CHANGED VIEWS

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 103, 2 May 1914, Page 13

CHANGED VIEWS

A "COLONIAL" IN ULSTER "NOW AN IMPERIAL QUESTION." A remarkable letter on the Ulster question from "A Colonial Visitor" has been published in the London Spectator. The writer asks at the outs?t: "What right I, a colonist, born ancl bred at the Antipodes, should attempt to dip my oar into the somewhat troubled political i^art of the Mother Country?" He points out, however, that "the position in -regard to Ulster has now become largely an Imperial one, and even the smallest settlement in the farthest parts of the outer empire is intimately concerned in the final issue." The "Colonial Visitor" shows how so advanced is the Liberalism of Australia- and New Zealand are that an "Australian or New Zealander naturally arrives in tho Mother Country with a bias in favour of Home ftule, especially as lie has had the case put to him by two generations of Redmonds and by those other Irish orators who have come to us cap in hand with all the persuasive and fiery eloquence of their race. He has never had the other side of the case put to him by the UlsLermen." Under the impression that Ulster's 'case was not put before Australasians because it was a weak case " I confess that I arrived in London with that idea largely installed in my mind," the colonial (who signs himself "Z") continues. "But in the great city one began to hear other arguments, and to find responsible and thoughtful people gravely shaking their heads in regard to the coercion of Ulster and the present situation there. Generally speaking, the average Englishman did not seem to | bother his head with the subject, and there was diversity of opinion as to whether Ulster really meant business or : was simply bluffing. As the only means of satisfactorily solving the question, I I decided to go and study the problem on the spot. A REVELATION. " I may as well confess at the outset i that the facts came as a revelation to | me, and that I was not prepared for ; half what I saw. I had been told that the anti-Home Itule agitation was confined almost entirely to Belfast. Going first into the country, I found that this was by no means so. Indeed, the most | perfect organisation that I saw in connection with the Ulster Volunteer movement was in Tyrone, a county that returns a majority of two Nationalists' to Parliament. Here in the town's and in country districts there were close upon 10,000 men drilling— ample proof that there may be, and is, a very strong feeling against Home Rule even in counties that return to Parliament a majority of Nationalists. In ona county town men were drilling night after night in a hall erected at their own expense, and by their own hands, in a very brief space of time. A huge Union Jack and banners with mottoes— 1 Derry, 1689,' 'No Surrender ' and ' Boyne, 1690 ' — spoke eloquently from the bare, weathei -boarded walls of the determination of these men who, after their ordinary hard day's work, were being coached in signalling, were practising snooting, and were being drilled by competent officers. You might see an Earl and a cotton-weaver equally anxious to get their badge of proficiency, the movement being a thoroughly democratic one,, even to the selection ol the officers. THE SHOOTING WAS GOOD. "The shooting was good— make no mistake about that. I have before mo as I write quite a number of the targets that I carried away from the hall, and it is rather surprising to note how frequently these young recruits were finding the bull's-eye. I was assured also that there was no lack of ammunition and rifles securely Btored away against the time when any Government should take such action as would make ' the real thing' a necessity for the defence of Ulster against the laws of a Parliament with which Ulster will have nothing to do. "I spoke to many of the men. Determination was in their hearts; they meant business, and they would not submit. The words of one man—a village tradesman— were typical of what the rest said. 'I have a wife and seven children,' he remarked, 'and there are three sons and myself who will die before we ! will give in,' All this one learnt .in a typical country town where many of the Volunteers were mUlhande. ( But I also drove out into the country in the nighttime, and here, in halls or rooms or in the open fields, the farmers and the farmers' sons were drilling jvi6t theEfume. Here was a corporal in the Army— on leave — drilling one section; there a chauffeur — an ex-sergeant in tho Guards —drilling another section. No bluff about this; it was evidently a serious business. ' DRILLING BY L-AMPLIGHT. "In another district, right in the heart of the country, away from any town or village, a fine sturdy-looking lot of men were drilling in a field by lantern-light on a dark, oold winter's night. How they ever managed to keep their positionsi in. the dim and uncertain lights carried by the few lantern-bearers I do not know. There was no bluff here-. These men, many of them, had walked, or ridden several miles after their hard day's work to drill on a bleak night in the open for tho cause. Whatever the merits'of the case, there was no mistaking their sincerity. "So much for the country districts. In Belfast, of course, one found the preparations and the drilling on a much larger scale. ... I saw and talked with many people — from tho highest to the humblest— connected with the movement, and the conclusion forced upon, me was that no Government, however strong it may be numerically—let alone one held precariously in power by heterogeneous three-party interests — can force Homo llule u^pon Ulster." Alter a fine description of Sir Edward Carson addressing battalions of Ulstermen in a Belfast Park, "Z." concludes: "Much else that one saw and heard in Ulster might be written of, but this letter is already sufficiently long. I went into Ulster favourably disposed to Home Rme : I cam© out of it with cnanged views, convinced that, it must bo now either a question of abandonment of the Bill or the Exclusion of Ulster. It will be well for Ireland and for the Empire if British statesmen will take heed of the warnings that have been given, and set a safer course before the olack storm breaks along the coast of Ulster."

According to the Novoe Vremyn, the Minister of the Interior has refused to allow a monument to be erected by public subscription in memory of Count Leo Tolstoy, on tho ground of his antiGovernment and anti-Church views.