The undoubted importance which this visit of Mr. Churchill to Belfast
and its attendant circumstances had in the development of the Ulster
Movement is the justification for treating it in what may appear to be
disproportionate detail. From it dates the first clear realisation even
by hostile critics in England, and probably by Ministers themselves,
that the policy of Ulster as laid down at Craigavon could not be
dismissed with a sneer, although it is true that there were many Home
Rulers who never openly abandoned the pretence that it could. Not less
important was the effect in Ulster itself. The Unionist Council had
proved itself in earnest; it could, and was prepared to, do more than
organise imposing political demonstrations; and so the rank and file
gained confidence in leaders who could act as well as make speeches, and
who had shown themselves in an emergency to be in thorough accord with
popular sentiment; the belief grew that the men who met in the Old Town
Hall would know how to handle any crisis that might arise, would not
timidly shrink from acting as occasion might require, and were quite
able to hold their own with the Government in tactical manoeuvres.
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