, had some knowledge of the Irish
temperament, realised from the first the absurdity of Mr. Asquith's
attempt to satisfy the demands of "the rebel party" by offering
something very different from what that party demanded. The Ulster
leader and the leader of the Unionist Party knew as well as anybody that
fiscal autonomy meant "virtual separation between Ireland and Great
Britain," but they also knew that separation was the ultimate aim of
Nationalist policy, and that there could be no finality in the Liberal
compromise; and they no doubt agreed with the forcible language used by
Mr. Balfour in the previous autumn, when he said that "the rotten hybrid
system of a Parliament with municipal duties and a national feeling
seemed to be the dream of political idiots."

The ferment of speculation as to the Government's intentions continued
during the early weeks of the Parliamentary session, which opened on the
14th of February, but all inquiries by members of the House of Commons
were met by variations on the theme "Wait and See." Unionists, however,
realised that it was not in Parliament, but outside, that the only
effective work could be done, in the hope of forcing a dissolution of
Parliament before the Bill could become law. A vigorous campaign was
conducted throughout the country, especially in Lancashire, and
arrangements were made for a monster demonstration in Belfast, which
should serve both as a counter-blast to the Churchill fiasco, and for
enabling English and Scottish Unionists to test for themselves the
temper of the Ulster resistance. In the belief that the Home Rule Bill
would be introduced before Easter, it was decided to hold this meeting
in the Recess, as Mr. Bonar Law had promised to speak, and a number of
English Members of Parliament wished to be present. At the last moment
the Government announced that the Bill would not be presented till the
11th of April, after Parliament reassembled, and its provisions were
therefore still unknown when the demonstration took place on the 9th in
the Show Ground of the Royal Agricultural Society at Balmoral, a suburb
of Belfast.

Feeling ran high as the date of the double event approached, and the
indignant sense of wrong that prevailed in Ulster was finely voiced in a
poem, entitled "Ulster 1912," written by Mr. Kipling for the occasion
which appeared in _The Morning Post_ on the day of the Balmoral
demonstration, of which the first and last stanzas were:

"The