the other hand, held that therefore there must be no Home Rule Bill. But
there was a Liberal element evidently not convinced that Home Rule might
not be possible with Ulster excluded. Mr. Birrell admitted that the plan
of segregating a portion had been considered, but had been rejected, on
the merits, as unworkable. Still he professed himself open to
conviction. The argument which Mr. Bonar Law decided to use was a
threat. Government are saying to the people of Ulster, he said,
"Convince us that you are in earnest, show us that you will fight, and
we will yield to you as we have yielded to everybody else." Captain
Craig, following, said that the Prime Minister anticipated that Ulster's
objection would after a few years be merely a ripple on the surface. "If
the right honourable gentleman has challenged this part of his Majesty's
dominions to civil war, we accept the challenge."

This temper soon had ugly expression. On June 29th an excursion party of
the Ancient Order of Hibernians (the Roman Catholic counterpart to the
Orange Order) met with another excursion party of Protestants, mainly
Sunday-school children, at a place called Castledawson. Taunts were
exchanged and one of the Hibernians tried to snatch a flag from the
other procession; so a disturbance began in which some of the children
were hurt and many frightened. This discreditable incident was magnified
with all the rancour of partisanship--as in the state of feeling must
have been expected. But the reprisals were startling. All Catholics were
driven out of the Belfast shipyards; many were injured, and over two
thousand men were still deprived of work on July 12th, when the Unionist
party held a great meeting at Blenheim. Mr. Bonar Law, facing for the
first time a vast typical gathering of his supporters, said that, on a
previous occasion, when speaking as little more than a private member of
Parliament, he had counselled action outside constitutional limits. Now,
he emphasized it that he took the same attitude as leader of the