That was in November, 1913. Within a month the Government, which for two years had allowed the Carsonites to get in all the arms they wished, issued an order prohibiting the importation of any arms or ammunition into Ireland.
When Ireland is taunted, as a New York evening newspaper has taunted it, with its "poltroonery" in not taking advantage of the present war to seize freedom, these facts have to be remembered. Anything in the nature of arming or drilling was sternly repressed in Ireland until Carson began it. The "Volunteers" and the "Territorials" of England had no counterpart in Ireland, where the people were never trusted with arms. Carson and his followers were left untouched, because it was known that, however they might declaim against a particular English Government, in effect they stood for that English domination in Ireland which every Government, whether it calls itself Liberal or Tory, is careful to maintain as the very sheet-anchor of the British Empire. But the arming of Irish Nationalists, who were pledged to maintain the rights and liberties of Ireland only, was a different matter. The gravely perturbed English Government could not suppress the movement altogether—Carson's immunity had made that impossible,—but, with an ingenious show of impartiality as between the two regions, it prohibited all import of arms. Carson's men had been arming for two years; the Nationalists had just begun to organize. The strict impartiality of the order will appeal to those who now protest against any embargo on the export of munitions from the United States.
Both regions promptly started gun-running. In April, 1914, the biggest gun-running operation up till then was carried out by the Ulstermen. The Fanny, the yacht which brought the guns, was talked about in the press for a fortnight before it reached Ulster; the patrols of the English navy were watching the coasts; yet somehow the Fanny reached Larne, unloaded its cargo, and got away again without any interference from the gunboat patrols. At Larne it was met by a host of automobiles, which took away the rifles. To facilitate the operation, the Ulster Volunteers seized Larne harbor, imprisoned the harbor master and police, and took the entire control of the town into their hands. Another ship-load was disembarked on the same night at another Ulster port. Here a too-zealous customs official offered resistance; he died of heart disease. Nobody was identified, punished, or even prosecuted for this flagrant de-
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