Ulster's Stand For Union by Ronald John McNeill
page 96 of 394 (24%)
page 96 of 394 (24%)
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By England's act and deed.
"Believe, we dare not boast, Believe, we do not fear-- We stand to pay the cost In all that men hold dear. What answer from the North? One Law, One Land, One Throne. If England drive us forth We shall not fall alone!" The preparations for the Unionist leader's coming visit to Belfast had excited the keenest interest throughout England and Scotland. Coinciding as it did with the introduction of the Government's Bill, it was recognised to be the formal countersigning by the whole Unionist Party of Great Britain of Ulster's proclamation of her determination to resist her forcible degradation in constitutional status. The same note of mingled reproach and defiance which sounded in Kipling's verses was heard in the grave warning addressed by _The Times_ to the country in a leading article on the morning of the meeting: "Nobody of common judgment and common knowledge of political movements can honestly doubt the exceptional gravity of the occasion, and least of all can any such doubt be felt by any who know the men of Ulster. To make light of the deep-rooted convictions which fill the minds of those who will listen to Mr. Bonar Law to-day is a shallow and an idle affectation, or a token of levity and of ignorance. Enlightened Liberalism may smile at the beliefs and the passions of the Ulster Protestants, but it was those same beliefs and passions, in the forefathers of the men who |
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