years later. He went on to say that
the Ulster people would submit to no ascendancy and "he could imagine
no lengths of resistance to which they might go in which he would not
be ready to support them" and in which they would not be supported by
the overwhelming majority of the British people.

In Parliament a few weeks later Mr Asquith described Mr Bonar Law's
speech as a declaration of war against Constitutional Government, but
the Ulstermen went on calmly making their preparations for levying war
and Sir Edward Carson and his friends coolly delivered speeches which
reeked of sedition and treason against the State. Sir Edward Carson
declared (27th July 1912): "We will shortly challenge the Government.
They shall us if they like it is treason. We are prepared to take the
consequences." And again he said (1st October 1912): "The
Attorney-General says that my doctrines and the course I am taking
lead to anarchy. Does he not think I know that?" And that fine
exemplar of constitutional law, Mr F.E. Smith (now Lord Chancellor of
England) said: "Supposing the Government gave such an order the
consequences can only be described in the words of Mr Bonar Law when
he said: 'If they did so it would not be a matter of argument but the
population of London would lynch you on the lamp-posts.'" Ulster
scarcely needed these incitements to encourage it in its definite
purpose of armed resistance to Home Rule. It began to organise and
discipline its army of Volunteers under able military leaders who
subsequently demonstrated their capacity in no uncertain fashion,
under the tests of actual warfare on many fields of battle. With the
knowledge we now possess it seems scarcely believable that Mr Redmond
and his friends should have professed to treat what was happening in
Ulster as "a gigantic game of bluff." They joked pleasantly over the
drilling of the Ulster Volunteers with "wooden guns," and they only
asked that the Government should "Let the police and soldiers stand
aside and make a ring and you will hear no more of the wooden gunmen."
Ribaldry and gibes of this sort in the face of open and avowed treason
was but a poor substitute for that firm statesmanship which should
have grappled with the Ulster difficulty in either of two ways--to
come to terms with it or, in the alternative, beat all unruly
opposition to the ground.

Mr Asquith is blamed because he did not put the law in operation
against Sir Edward Carson, proclaim his ille