THE ULSTER ORANGEMEN.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 80, 1 April 1912, Page 3

THE ULSTER ORANGEMEN.

STORY OFIA SECRET ARMOURY. Writing of the. situation in Ulster, the "Daily News" correspondent said recently: There lias been a plain slackening of the extremist impetus. You meet people, it is true, who assure you that the "die bards" have imported and have hidden somewhere in Belfast as many as 20,000 rifles. You hear stories of heroes who fill in their spare time making potshots with revolvers at pennies nailed up on the wall. In strict confidence you are told that at a certain place carpenters are working with all haste fitting up accommodation for 500 police reinforcements or troops. I have already referred to the drill exorcises at Orange Club rooms. All these things are just now details of the picture equally with the stock of coloured chalks laid in by the news vendors of Sandy Row, the Petticoat Lane of the Orange quarter. The chalks are to enble the infancy of Belfast to scrawl war cries on .pavements and shop shutters. Put a picture made up solely of such alleged details bocomes a gross caricature. After ail Belfast is not yet a synonym for Bedlam.

]<\>r some time past, continued the correspondent, there has been, especially in the rural parts of Protestant Ulster, a revival of a bitter persecuting spirit. The many Presbyterians, clerical and lay, who have declined to sign the anti-Homo llule declaration, or to take tickets for the Belfast Convention, have been "marked down." It is common knowledge that most Presbyterian farmers are totally opposed to the "die hards" and the "Provisional Government" nonsen. so. They want to see the country settled, ami they know- that that cannot he until the self-government question has been solved. In these l circumstances the Unionist clubs lately revived throughout Ulster have become the centres of an elaborate

spy system. "Suspected" persons fird their comings and goings watched and reported upon. Petty acts of persecution crop up, and as a matter of self-defence and mutual protection the moderate men have had to establish a vigilencG committee.