point; they would have proved to the
English people that Home Rule could only be thrust upon Ulster by
an overwhelming employment of military force. The Executive
preferred to depend on the services of a large police force. And
this meant that Mr. Churchill could not speak in the Ulster Hall;
for the Belfast democracy, though it might yield to soldiers, would