self-sacrifice which deeply touched every member of the
Council, this consent was given. Carson had obtained leave for Lord
Farnham to return from the Army in France to be present at the meeting.
Lord Farnham, as a delegate from Cavan, made a speech at the adjourned
meeting on the 12th which filled his hearers with admiration. That he
was almost heart-broken by the turn events had taken he made no attempt
to conceal; and his distress was shared by those who heard his moving
words. But he showed that he possessed the instinct of statesmanship
which compelled him to recognise, in spite of the powerful pull of
sentiment and self-interest in the opposite direction, that the course
recommended by Carson was the path of wisdom. With breaking voice he
thanked the latter "for the clearness, and the fairness, and the
manliness with which he has put the deplorable situation that has arisen
before us, and for his manly advice as leader "; and he then read a
resolution that had been passed earlier in the day by the delegates of
the three counties, which, after recording a protest against any
settlement excluding them from Ulster, expressed sorrowful acquiescence,
on grounds of the larger patriotism, in whatever decision might be come
to in the matter by their colleagues from the six counties.

It was the saddest hour the Ulster Unionist Council ever spent. Men not
prone to emotion shed tears. It was the most poignant ordeal the Ulster
leader ever passed through. But it was just one of those occasions when
far-seeing statesmanship demands the ruthless silencing of promptings
that spring from emotion. Many of those who on that terrible 12th of
June were most torn by doubt as to the necessity for the decision
arrived at, realised before long that their leader had never been guided
by surer insight than in the counsel he gave them that day.

The Resolution adopted by the Council was a lengthy one. After reciting
the unaltered attachment of Ulster to the Union, it placed on record the
appeal that had been made by the Government on patriotic grounds for a
settlement of the Irish difficulty, which the Council did not think it
right at such a time of national emergency to resist; but it was careful
to reserve, in case the negotiations should break down from any other
cause, complete freedom to revert to "opposition to the whole policy of
Home Rule for Ireland."

Meantime the Nationalist leaders had been submitting Mr. Lloyd George's
prop