Some historical and global examples of tax resistance → Ireland → Unionists (~1892–1913, 1986)

Irish Unionist Protestants learned from the experience of their Catholic co-islandists (see ’s Picket Line) and considered a tax resistance campaign of their own against the Irish government when “home rule” was pending. This report comes from the New York Times:

A Last Means of Protection

Belfast, . — For the Ulster Unionists’ Convention, which opens in this city on , an enormous pavilion has been erected on a large piece of vacant ground at the intersection of College Park Avenue and Rugby Road, and very convenient to the Botanic Gardens, where the outdoor demonstrations will be held.

Among the papers to be presented to the convention is one entitled “Passive Resistance; or, The Position of Ulster in Certain Contingencies.” The writer is himself a delegate to the convention, but his identity is not revealed. The pamphlet is of special interest to America on account of the parallels the writer constantly draws between the possible situation in Ulster and that of America in . He declares that in the event of the establishment of a separate Irish Parliament and an Executive:

We have resolved that we will meet its laws, its administration, and its taxes imposed, with passive resistance. It will be necessary for the constituencies of Ulster to actively ignore the new authority by refusing to allow elections to take place. This refusal must be put in force through their returning officers. The Mayor of Belfast and the Sheriffs of the well-affected counties, on receiving writs for elections, should abstain from acting on them, and it would be right, so as to have no mistake, that they should publicly burn the writs.

Perhaps, in such a case as we are contemplating, an application might be made to the superior courts in Dublin for a mandamus, and perhaps the courts might grant one, when the next form of the passive resistance of Ulster would come into play, as we have determined that we will not recognize a judicature that is nominated by and subject to the new authority. By this rump of the Dublin Parliament — that is, a Parliament of Ireland minus Ulster and minus the revenue that Ulster produces, (the customs of Belfast are more than two millions a year,) — would have no resource but the employment of physical force to compel elections to be held.

But it is a maxim of constitutional practice, having the moral force of enacted law, and having indirectly the actual force of enacted law, too, that there must be no forcible interference with elections. It is not too much to say, besides, that it is not the business of the army to assist in the suppression of even actual resistance against a colonial Government, and Ireland would become a colony in the event of Home Rule being granted.

The author then proceeds to consider the methods of procuring money to carry on the passive resistance movement. He says:

There are no direct taxes in Ireland, with the exception of the income tax and stamps, if those are classed as direct. But those taxes and the customs, and the inland revenue in general, are the Queen’s. It is impossible that loyal subjects should refuse to pay the Queen’s taxes, levied by the lawful authority of the Imperial Parliament, and collected by servants of the Queen’s Executive Government. As for taxes levied by authority of the Dublin Parliament, of course that is a different thing, and resistance is not only unobjectionable, but necessary.

It may be, however, (but this is only matter of conjecture,) that the whole customs and inland revenue of Ireland, under the home rule scheme, would be handed over to the new Irish Government. In that case there would be no difficulty as to our rights; the question being, under this supposition, Should we begin our passive resistance by refusing to pay those customs, income tax, &c.? Or should we seize the Custom Houses of the ports, Belfast, Derry, Larne, and Newry? Or should we postpone action of this nature till other passive resistance should have failed to checkmate the new Government?

Leaving this question unanswered, the author considers the position of Ulster, in the event of her policy bringing on civil war, and points out that, while numerically it is inferior to the rest of Ireland, in physical resources and wealth it is superior. For borrowing money, too, its credit would be much better than the south of Ireland. Continuing, the writer says:

Geographically, Ulster is better placed for the defense of itself from the south than the south is placed for defense from Ulster. Our metropolis and principle port is almost unassailable, while Dublin could be laid open to a direct and immediate attack. On the whole, our merely military strategical position is a very great deal better than the strategical position of the three southern provinces.

With reference to the Ulster troops and their necessary training, the pamphlet says:

We must have no Bull Run. Better to wait for months till our soldiers shall have acquired discipline than incur such a danger. We must not begin serious work with a scratch army, although we should have nothing but a scratch army to fight.

This report comes from the Toronto World:

Woman — lovely woman — has devised a new method of harassing the British Liberal Cabinet, which at least on the question of her right to the suffrage is a house divided against itself, and therefore, on the best authority, in a parlous condition. Many members belonging to the two militant societies and many more belonging to organizations that eschew violent methods, have bonded themselves together in a “Women’s Tax Resistance League,” imitating thereby the device employed by the Nonconformist opponents of Mr. Balfour’s famous — or infamous, as it may please — Education Bill. In this new move the ladies are more logical than they have been in some of their schemes to draw public attention to their grievance and to achieve its redress.

Taxation without representation is abhorrent to the free man — why not to the free woman? What men have been constrained to resist as unconstitutional and been therein justified by the verdict of history, cannot be blamed when they are offered the flattery of imitation. Nor are women without appeal to the very recently expressed opinions of noble lords and other indignant resenters of the government’s policies. One of them wrote down words to the effect that if the Unionist party was really in earnest in resisting the unconstitutional and revolutionary methods of the government, why should they not organize a refusal to pay taxes until a referendum be introduced? Sir John Lansdale, M.P., also declared in a speech that “they disregard the authority of our Irish Parliament and would refuse to pay its taxes.”

However, whether mankind is inclined to resent or not this further assertion of the claim to complete equality and adoption of the role of tax resister, this new movement is certain to be generally supported. Among the arguments offered in its favor is that women who are property owners and payers of taxes and therefore count as a force in the community, owe a special duty at the present time to women who do not count. Tax resistance, it is contended, provides in the locality where it is employed, a valuable object lesson in support of the cause which women have at heart. The claim is also made that tax resistance forms a common bond of action for suffragists of all shades of opinion; and it may be added will probably be much more generally effective and certainly far more dignified than struggles with constables and wanton destruction of property.

From the issue of the Poverty Bay Herald:

London, …

Inquiries in Government circles show that there is no disposition to belittle the earnestness and sincerity of the Ulster businessmen’s demonstration . The Government realises, however, how futile is the threat to refuse to pay taxes. No business firm could persist in its refusal to pay the customs or excise tax, for the customs officers would immediately paralyse its business by withholding supplies. Belfast’s great tobacco industry would thus be at once ruined. The income tax is collected at its source. What the taxpayer receives is his dividend, less the tax on it. The only chance of success would lie in the possibility that the Irish banks would become parties to the resistance and this is most unlikely. Ireland has no tax on dogs or manservants. Officials here say the only national taxes which Belfast could refuse to pay would be paltry sums collectible on motor cars, game keepers, public houses, and the like.

The Vote

From the issue of The Vote:

Saul Among the Prophets.

There is a piquancy which women tax-resisters will not fail to appreciate, in the declaration of Mr. Lloyd George that he is really one of their growing company — have not the Unionist business men in Belfast joined in? Can it be a result of the tax-resistance campaign now gathering strength in his own Principality, or is it the first indication of an intention to deal fairly with women over that million and a-half sterling which the Treasury conveniently pockets? Those who live will see.

Also from the same issue:

The “John Bright” Tradition: No Taxation Without Representation.

For a Liberal Government which has repeatedly declared that there must be “No Taxation without Representation” to discover the grandson of John Bright amongst the tax resisters, must be seriously discomforting. Mrs. Clark, of Street, Somerset, wife of Mr. Roger Clark, grandson on his mother’s side of John Bright, is a member of the old constitutional society for Woman Suffrage, but is also a strong believer in the “No Vote No Tax” policy of the Women’s Tax Resistance League, considering that so long as women are taxed and refused representation it is their duty to make this constitutional protest against injustice. She, therefore, refused to pay her Income-tax, but was told that though the income was hers, her husband was the person liable to pay the tax. Mr. Clark, inheriting the “John Bright” tradition, upheld his wife in her determination to demonstrate that, as far as she was concerned, there should be “No Taxation without Representation”!

A silver jug and an Indian rose-bowl were taken to satisfy the claim of the law, and were sold by public auction on at the Crispinian Hall, Street. There was a crowded audience, and the auctioneer opened the proceedings by declaring himself a convinced Suffragist, which attitude of mind he attributed largely to a constant contact with women householders in his capacity as tax collector.

After the sale a public meeting was held, presided over by Mr. Roger Clark, at which Mrs. [Margaret] Kineton Parkes, organising secretary of the Women’s Tax Resistance League spoke, emphasising the constitutional character of tax resistance, and insisting that a nation which approved the action of John Hampden by erecting statues to his memory must also approve the action which tax-paying women are taking to protest against unrepresentative Government. At the close of the meeting many questions were asked, new members joined the League, and the following resolution was passed with enthusiasm, and only one dissentient:

“That this meeting is of opinion that women tax-payers are justified in refusing to pay all Imperial taxes until they are granted the same control over national expenditure as male tax-payers possess.”

Also in the same issue was a call to militancy from Charlotte Despard (excerpt):

A further and most startling piece of news has come to hand. In Belfast last week 5,000 men of business came to a “momentous decision.” They have pledged themselves to “keep back payment of all taxes which they can control, so long as any attempt to put into operation the provisions of the Home Rule Bill is persevered in.” It would almost seem as if these “hard-headed” men of business who represent £144,000,000 of capital, and who, we learn, are ready to risk the loss of everything, had taken a leaf out of the book of the “wild and evil spirits” whose contumacy they deplore.

But that to which we desire here to draw special attention is the extraordinary lack of any sort of principle on the part of those who govern us.

Women who persist in tax-resistance are imprisoned, and treated with the harshest rigour that the law permits; no recognition of motive; no first division; no permission, except under strict regulation, to see friends; one man is imprisoned for asking soldiers not to shoot their brothers — this in a civilised and Christian country; two or three others because they preached resistance against intolerable trade conditions, exposed the wickedness of the mere money-mongers, and advised hunger-stricken people not to pay rent until the industrial dispute was at an end. Other people meanwhile conspire to break the laws, should they not be to their liking, threaten armed resistance, and actually drill and organise a provisional citizen-army and government, and, so far from imprisoning and torturing them, the authorities speak them fair, invite them to confer, and hint at a possible compromise.

From the Lakeland Ledger of :

Protestants seek tax revolt

Belfast, Northern Ireland — Hard-line Protestants said they would call on supporters to refuse to pay taxes as part of the campaign of civil disobedience against the Anglo-Irish agreement on Northern Ireland.

Leaders of the Democratic Unionist Party, the smaller and more militant of Northern Ireland’s two major Protestant factions, said at their party’s conference they have prepared a tax revolt and will announce details .

The tax revolt, disclosed after the second straight night of Protestant street violence, is part of a campaign against the agreement, which gives the predominantly Catholic Irish Republic a role in the province’s administration.

A very frequently-used tactic of tax resistance campaigns is to take public oaths or sign public pledges of resistance. This signals to potential resisters that they will not be alone, and is a show of defiance to the authorities. I’ve collected dozens of examples, which I’ll summarize here:

  • When Gandhi launched his first satyagraha-based campaign in South Africa in , a member of the meeting asked everyone present to take a solemn oath of opposition. Gandhi remarked:

    There is no one in this meeting who can be classed as an infant or as wanting in understanding. You are all well advanced in age and have seen the world; many of you are delegates and have discharged responsibilities in a greater or lesser measure. No one present, therefore, can ever hope to excuse himself by saying that he did not know what he was about when he took the oath.

    I know that pledges and vows are, and should be, taken on rare occasions. A man who takes a vow every now and then is sure to stumble. But if I can imagine a crisis in the history of the Indian community of South Africa when it would be in the fitness of things to take pledges, that crisis is surely now. … Resolutions of this nature cannot be passed by a majority vote. Only those who take a pledge can be bound by it. This pledge must not be taken with a view to produce an effect on outsiders. No one should trouble to consider what impression it might have upon the local Government, the Imperial Government, or the Government of India. Every one must only search his own heart, and if the inner voice assures him that he has the requisite strength to carry him through, then only should he pledge himself and then only would his pledge bear fruit.

    His entire speech, which reflects on vows and the responsibility of vow makers, is worth reading in this context.
  • In , “98 per cent of the merchants at Stuttgart and… 60 out of 60 merchants at DeWitt,” Arkansas, signed pledges to refuse to collect a new sales tax from their customers or to pay it to the government.
  • Also in , in Verdun (then a suburb of Montreal), 164 shopkeepers, including the mayor, signed a pledge to refuse to collect or pay a Montreal city sales tax.
  • , merchants in Gadsen, Alabama followed suit: gathering and voting unanimously to refuse to collect or pay a sales tax.
  • In Ghana, in , the Akuashongs met and “swore not to… pay any tax, even if the government should fight with them, and to make war with any party breaking the agreement.”
  • In several French newspapers printed the text of a pledge in which French liberals vowed to resist any taxes that the monarchy instituted without going through constitutional channels. The newspapers were themselves prosecuted for this. However, in court, they pointed out that the King himself, before he took the throne, had signed a tax resistance pledge of his own, along with three other members of the nobility, as a protest against republican infringements on their privileges.
  • In Castine, Maine, in , the pledge took the form of a vote: the town voted 125 to 65 at a specially-convened town meeting, to refuse to collect a school funding tax in defiance of a superior court order to do so.
  • In , some 5,000 businessmen in Belfast vowed to “keep back payment of all taxes which they can control, so long as any attempt to put into operation the provisions of the Home Rule Bill is persevered in.”
  • In the Women’s Tax Resistance League, members signed “pledge cards” that indicated which taxes they would be resisting if the government persisted in denying women the vote.
  • The Reform Act agitation really hit its stride in when a huge rally, 150,000 people strong, vowed as a group to stop paying taxes until the Act’s passage. One account of the meeting read:

    He declared before God, that, if all constitutional modes of obtaining the success of the reform measure failed, he should and would, be the first man to refuse the payment of taxes, except by a levy upon his goods [tremendous cheering, which lasted some minutes]. I now call upon all who hear me, and who are prepared to join me in this step, to hold up your hands [an immense forest of hands was immediately elevated, accompanied by vehement cheering]. I now call upon you who are not prepared to adopt this course, to hold up your hands and signify your dissent [not a single hand appearing, loud shouts and cheers were repeated].

  • In South Africa’s “New Rush” in , a number of miners signed a pledge reading, in part, “I promise on my honour and in presence of the people that I shall not from this day forward — until released from this obligation by the officers of the League — pay any taxes or impositions whatsoever to the Government, id est, for the support and maintenance of the Government of this territory; and that I shall buy from, sell to, or deal with only such men as have also taken this pledge or obligation; and that I shall to the utmost of my power, with purse and person, protect any and every officer and member of the League against coercion or consequences of what nature soever arising out of the action necessitated by this pledge.
  • At least 1,000 taxpayers in Elmira, New York, signed a declaration in saying that “The undersigned taxpayers… believing the county, city, and school tax rates as levied are too high, hereby refuse to pay until the budget has been thoroughly examined by the committee of the Taxpayers’ league. We also refuse to pay penalties until such revision has been made and a lower tax adopted.”
  • 500 taxpayers in Cadillac, Michigan, signed a petition in in which they vowed to refuse to pay taxes for two years unless the local government cut its budget by 20%.
  • In , 36 New Jersey residents signed their name to a petition to the home country in which they declared that they would refuse to pay any further taxes so long as a Roman Catholic was in charge of tax assessment.
  • At a “monster meeting” at Castlemaine in Australia in , a group of miners unanimously adopted a resolution to refuse to take out licenses.
  • Taxpayers in Zeehan, Tasmania, met in an open-air meeting in and passed a resolution stating that they “hereby express our solemn determination to passively resist the payment of the unjust income tax imposed by the late Government.”
  • A Queensland, Australia stealth tax on rural irrigation improvements, was resisted by the farmers there in , who, organized in groups called “Local Producers’ Associations,” passed motions vowing to resist. For example, the Association in Rockhampton “unanimously decided that all members pledge themselves to offer passive resistance to the operation of the Act by refusing to make the required applications or to furnish any returns, or to make any payments as demanded by the Act. Further, it was decided to invite all other LPAs and kindred bodies to adopt a similar attitude.”
  • , about twenty households near Paddock Wood, England, “signed a declaration to withhold [tax] payments” to protest the lack of government action against vagabonds camping in their neighborhood.
  • When the Russian Duma-in-exile issued the Vyborg manifesto in , calling on Russians to refuse to pay taxes to the Czarist autocracy, a number of villages responded by voting whether or not to heed the call and then taking the results of the vote as a pledge they were bound to abide by.
  • In , 149 members of a Catholic War Veterans post vowed to refuse to pay their real estate taxes unless the government dismissed a Communist Party member from his post as an advisor to the Borough President of Manhattan.
  • At a meeting of the Charleston Board of Trade in South Carolina in , the white supremacist group unanimously passed a series of resolutions declaring that they considered debts incurred by the reconstruction government to be illegitimate and that they would resist the payment of taxes meant to pay them off.
  • At a mass meeting of white supremacists in Louisiana in , they passed a resolution vowing that “we will pay no more taxes to State or city.”
  • Some resisters of Thatcher’s poll tax made their resistance dramatically public by burning their “final reminder notices” at demonstrations.
  • This tactic has been prominent in the American war tax resistance movement. For example:
    • In the American pacifist group Peacemakers released a statement, signed by 59 members, in which “the undersigned state hereby that we are not going to pay our federal taxes.”
    • In , some 370 people signed a public oath saying “We will refuse to pay our federal income taxes voluntarily.”
    • In , more than five hundred writers and editors added their names to a war tax resistance pledge that appeared as a newspaper advertisement. The names included James Baldwin, Noam Chomsky, Philip K. Dick, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg, Norman Mailer, Henry Miller, Grace Paley, Susan Sontag, Benjamin Spock, Gloria Steinem, William Styron, Hunter S. Thompson, Thomas Pynchon, Betty Friedan, and Kurt Vonnegut.
    • Also in , a letter was circulated largely among academics, and signed by more than a dozen professors, among others, organized as the “No Tax for War Committee” in which the signatories pledged to “withhold all or part of the taxes due” and urged the recipients to join their public pledge.
    • The ongoing War Tax Boycott has a public sign-on component.

Here’s an example of (the threat of) tax resistance being used in the Irish unionist movement, in this case in reaction to the First Home Rule Bill which would have given Ireland some limited autonomy. This coverage comes from the edition of The Spectator:

A great meeting of Orangemen was held on on the Racecourse, Belfast, at which the following resolution was accepted unanimously:—“That, should this measure of the Prime Minister be forced upon us, and we are handed over to the government of those who have been our bitterest enemies and the foes of the Crown and Constitution, and whose first efforts will be directed against our religions and commercial interests, we hereby solemnly and calmly declare that we shall not acknowledge that government, that we shall protest against taxation by an Irish Parliament, and will refuse to pay taxes imposed by it; and further, that we shall resist to the uttermost all attempts to enforce such payment, and we call upon the men of England, Scotland, and the Colonies who are with us in this great crisis in our history to support our protest now as well as hereafter, should we be compelled to take a more determined stand for the maintenance of the civil and religions liberties which their forefathers and ours obtained for us.” That is, of course, a declaration that Home-rule will be followed by an insurrection in Ulster, in which British troops will be required to fire upon Scoto-Irishmen for being too loyal to Great Britain.

A later editorial () noted that as tax resistance was a time-honored tactic of Irish nationalists, it ought to be respected by them when coming from their foes:

If Ulster determines on the policy of refusing to pay taxes to a Dublin Parliament, the Ulstermen may (if they choose) shelter themselves under the authority of the Archbishop of Cashel (Dr. Croke), who gave-in his deliberate approval to that course of action in a letter dated , in which he said:—“I opposed the ‘No-rent’ manifesto six years ago because, apart from other reasons, I thought that it was inopportune, and not likely to be generally acted on. Had a manifesto against paying taxes been issued at the time, I should certainly have supported it on principle. I am precisely in the same frame of mind now.” And again in the same letter:—“We pay taxes to a Government that uses them not for the public good and in accordance with the declared wishes of the taxpayers, but in direct and deliberate opposition to them. We thus supply a stick to beat ourselves. We put a whip into the hands of men who use it to lash and lacerate us.” Clearly the Ulstermen could use all this language word for word, and Archbishop Croke would not find it easy to reply to himself, if his fellow-countrymen proposed to reduce the Ulstermen to submission. Mr. Michael Devitt, too, who gave his hearty approbation to this letter, would find himself in a rather difficult position if he did not allow that its principle justifies Ulster in refusing to pay taxes. We do not say that the authority, as authority, of either of these Home-rulers is worth anything. But, at least, it ought to prevent them from attacking Ulster for insubordination.

Opposition to “home rule” in Ireland by Unionists there led to periodic threats of tax resistance that were inspired by the tax and rent strikes of the nationalists. Here are some skeptical notes about one example, as found in the Pall Mall Gazette of :

Ulster and Passive Resistance.

By an Ulster Protestant.

The Spectator and other Unionist journals are greatly impressed by what they call the policy of passive resistance which the Ulster “Loyalists” threaten to adopt towards a Dublin Parliament. Perhaps they would be less impressed by it if they were more acquainted with Ulster and Ulster “Loyalists.”

The threatened policy of passive resistance is, it seems, to be shown mainly in two ways — by a refusal to pay taxes and by a refusal to return members to a Dublin Parliament. As to the former of these, the “no taxes” plan of campaign is merely a modification of the “no rent” policy; and in the nature of things it cannot be half as effective as the latter, for the simple reason that, while rent was paid by nearly every one engaged in the land war, direct Government taxes are paid by very few, and these few the least earnest of those now banded together to resist Home Rule.…

…the Orange farm labourers and town artisans… are honest fanatics, and like honest fanatics they are prepared to sacrifice much and to go far in support of their views. There is no reason to doubt that many of them would be willing to refuse to pay taxes to a Dublin Parliament and to suffer cheerfully the consequences. But what taxes would they be asked to pay? At present almost, if not altogether, the only direct Government tax now levied in Ireland is the income-tax. How many artisans and labourers pay that? If they do not pay it, they cannot refuse it. As to the indirect taxes — Customs, stamps, &c. the only way in which they can refuse to pay them is by refusing to consume tea, tobacco, and whisky, and to write letters. The latter would be no great privation to the average Orangeman, who is not of a literary turn of mind; but an Orangeman who does not drink whisky, or whose wife does not drink tea or whose sons do not smoke, is a being which the human imagination cannot conceive. At any rate, a refusal to pay taxes taking this form would be nothing short of a national blessing, and would ensure rather than prevent the success of Home Rule government.

A more enthusiastic article can be found in the Dundee Evening Telegraph:

Ulster and Home Rule.

“What is Ulster to do when Home Rule is passed?” is the subject of a long article in the Belfast Weekly Telegraph. The Irish Parliament law and taxes are to be passively resisted, no elections must be allowed, and the Mayors and Sheriffs should publicly burn the writs of Judges and Magistrates appointed by the new Executive. The Court Houses must be closed against them, and Sheriffs, jurors, and witnesses must disregard their summonses. As the Dublin authority would not be brought to a standstill by a mere threat to withhold taxes, it may be necessary to seize the Custom Houses in Belfast, Derry, Larne, and Newry.…

Moving ahead several years, there’s this, from the Aberdeen Journal:

An Ulster Unionist’s Advice.

Mr William Moore, K.C., who was selected as Unionist candidate for North Armagh, in returning thanks said there was a movement on foot to make it perfectly clear to the electors of England that Ulster Unionists would under no circumstance pay taxes to a Home Rule Parliament in Dublin. He awaited that movement with delight. Resistance to those taxes would not be merely passive resistance, but a real resistance.…

The next bit of possibly tongue-in-cheek speculation comes from the Syracuse Herald:

Ulster Refuses to Pay Taxes.

Sir Edward Carson and his fellow founders of the proposed new [Northern Ireland] government talk of passive resistance by the Ulster people and their determination to refuse to pay taxes levied by an Irish parliament. The Belfast workingmen are asking how they can assist the movement. They don’t pay income tax, or land tax, or house duty, but they are paying indirect taxes on tobacco and whisky, and they may give up the use of these luxuries, though it is somewhat unlikely. If they do it will not be the government only that is the loser, for Belfast boasts of some of the largest distilleries and tobacco factories in the country.

Be that as it may, it is certain that the workingmen of Belfast realize that the only way they can assist the landlords and house-owners who sympathize with the proposed new government, to fight the good fight, will be to make it impossible for them to pay an income tax. If they have no incomes how can the government collect the income tax? So there is already a movement afoot to refuse to pay rent. No rent for the landlords will mean a rise of from $1 to $2 a week in wages to the Belfast workingman, and he will not be evicted, for his landlord, refusing to recognize the government at Dublin, will be unable to invoke the help of the law. No wonder anti-home rule is popular among the workers at Belfast.

And the following comes from the Cheltenham Chronicle:

Ulster’s Latest Resolution.

Tax-Resistance by Men of Commerce

Sir Edward Carson, M.P., addressed in Belfast on a gathering of Ulster business men, who met to protest against the Home Rule Bill. Three thousand men assembled in the Ulster-hall, and it was claimed that they represented capital amounting to between £80,000,000 and £100,000,000.

Mr. J.H. Stirling (director of York-street Flax Spinning and Weaving Co., Belfast) moved a resolution condemnatory of Home Rule, and stating:

We, business men of Ulster, representative of every branch of the industries and commerce of the province, hereby declare that we do not deem it to be our duty to supply funds to be used for coercing us into submission to such legislation, and we therefore solemnly resolve to hold back payment of all taxes which we can control so long as any attempt to put into operation the provisions of the Home Rule Bill for Ireland is persevered in.

The resolution was unanimously carried.…