s who had refused to obey
orders, including General Gough, were in effect patted on the back,
told they were splendid fellows, and that they would not be asked to
march against Ulster. It was the same thing over again in the case of
the _Fanny_ exploit, Sir Edward Carson unblushingly improving the
occasion by laying stress on the weakening of Great Britain's position
abroad that followed as a consequence of his own acts. The Irish Party
leaders, who had a few months before still persisted in describing the
Ulster preparations as "a masquerade" and "a sham," were now in a
state of funk and panic. They found the solid ground they thought they
had stood on rapidly slipping from under them. There was to be no
prosecution of the Ulster leaders, no proclamation of their
organisation, nothing to compel them to surrender the arms they had so
brazenly and illegally imported.

Why was not Carson arrested at this crisis, as he surely ought to have
been by any Government which respected its constitutional forms and
authority, not to speak of its dignity? Captain Wedgwood Benn having
in the Parliamentary Session of 1919 taunted Sir Edward Carson with
his threat that if Ulster was coerced he intended to break every law
that was possible, there followed this interchange:

Sir E. Carson: I agree that these words are perfectly correct.

A Labour Member: Anyone else would have been in prison.

Sir E. Carson: Why was I not put in prison?

Mr Devlin: Because I was against it.

Well may Mr Devlin take all the credit that is due to him for
preventing Sir Edward Carson's arrest, considering that he and his
Order had been mainly the cause of bringing Carson to the verge of
rebellion, but that gentleman himself seems to have a different
opinion about it if we are to put any credence in the following
extract from Colonel Repington's _Diary of the First World War_,
under date 19th November 1915:

"Had a talk with Carson about the Ulster business. He was very amusing
and outspoken. He told me how near we were to an explosion, that the
Government had determined to arrest the chief leaders; that he had
arranged to send the one word H.X. over the wire to Belfast and that
this was to be the signal for the seizure of the Customs throughout
Ulster. He called to see the King and told Stamfordham exactly what
was going to happen and the arrest of the leaders was promptly
stopped."

Note the scandalous implication here! What does it amount to? Th