r organisation, and indefatigable in
relieving "the chief" of all unnecessary work and worry. Mr. Bates had
all the threads of a complex network of organisation in his hands; he
kept in close touch with leading Unionists in every district; he always
knew what was going on in out-of-the-way corners, and where to turn for
the right man for any particular piece of work. Anyone whose duty it has
been to manage even a single political demonstration on a large scale
knows what numerous details have to be carefully foreseen and provided
for. In Ulster a succession of both outdoor and indoor demonstrations,
seldom if ever equalled in this country in magnitude and complexity of
arrangement, besides an amazing quantity of other miscellaneous work
inseparable from the conduct of a political movement in which crisis
followed crisis with bewildering rapidity, were managed year after year
from Mr. Bates's office in the Old Town Hall with a quiet,
unostentatious efficiency which only those could appreciate who saw the
machine at work and knew the master mechanic behind it. Of this
efficiency the September demonstrations in 1912 were a conspicuous
illustration.

Nor did the Loyalist women of Ulster lag an inch behind the men either
in organisation or in zeal for the Unionist cause, and their keenness at
every town visited in this September tour was exuberantly displayed.
Women had not yet been enfranchised, of course, and the Ulster women had
shown but little interest in the suffragette agitation which was raging
at this time in England; but they had organised themselves in defence of
the Union very effectively on parallel lines to the men, and if the
latter had needed any stimulus to their enthusiasm they would certainly
have got it from their mothers, sisters, and wives. The Marchioness of
Londonderry threw herself whole-heartedly into the movement. Having
always ably seconded her husband's many political and social activities,
she made no exception in regard to his devotion to Ulster. Lord
Londonderry, she was fond of saying, was an Ulsterman born and bred, and
she was an Ulsterwoman "by adoption and grace." Her energy was
inexhaustible, and her enthusiasm contagious; she used her influence and
her wonderful social gifts unsparingly in the Unionist cause.

A meeting of the Ulster Women's Unionist Council, of which the Dowager
Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava, widow of the great diplomat, was
president, was held on the 17th of Septem