Sven digital books

Winston Churchill and the two Nationalist leaders to speak
in the Ulster Hall on the 8th of February, 1912, and that the
announcement of the fixture was made in the Press some three weeks
earlier.
The Unionist leaders were not long left in ignorance of the public
excitement which this news created in the city. A specially summoned
meeting of the Standing Committee, with Londonderry in the chair, was
held on the 16th of January to consider what action, if any, should be
taken; but it was no simple matter they had to decide, especially in the
absence of their leader, Sir Edward Carson, who was kept in England by
great Unionist meetings which he was addressing in Lancashire.
The reasons, on the one hand, for doing nothing were obvious enough. No
one, of course, suggested the possibility of preventing Mr. Churchill
coming to Belfast; but could even the Ulster Hall itself, the Loyalist
sanctuary, be preserved from the threatened desecration? It was the
property of the Corporation, and the Unionist political organisation had
no exclusive title to its use.


Pages:
109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133