By 1914, the conflict of interest between the unionists in southern Ireland and those in Ulster was wracking the IUA. It was known that the passage of a Home Rule Bill for Ireland was becoming increasingly likely, and as such many Southern Unionists began to seek a political compromise which would see their interests protected. Many unionists in the south became strongly opposed to any plan to partition the island, as they knew that it would leave them isolated from the unionist-majority areas. Several prominent Southern Unionists, such as Sir Horace Plunkett and Lord Monteagle, became convinced that a degree of home rule was going to be necessary if Ireland was to avoid partition and remain in the Union. Others, such as the anti-partition party leader William St John Brodrick, Earl of Midleton resented the growing dominance of Ulstermen in the party. He and his supporters feared that the Ulster wing of the party (now more formally organised as the Ulster Unionist Party) would abandon the south in order to gain a favourable settlement for the north from the British government. In October 1913, the vice-chairman of the IUA, G. F. Stewart, had written to its leader Edward Carson to complain that southern concerns were being ignored. Several large unionist demonstrations took place in Dublin in early 1914, in which protesters complained as much about the Ulster Unionists as the Irish nationalists. Despite these internal difficulties, between September 1911 and July 1914 the Joint Committee of the Unionist Associations of Ireland continued its campaign across the British Isles. In this period, the IUA distributed an estimated six million pamphlets and booklets throughout Britain, canvassed 1.5 million voters and arranged 8,800 meetings.