23rd of September, the Ulster Unionist Council, the body
representing the whole loyalist community on an elective and thoroughly
democratic basis, held its annual meeting in the Ulster Hall, the chief
business being the ratification of the Covenant prior to its being
presented for general signature throughout the province on Ulster Day.
Upwards of five hundred delegates attended the meeting, and unanimously
approved the terms of the document recommended for their acceptance by
their Standing Committee. They then adopted, on the motion of Lord
Londonderry, the Resolution which, as already mentioned, had originally
formed part of the draft of the Covenant itself. This Resolution, as
well as the Covenant, was the subject of extensive comment in the
English and Scottish Press. Some opponents of Ulster directed against it
the flippant ridicule which appeared to be their only weapon against a
movement the gravity of which was admitted by Ministers of the Crown;
but, on the whole, the British Press acknowledged the important
enunciation of political principle which it contained. It placed on
record that:

"Inasmuch as we, the duly elected delegates and members of the
Ulster Unionist Council, representing all parts of Ulster, are
firmly persuaded that by no law can the right to govern those whom
we represent be bartered away without their consent; that although
the present Government, the services and sacrifices of our race
having been forgotten, may drive us forth from a Constitution which
we have ever loyally upheld, they may not deliver us bound into the
hands of our enemies; and that it is incompetent for any authority,
party, or people to appoint as our rulers a Government dominated by
men disloyal to the Empire and to whom our faith and traditions are
hateful; and inasmuch as we reverently believe that, as in times
past it was given our fathers to save themselves from a like
calamity, so now it may be ordered that our deliverance shall be by
our own hands, to which end it is needful that we be knit together
as one man, each strengthening the other, and none holding back or
counting the cost--therefore we, Loyalists of Ulster, ratify and
confirm the steps so far taken by the Special Commission this day
submitted and explained to us, and we reappoint the Commission to
carry on its work on our behalf as in the past.

"We ent