A LONELY LEADER SIR EDWARD CARSON A FIGURE IN THE ULSTER CRISIS

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 71, 25 March 1914, Page 10

A LONELY LEADER SIR EDWARD CARSON A FIGURE IN THE ULSTER CRISIS

To-day, on the eve of the Parliamentary session in which he is to play £0 great a part. Sir Edward Carson completes sixty years of his life (wrote R. Montague Smith in the Daily Mail on 9th February). To his comrades in Ulster a. beloved chieftain whose word is the law of a province : to his opponents a strange and sinister figure armed with the chill steel of incorruptible determination, lie is to all men a dominant personality ca across the House of Commons his shadow falls. To those who. like the writer, have had the opportunity of following tut. great campaigns in Ulster and have seen him revealed in the passion of great moments and in the quiet Hours of life, there are two qualities that seem always associated with him : one is 'sincerity — deep, convincing and compelling sincerity ; the other is loneliness. An atmosphere of loneliness seems to surround him with «ome hint of tragedy. It culminated last year in the death of his wife. "For months 6he lay ill, ami Sir Edward watched over over her with an intensity of devotion that cost him his own health and nearly his life. From her bedside his doctors urgently ordered him away to seek distraction in his legal practice- and his Parliamentary work. He reappeared in the Hou6e of Commons after an absence of months a, sad and sombre figure. Well 1 remember the pathos of his attitude, his air of introspection and sorrow as he walked, heavy of footstep, across the lobby. A few days later she died." Such was the love Sir Edward bore hie wife that one fancies that at her death worldly ambition died too, and the laurels won in all the great emprises of his crowded life tifrned to ashes in his eyes. For whatever opinions may be held of the wisdom of his leadership in Ulster, those who know him find it impossible to doubt the unselfishness of hie motives. No personal ambition leads him, no thought of his own appearanco in the pages of history inspires the- extraordinary declarations of hi* speeches. They spring from his intense sincerity mid his faith m the cause he champions. RENOUNCED FORTUNE. In the autumn of last year he, renounced his practice at the Bar, with its brilliant triumphs of advocacy, and of crocs-examination — an art in which he was supreme — a practice which was bringing him fees amounting to nearly £2000 a month, in order to devote all his abUi-, ty and time to Ulster. The death ot Lady Carson and this renunciation marked the close of one period of his life, but it, was in this earlier period that the forces were at work winch have made his character so supremely < fitted for the task he has now assumed. As long ago ac 1900, when he had jnet been appointed Solicitor-Genera! by tl'o Unionist Government, Mr. T. P O'Connor, one of the foremost of his Nationalist opponents to-day, wrote of him that he was "a man who could be bold in emergency _ and formidable, if fiot eyen ' merciless, in fight." So that, even then, fourteen years ago, there was the Sir Edward 'Carson of to-daj. One hears Without surprise that evrn at school he was a fighter, thrashing a bigger boy who had proved parfirnlar.'y objectionable. From Fortarlimjton School he went to Trinity College, Dublin (his birthplace), and at twenty-two became a D.A. A year later, he was called to the Irish Bar. SPRING OF VEHEMENCE. For eight years he practised with over-increasing renown in the Irish Courts, and then came into his life experiences whu'h explain much of the vehemence with which he denounces the Nationalists to-day. Mr. Arthur Fjalfour, then the new Chief-Secretary far Ireland, oaras over to that country to put into operation the Crimes Act. Mr. Edward Carson became the Crown Prosecutor and passwl up and down the country like an avenging spirit, sending to justice the perpetrators of agrarian outrages and innumerable crimes thai had convulsed the country. -Ho fouglii,~the greatest and most terrible secret society that Ireland has ever produced, the National League, 'at the hourly peril of hi 6 life. Armed detectives were his escort and a loaded revolver lay in his pocket. Of those days Mr. T. P. O'Connor wrote : "The missing of the usual escort of police, the negligence of a detective, the opening of a letter— anything might expose thn member of the Government to the bullet or the knife. And just, a few years ( . . before Mr. Balfour and Mr. Carson entered upon their tremendous fight, the ioad in Phoenia Park had run, with the blood of Lord Frederick # Cavendish a,nd Mr. Burke." It is pasy to understand the effect which these scenes must havo had on the mind, of the Crown Prosecutor. A fearless man himself, he has and always had the unselfish bravery that realises and seeks to remove the terrors that oppress less courageous, souk. Can one wonder also that with these experiences he believes that the fears of the Irish minority—Ulster's dread of Nationalist Government— are- well founded > In 1892 Sir Edward gained the reward of his services as Crown Prosecutor. Ho was appointed Solicitor -General for Ireland, and entered Parliament as member for his old university. That seat he has held ever since. Followed his calling to the English Bar, the honour of appointment as a Privy Councillor, tlie office of Solicitor-General for England, and all the legal and forensic successes that his brilliant intellect obtained. SEER OF ACTION. ™ J v the r be S innln .g of 1910, when Mr. Walter Long resigned the position of Leader or _ the Irish Unionist Party on his becoming a member for a London seat, Sir Edward Carson was elected in his place. Up to this time the opposition to Home Rule by the Irish Unionists had been on " constitutional " lines Determined that justice must be done to Ulster though the Nationalist heavens fall, Sir Edward changed the unimpressive procedure of opposition by words to the vivid reality of opposition by deeds, -the great massed demonstrations at Belfast and elsewhere in Ulster, the creation of machinery for a Provisional' Government, the enrolment of the Ulster Volunteer Force have followed the advent of the seer oE action. After tho death of Lady Carson the tone of his speeches has become more fierce, reflecting a little, perhaps,- the recklessness born or sorrow The light that when he is among friends illumines at times his steady, sombre eyes passes less often over his face. Since he gave up his practice in the Courts the cassation of conflict between the legal and tho platform style of oratory has added immensely to the power of his speeches, but he is becoming diary of words. One can judge of the direction in which his thoughts are tending by the words he used in his last great speech in Belfast— his valedictory message before the Parlirmentsm conflict. " A leader," he said, v ->ukl value human life very hio-hh Jmt he must not value it too highly* 1 ' Thus is revealed his own opinion of the seriousness of the campaign that engrosses his Jife. :is effect of such leaderslup on the Tr»A n n only be understood by those who know the Irish. They are a "race that follows tl>- ilery cross. So far Ulistexmen aud Nationajiata are alike.

They exalt a leader. They give him the obedience and power vouchsafed by savage tribes to their chief or by the Scottish clansmen ot old to their chieftain. This last is the relationship that always suggests itself to me in Ulster, and in heieditary derivation it may not be far from tho truth. Both chieftain and Ulster-men are moved by a common determination. The affection, the confidence, the resolve of a whole race animate Sir Edward Carson. He comes to the House of Commons incarnating their spirit and their power.