THE late summer and autumn of 1921 came as a welcome and unexpected relief to the Loyalists in Southern Ireland an Indian summer before the black winter to follow. The national trait of hoping for the best, and that something good would surely turn up, smothered the small still warning voice of common-sense and bitter past experience, and they looked forward eagerly and hopefully to a life of peace and quietness. They argued, poor souls, that they could not possibly be worse off under any form of government than under the British Government SO tired and distrustful were all parties in Ireland of that same Government. And with the usual unreasonable sanguineness of their race, they fondly imagined that they VOL. COXII.-NO. MCCLXXXIV. would be allowed, under the new régime, to keep their demesnes, farms, businesses, or shops, as the case might be, and live happily ever afterwards. All quite foolish, of course; but at the same time it must be remembered that they had passed through a terrible two years, and it seemed to many that the devil they did not know could not by any stretch of imagination be worse than the devil they knew so well. The writer, even if he lives to be an old, old man, will never forget his feelings when he realised for certain that the British Government had decided to desert the Southern Loyalists, and to leave them to as cruel a fate as has ever befallen any race. For a fortnight after the Truce he was too dazed to Q think or act; but needs must when the old gentleman drives, and at the end of that time he began to take thought for the future. The more loyal a man had been in the past, the more certain his fate in the future, and the very near future at that. It is a most terrible feeling when a man suddenly realises that, from no fault of his own except loyalty, the bottom has fallen out of his life; that he must start life afresh in another land, and leave the country he has lived in and loved. But there are few truer sayings than that it is better to be a live donkey than a dead lion. At the beginning of the Truce the I.R.A. could not believe their good luck, and were strongly suspicious that the Truce was some diabolical trap of the British Government, which might catch them unawares any day. There is no doubt that in the early summer of 1921 the I.R.A. were on the verge of collapse, and a few more weeks or months of steady pressure on the part of the British Army and the I.R.A. were beaten to their knees. They would have handed in their arms, and the rebellion would have been over -at any rate for another hundred years. It is too dreadful to think of how many lives and millions of pounds' worth of property Lloyd George's fatal surrender has already cost Ireland. And the end is not yet by a long way. happened, but still the I.R.A. were not certain-the good old R.I.C. were still in the country, also an alarming number of British bayonets; also an ugly rumour that the Auxiliaries were recruiting large numbers of cadets, and for a twelve months' contract. But gradually they realised the truth, and the writer realised that it was time to get a move on. England was unthinkable, the Colonies a long, long way off, and in the end, like many others, he compromised and went north. The old saying that the wish is father to the thought can probably be applied with more truth to the Southern Irish than to any other race on the face of the earth, and their extraordinarily nimble minds assist them greatly in this art of self-deception. And If a Celt gets into trouble, entirely through his own fault, he will blame everybody and everything on God's earth as the cause of his trouble except the true cause-himself. so good is he at this game, from generations of steady and intelligent practice, that in the majority of cases he completely deludes himself, and ends by being firmly convinced that he is the most badly injured man in the parish. But at the same time no one else is deluded. When the far-seeing Ulstermen saw that Home Rule was assuming alarming proportions, they called on the Southern Loyalists to join hands and Days passed, and nothing fight Home Rule tooth and all the trouble therein. Why wouldn't they come in, and all would be well! Their common-sense and level-headedness (blarney) were just what were wanted in an All Irish Parliament to make an Utopia of the country-to make nail, pointing out to them that united they might possibly stand, but divided they would most surely fall. This was after the war, and, as usual, the Southerners procrastinated; pointed out that they lived on amicable and friendly terms with their Nationalist it the grandest country in neighbours; protested that the world, and incidentally The British Government then tried its best to force Ulster under a Dublin Parliament; but, finding what they were up against, compromised, and partition followed. The Southern Loyalists now realised that they were in the soup, and hunted high and low for some one to throw the blame on for the parlous state they were in, and their eyes fell on the Ulstermen. Nothing was now bad enough for the men of the Black North. They had deserted their comrades in the South. They had broken their oath to fight Home Rule to the death. They were the sole cause and reason of the division of the country and save the Southern Loyalists' bacon. The Ulstermen retorted that it was too late to save the men of the South, and that for Ulster to commit suicide by coming in under a Sinn Fein Parliament in Dublin could not by any stretch of imagination save or help the Loyalists of the South. From that time on the Southerner has blamed the Ulsterman for all his present woes and those which he realises are to come; and he knows, poor devil, that the coming ones will surely be the worst he has ever known, or have ever been known in this unhappy land. The Ulsterman was a bigot-the biggest in Ireland; a traitor-had he not deserted the South? a shopkeeper, who only thought of his own dirty pocket. The persecution the Roman Catholics in Ulster was a disgrace to any civilised land. And so on ad nauseam—the old story of blaming any one and anything except himself. And so it will ever be to the end of the tale. II. OUTLOOK IN THE NORTH. The outlook for the North of Ireland at the beginning of the winter of 1921 was about as black as it well could be; and whichever way the Ulsterman looked he could see nothing but trouble ahead, and yet more trouble. All Ulster asked was to be allowed to remain within the British Empire, and to be let alone to carry on her industries and work out her own salvation. One would have thought a fairly reasonable wish and one to be respected; but unfortunately it did not fit in with the policy of Sinn Fein. them had business connections with the South-said that it would be impossible for the North to stand out; that there could never be peace in Ireland as long as there was partition; that if there was not peace in the country soon all would be ruined; that the British Government was determined to force the North in under an All Ireland Parliament, and that it would be better to chance possible ruin under that Parliament than to face certain ruin by standing out. In fact, all the usual arguments which the weak produce when confronted by violence. So great was the tension in Ulster and 80 difficult the position of the Northern Gov- a ernment, that any sudden and unfortunate incident-as the shooting of a popular Orangeman or Roman Catholic-might have started civil war any day. The extreme party in the North were beginning to talk freely and openly of an Ulster Republic. They declared, and rightly, that they had been treacherously deserted by the British Government, and in their sudden and fierce anger would not stop to realise that the British Government and the English people are not always the same thing. No: they were through with the British, and would fight Sinn Fein to the last ditch and the last boy. The nervous members of the community-probably many of But luckily there is in Ulster great and strong party of as fine and upright men as can be found in the British Empire, or even in the world: men who, no matter which country they may go to, leave their mark on that country and are recognised as its most valuable citizens. These men-the backbone and heart of Ulster-combine the business capacity of the English with the grit and determination of their Scottish ancestors. True, they lack the showy charm of wit and vivid imagination of the Celt; but when it comes to the stern realities of life and the fight of a race for its very existence, there is no possible doubt which traits will carry a race through to victory. They calmed down the hot heads who were clamouring for an Ulster Republic, showed them the folly of alienating the sympathies of the great English nation (as distinct from their contemptible Government); pointed out that alone Ulster would most likely perish or become the slave of the Celt, but that as long as they remained united with their English cousins Ulster would stand, and stand as long as the British Empire remained in existence. They put courage into the faint-hearted, pointed out to them that they were playing into the hands of Sinn Fein, showed them that once their businesses were at the mercy of a Sinn Fein Government they would be crushed out of existence to pay the taxes and salaries of the sloths in the South, and made men of them in spite of themselves. Slowly but surely this party began to form and strengthen public opinion-a useful commodity in any country, which the British Government had effectively destroyed in the South some time ago, and had badly undermined in the North -in the right direction: to form a Government of the best men in Ulster, which would govern, and not give in to any and every man or party who threw a bomb or pointed an automatic at them. When the Northern Government first came into being, it was faced with as difficult a task as any Government has ever had to face. Given fair play and a clear field all would have been plain sailing, and in a very short time there is no doubt that Ulster would have been better, or at any rate as well, governed as any part of the Empire, in spite of the youthfulness of its Government. Unfortunately, not only had they to fight Sinn Fein without and within, but also to try and pull with the British Government, which, having once embarked on its suicidal policy of abject surrender to the gunmen, was bound to carry on this policy in the vain hope that by so doing it might avoid the crash which is in reality only a matter of time. For a considerable time the majority of the signs of weakness and irresolution for which the Ulster Government was blamed by its public were in reality the result of the paralysing control of the Imperial Government, anxious at any cost-in fact, forced-to pla cate its Sinn Fein allies. The Ulster Government, rightly anxious to appear at all costs to be in complete accord with the Imperial Government, took upon its shoulders, without a word of public complaint, the blame which should have been laid at the door of the Imperial Government. Most countries have had years in which to build up the various departments necessary to carry on the government of a country; Ulster had only days in which to carry out this difficult task. A good civil servant cannot |