which you had inherited. I have been prouder still of the wisdom and the self-restraint which tempered your courage. But I am proud most of all of this, that even now at the very moment when a great injustice has been inflicted upon you by your Government, you are putting your country first and are sending some of the flower of your people to share the danger and the glory of their fellow-countrymen upon the field of battle. [Cheers.]
Against that injustice I made on behalf of our Party, and on your behalf, a protest in the House of Commons. [Hear, hear.] But having made it, the Unionist Party in Great Britain intend to act as you have acted in Ulster. Until our country is out of danger we shall postpone, and so far as we can we shall forget, domestic quarrels, and if they have to be resumed, we shall take them up not less effectively because of the patriotism which Ulster is displaying to-day. [Cheers.] It is my privilege to-night to give you, on behalf of the British Unionist Party, the message of which Colonel Wallace has spoken.
You remember that at Blenheim I gave the undertaking that we would help you in your just cause. I gave that undertaking on no authority, except the authority derived from the belief that I spoke what our Party thought, and I had the knowledge that if I were mistaken I could no longer occupy the position which I hold. [Cheers.] The message which I bring you to-night comes not from any Party leader; it comes from every member of the Unionist Party in the House of Commons. And they mean it. [Cheers.] If the occasion arises, we shall support you to the last—[Hear, hear, and cheers]—in any steps which Sir Edward Carson and your leaders think it necessary for you to take to defend your rights. [Loud cheers.] The pledge which I gave at Blenheim had a condition, rightly or wrongly—I think still rightly—but as the leader of a British Party, whatever your duty might have been—and I never judge as to that—it would not have been right for me to support you if the people of this country had declared against you. But now, after what has happened, after the way in which advantage has been taken of your patriotism—[Hear, hear]—I say to you, and I say it with the full authority of our Party, that we give the pledge without any condition. [Loud cheers, the audience standing.] But, gentlemen, it is my hope and my belief that in the sense in which I gave that pledge — that it might be necessary to support it by force—it is my belief that we shall never be
