FROM THE ARCHIVES:This sombre editorial commented on the Twelfth celebrations in the North amidst the heightened political and sectarian tensions raised by the 1912 Home Rule Bill and Ulster unionists' response to it. -
JOE JOYCE
YESTERDAY THE Twelfth of July celebrations were held throughout North-East Ulster. For the second time in the present year, Ulster has made one of those grim demonstrations which so impressively reflect the convictions and character of her people.
Yesterday vast numbers of these Northern Irishmen plodded through rain and mire to revive proud and sacred memories, and to renew allegiance to that fixed political faith which expresses itself in terse watch-words – “sabre cuts of Saxon speech.” We Southern Unionists understand the spirit of Ulster better than an Englishman or foreigner can understand it, yet even we are, in a sense, “outsiders.”
The cold resolution, the inflexible contempt of minds made up against any argument, are not a part of our own nature. It is not in us to live so vividly in the past, or to map the future with such arrogant confidence.
Of one thing, however, we are assured. We know the Ulster Protestant well enough to know that he means what he says, and will infallibly carry out the courses to which he has pledged himself.
We know that in these days of public insincerity, of promises easily made and broken, of “bluff” and counter “bluff,” the creed of Unionist Ulster is the one solid fact in the political situation. . . .
A fourth part of the people of Ireland – the most resolute and homogeneous part – is pledged to fling it [Home Rule] back in the Government’s teeth.
What will Mr. Asquith [prime minister] do? . . . Let us assume that Ulster is absolutely in the wrong, that her present attitude is equally stupid and brutal, that she ought to throw in her lot with the rest of Ireland, that she is bound to obey the laws of the Imperial Parliament.
When we have assumed all this, how is the actual situation altered; how is Mr. Asquith relieved of any particle of his difficulties, or any scintilla of his terrible responsibility to the Kingdom and the Empire?
A full quarter of the Irish nation, desperately in earnest, perfectly disciplined, and, no doubt, well armed is going to resist Home Rule to the death. In doing so it will have the sympathy of at least one-half of the English people.
The British Army, if brought against it, will be required to fire on its own flag – a flag which owes no small part of its glories to the gallantry of Ulster Unionists.
This means civil war, possibly revolution. Its consequences – military, political, and economic – can hardly be less frightful than those of an English war with one of the Great Powers of Europe.
That all this will happen if the Government tries to force Home Rule on Ulster is as certain as that yesterday was the twelfth of July.
For British statesmen, therefore, the situation is this: How, without any discussion of rights or wrongs, without any question of praise or blame, is this calamity to be averted?