The Red Hand of Ulster/Chapter 11

HE 12th of July, was, of course, indicated by nature itself as a day in every way suitable for a great Unionist demonstration. Babberly and Lady Moyne were not the people to neglect an opportunity. They organized a demonstration. Then somebody—I think it must have been McNeice in the pages of The Loyalist—suggested that the thing should be called a review and not a demonstration. Malcolmson took the idea up warmly and forced Babberly’s hand. English journalists of the Conservative kind—journalists of every kind swarmed over Belfast for a week beforehand—were delighted and trumpetted the thing as a review. Liberal journalists lost their tempers—the clever ones losing theirs most hopelessly—and abused the Orangemen in finely pointed paradoxical epigrams, which I dare say excited the admiration of sentimental Nationalists in Chelsea, but had not the smallest effect of any kind on the people of Belfast. They, just then, had no leisure time to spend in reading epigrams, and never at any time appreciated paradox. An English statesman of great ability announced to the world at large that a demonstration was one thing, and a review was quite a different thing. He went no further than to point out the fact that there was a distinction between the two things; but everybody understood that a demonstration was, in his opinion, quite harmless, whereas a review might end in getting somebody into trouble.

The Nationalist leaders—“those fellows” as McNeice called them—issued a kind of manifesto. It was a document which breathed the spirit of moderate constitutionalism, and spoke the words of grave, serious patriotism. It made a strong appeal to the people of Belfast not to injure the cause of liberty, law and order by rash and ill-considered action. It said that no Nationalist wanted to see Babberly and Lord Moyne put into prison; but that most Nationalists had been made to sleep on plank beds for utterances much less seditious than this advertisement of a review. O’Donovan and McNeice tore this manifesto to pieces with jubilant scorn in the next number of The Loyalist.

A Roman Catholic bishop issued a kind of pastoral to his flock urging them to remain at home on the 12th of July, and above all things not to attempt a counter demonstration in Belfast. It was a nice pastoral, very Christian in tone, but quite unnecessary. No sane Roman Catholic, unless he wanted a martyr’s crown, would have dreamed of demonstrating anywhere north of the Boyne on that particular day.

The newspapers were very interesting at this time, and I took in so many of them that I had not time to do anything except read them. I had not even time to read them all, but Marion used to go through the ones I could not read. With a view to writing an essay—to be published in calmer times—on “Different Points of View” we cut out and pasted into a book some of the finer phrases. We put them in parallel columns. “Truculent corner boys,” for instance, faced “Grim, silent warriors.” “Men in whom the spirit of the martial psalms still survives,” stood over against “Ruffians whose sole idea of religion is to curse the Pope.” “Sons of unconquerable colonists, men of our own race and blood,” was balanced by “hooligans with a taste for rioting so long as rioting can be indulged in with no danger to their own skins.” We were interrupted in this pleasant work by the arrival of a letter from Lady Moyne. She summoned me—invited would be quite the wrong word—to Castle Affey. I went, of course.

Babberly was there. He and Lady Moyne were shut up in the library along with Lady Moyne’s exhausted secretary. They were writing letters which she typed. I saw Moyne himself before I saw them.

“I’m afraid,” he said, “I’m very much afraid that some of our people are inclined to go too far. Malcolmson, for instance. I can’t understand Malcolmson. After all the man’s a gentleman.”

“But,” I said, “Malcolmson wants to fight. He always said so.”

“Quite so, quite so. We all said so. I’ve said so myself; but it was always on the distinct understanding”

“That it would never come to that. I’ve heard Babberly say so.”

“But—damn it all, Kilmore!—it doesn’t do to push things to these extremes. The whole business has been mismanaged. The people have got out of hand; and there’s Malcolmson, a man who’s dined at my table a score of times, actually egging them on. Now, what do you think we ought to do?”

“The Government is threatening you, I suppose?”

“It’s growling,” said Moyne. “Not that I care what the Government does to me. It can’t do much. But I do not want her ladyship mixed up in anything unpleasant. It won’t do, you know. People don’t like it. I don’t mind for myself, of course. But still it’s very unpleasant. Men I know keep writing to me. You know the sort of thing I mean.”

I did. The members of the English aristocracy still preserve a curious sentiment which they call “loyalty.” It is quite a different thing from the “loyalty” of Crossan, for instance, or McNeice. I fully understood that there were men in clubs in London who would look coldly at poor Moyne (men of such importance that their wives’ treatment of Lady Moyne would matter even to her) if he were discovered to be heading an actual rising of Ulster Protestants. I promised to do what I could to get Moyne out of his difficulty.

I found that Babberly and Lady Moyne had worked out a very feasible plan without any help from me.

“That fellow Malcolmson has rushed things,” said Babberly, “and there’s an abominable rag called The Loyalist—”

“By the way,” I said, “I hear that the Nationalists at their last meeting in Dublin joined in singing ‘God Save the King.’”

I wanted to hear what Babberly thought of this. I was disappointed. The fact did not seem to interest him.

“I don’t know who edits the thing,” he went on, still referring to The Loyalist.

“Conroy is behind it,” I said. “I happen to know that.”

“But surely,” said Lady Moyne, “Mr. Conroy cannot want to encourage violence. He has just as much to lose as any of us—more than most of us—by any kind of outbreak of the democracy.”

“Lady Moyne has suggested to Malcolmson,” said Babberly, “that he should agree to call this 12th of July business a March Past.”

“Is that any improvement on Review?” I asked.

“Of course,” said Lady Moyne, “the Government doesn’t want to be driven to take steps against us. There would be horrible rioting afterwards if they struck Moyne’s name off the Privy Council or did anything like that. It would be just as unpleasant for them as it would be for us, more so in fact.”

“Your idea,” I said, “is to give the Government a loophole of escape.”

“Malcolmson has agreed all right,” said Babberly, “and if only that wretched little paper—did you say Conroy was in it?”

“I’ll write to Mr. Conroy at once,” said Lady Moyne. “I’m sure his connection with a paper of that kind is simply a mistake.”

She turned to the table and began to write her letter. The secretary in a distant corner of the room was still typing out a long pronouncement which Babberly intended to forward to The Times. A minute or two later Lady Moyne turned to me with one of her brightest smiles.

“We want you to be with us on the 12th,” she said.

In England or Scotland a countess who gives an invitation for “the 12th” is understood to mean the 12th of August, and her guest must be ready to shoot grouse. In North-Eastern Ulster “the 12th” meant the 12th of July, and the party, in this case at all events, was likely to end in the shooting of policemen.

“At the Review?” I said, “I mean to say the March Past? But I never go to political meetings. I’m no good at all as a speaker.”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter about your speaking. We should love to hear you, of course. But if you’d really rather not—!”

I think Lady Moyne was relieved when I assured her that I really would rather not.

“But you’ll be on the platform,” she said. “We want you very much indeed.”

“I don’t see,” I said, “that I’ll be the least use to you.”

“The point is,” said Babberly, “that you’re a Liberal.”

“Oh, you mustn’t say that,” said Lady Moyne. “That’s only foolish gossip. I’m perfectly certain that Lord Kilmore never was—”

“Never,” I said. “But then I never was a Conservative either.”

“That’s just it,” said Lady Moyne. “Don’t you see?”

“The point is,” said Babberly, “that if you are on the platform it will be quite clear—I mean to say as it’s generally understood that you’re inclined to Liberalism—”

I began to understand a little. Last time I was at Castle Affey Lady Moyne made a great point of my associating myself with her party in opposing Home Rule. The fact that I was a Liberal (though not in any offensive sense of the word) gave weight to the opposition; and I might help to make the other Liberals (who were Liberals in the most offensive possible sense) take the threats of Babberly seriously. This time I was to sit on the platform side by side with Malcolmson and Cahoon, because, being a Liberal, or rather suspected of being inclined to Liberalism, my presence might induce the other Liberals, who were Liberals indeed, not to take Babberly’s remarks at their face value. That is the drawback to the kind of detached position which I occupy. I am liable to be used for such various purposes that I get confused. However, I ought, no doubt, to be very thankful that I am useful in any way.

“If you think, my dear Lady Moyne,” I said, “that my presence at the March Past will be of the slightest service to you—”

“It will,” she said. “It will, indeed, of the very greatest service, and Moyne will be delighted.”

I was thinking of Moyne when I made the promise. I do not mean to say that I should have undertaken to perch myself like a fool on a wooden platform in the middle of a mob simply out of friendship for Moyne. I would not have done it unless Lady Moyne had looked at me with a particular expression in her eyes, unless I had hoped that she would give my hand a little squeeze of intimate friendship when I was bidding her good night. Still I did think of Moyne too, and was quite genuinely pleased that I was able to help him out of a difficult position.

I found him later on roaming about among the cucumber frames in a desolate corner of the garden. A man who was digging potatoes directed me to that curious retreat.

“It’s all right, Moyne,” I said. “We’ve got the whole thing settled most satisfactorily. You needn’t be afraid of any disagreeable public scandal.”

“Thank God!” said Moyne, fervently. “How did you manage it?”

“I can’t take any credit for the arrangement,” I said. “Lady Moyne and Babberly had it all cut and dried before they consulted me at all.”

“What are they going to do?”

“Well, in the first place they’ve got Malcolmson and the rest of that lot to stop calling the thing a Review. It’s to be officially known for the future as a March Past.”

“Who is to march past what?” said Moyne.

“I forgot to ask that,” I said, “but I rather fancy the audience is to march past you.”

“I don’t see,” said Moyne, “that there’s much difference between calling it a March Past and calling it a Review. They’re both military terms; and what I object to is being associated with—”

“Lady Moyne seemed to think,” I said, “that it made all the difference in the world; and that the Government would grasp at the olive branch.”

“I suppose it will be all right,” said Moyne doubtfully.

“The next part of the plan,” I said, “is that I am to be on the platform.”

“You’ll rather hate that, won’t you, Kilmore?”

“I shall detest it.”

“And I don’t see what good it will do.”

“Nor do I; but Lady Moyne and Babberly both say that as I’m a Liberal—”

“Surely to God you’re not that!” said Moyne.

“No, I’m not. But I’m suspected of being inclined that way. Therefore my being on the platform will prove to the world that you’re not nearly so much of a Unionist as you’ve been trying to make out.”

“But I am,” said Moyne.

“I know that, of course; but Lady Moyne wants to persuade people that you’re not, just for the present, till this fuss about the Review wears off.”

“I suppose it will be all right,” said Moyne, again.

It was all right. An announcement was made in all the leading papers that no one had ever intended to hold a Review on the 12th of July, but that the Unionist leaders had expressed their unalterable determination to have a March Past. The Liberal papers said that this abandonment of the principal item on their programme showed more distinctly than ever that the Ulster Unionists were merely swaggering cowards who retreated before the firm front showed by the Government in face of their arrogant claims. The Unionist papers said that Belfast by insisting on the essential thing while displaying a magnanimous disregard for the accidental nomenclature, had demonstrated once and for ever the impossibility of passing the Home Rule Bill.

A few days later my name appeared amongst those of other gentlemen who intended to take seats on the platform in Belfast. The Unionist papers welcomed the entry into public life of a peer of my well-known intellectual powers and widely recognized moderation. The Liberal papers said that the emptiness of Ulster’s opposition to Home Rule might be gauged by the fact that it had welcomed the support of a dilettante lordling.