The Balmoral demonstration had, however, one distinctive feature. At it
the Unionist Party of Great Britain met and grasped the hand of Ulster
Loyalism. It gave the leader and a large number of his followers an
opportunity to judge for themselves the strength and sincerity of
Ulster, and at the same time it served to show the Ulstermen the weight
of British opinion ready to back them. Mr. Bonar Law was accompanied to
Belfast by no less than seventy Members of Parliament, representing
English, Scottish, and Welsh constituencies, not a few of whom had
already attained, or afterwards rose to, political distinction. Among
them were Mr. Walter Long, Lord Hugh Cecil, Sir Robert Finlay, Lord
Charles Beresford, Lord Castlereagh, Mr. Amery, Mr. J.D. Baird, Sir
Arthur Griffith-Boscawen, Mr. Ian Malcolm, Lord Claud Hamilton, Mr. J.G.
Butcher, Mr. Ernest Pollock, Mr. George Cave, Mr. Felix Cassel, Mr.
Ormsby-Gore, Mr. Scott Dickson, Mr. W. Peel, Captain Gilmour, Mr. George
Lloyd, Mr. J.W. Hills, Mr. George Lane-Fox, Mr. Stuart-Wortley, Mr.
J.F.P. Rawlinson, Mr. H.J. Mackinder, and Mr. Herbert Nield.

The reception of the Unionist Leader at Larne on Easter Monday was
wonderful, even to those who knew what a Larne welcome to loyalist
leaders could be, and who recalled the scenes there during the historic
visits of Lord Randolph Churchill, Lord Salisbury, and Mr. Balfour. "If
this is how you treat your friends," said Mr. Bonar Law simply, in reply
to one of the innumerable addresses presented to him, "I am glad I am
not an enemy." Before reaching Belfast he had ample opportunity at every
stopping-place of his train to note the fervour of the populace. "Are
all these people landlords?" he asked (in humorous allusion to the
Liberal legend that Ulster Unionism was manufactured by a few
aristocratic landowners), as he saw every platform thronged with
enthusiastic crowds of men and women, the majority of whom were
evidently of the poorer classes. In Belfast the concourse of people was