He insisted also very strongly on the publication of a letter which Lord Kitchener at his instance had written to the conference. Its last paragraph read:

"The Irish are entitled to their full share of the compliments paid to the rest of the United Kingdom for their hitherto magnificent response to the appeal for men: but if that response is to reap its due and only reward in victory, the supply must be continued."

Over 81,000 recruits had been raised in Ireland since the war started—a period of eighty-two weeks. Viewed in comparison with Lord Kitchener's original anticipations, the result might well be called "magnificent." But it was necessary to maintain the same weekly average, and for four months the figure had been much below this. The result of the new campaign was to raise nearly 7,500 men in seven weeks.

In the campaign thus launched, as Redmond so keenly desired, under the joint auspices of Ulstermen, Southern Unionists and Nationalists, one circumstance attracted attention. It was proposed to hold a great meeting at Newry, the frontier town where Ulster marches with the South—a centre in which recruiting had been singularly keen and successful. The scheme was to unite on one platform the Lord-Lieutenant, Redmond and Sir Edward Carson. Sir Edward Carson, however, "did not think the proposal would serve any useful purpose," and the meeting was held without him, in December 1915.

By this time the Sixteenth Division was under orders for France. We had been since September in training at Blackdown, near Aldershot; and here Redmond was one of several distinguished visitors who came to see us and address the troops. He came down also unofficially more than once, for his brother had a pleasant house among the pine-trees—where he guarded, or was guarded by, the brigade's mascot, the largest of three enormous wolfhounds which, through John Redmond, were presented to the Irish Division.

Towards the end of the year new rumours were afloat. The 49th Brigade had never been made up to strength, and there were stories that a non-Irish brigade was to be linked up with us. Letters from two commanding officers of the 49th Brigade illustrate the extent to which Redmond had come by all ranks to be regarded as our tutelary genius; to him they appealed for redress, fearing that they would be turned into a reserve brigade. The matter was settled at last to his content and theirs by a decision that the two brigades which were ready should go out in advance, to be followed by the 49th; and we entrained accordingly on December 17th.

Sir Lawrence Parsons wrote to Mr. Birrell: "As the last train-load moved out of Farnborough station the senior Railway Staff Officer came up to me and said, 'Well, General, that is the soberest, quietest, most amenable and best disciplined Division that has left Aldershot, and I have seen them all go.'" The compliment was well paid to General Parsons, and it may have been some consolation for a sore heart: that keen spirit had to be content to be left behind. Major-General W.B. Hickie, C.B., who had greatly distinguished himself in France, now took over command. It would be disingenuous to say that John Redmond was not content with this change; but his brother was deeply impressed by the hardship inflicted on a gallant soldier.

The Ulster Division had preceded us by three months. All three Irish Divisions were now in the field, and reserve brigades were established to feed them. Redmond could feel that in great measure his work was done, and that he could await the issue in confidence.

He wrote at this time, in a preface contributed to Mr. MacDonagh's book The Irish at the Front, a passage of unusual emotion which tells what he thought and felt upon this matter.

"It is these soldiers of ours, with their astonishing courage and their beautiful faith, with their natural military genius, carrying with them their green flags and their Irish war-pipes, advancing to the charge, their fearless officers at their head, and followed by their beloved chaplains as great-hearted as themselves—bringing with them a quality all their own to the sordid modern battlefield—it is these soldiers of ours to whose keeping the Cause of Ireland has passed. It was never in holier, worthier keeping than with these boys offering up their supreme sacrifice of life with a smile on their lips because it was given for Ireland."

He wrote this when fresh from a sight of troops in the field. This visit took place in November 1915, and he was full of the experience when he came down to say good-bye before we went out. Nothing in all his life had approached it in interest, he said to me. The diary of his tour is prefixed to Mr. S.P. Ker's book, What the Irish Regiments Have Done—but it conveys little, except this dominant impression: "From the Irish Commander-in-Chief himself right down through the Army one meets Irishmen wherever one goes." On that journey he got the same welcome from Ulstermen as from his own nearest countrymen in the Royal Irish Regiment.

V

One thing at least Redmond gained, I think, from his visit to the front—the sense that with the British Army in the field he was in a friendly country. He never had that sense with regard to the War Office. Running all through this critical year 1915 is the history of one long failure—his attempt to secure the creation of a Home Defence force in Ireland. Given that, he would be confident of possessing the foundation for the structure of an Irish Army—an army which would be regarded as Ireland's own. Without it, the whole fabric of his efforts must be insecure. He desired to build, as in England they built, upon the voluntary effort of a people in whom entire confidence was placed. In the War Office undoubtedly men's minds were set upon finding a regular supply of Irish troops by quite other methods—by the application of compulsion.

Redmond saw to the full the danger of attempting compulsion with an unwilling people; it was a peril which he sought to keep off, and while he lived did keep off, by securing a steady flow of recruits, by gaining a reasonable definition of Ireland's quota, and by exerting that personal authority which the recognition of his efforts conferred upon him. I do not think he was without hope of a moment when Ireland might come, as Great Britain had come by the end of this year, to recognize that the voluntary system levied an unfair toll on the willing, and that the community itself should accept the general necessity of binding its own members. But before this could be even dreamed of as practicable, the whole force of Volunteers, North and South, must feel that they were trusted and recognized, a part in the general work.

The practical organization of the great body at his disposal was under discussion between him and Colonel Moore from February 1915 onwards; and the idea was mooted that by introducing the territorial system Ulster Volunteers and National Volunteers might be drawn into the same corps. This, however, was for the future; the immediate need was to extend the arming and training under their own organization. Redmond learnt at once that Lord Kitchener was against this; that he pointed to the existence of another armed force in the North of Ireland and argued that to create a second must mean civil war; that he believed revolutionary forces to exist in Ireland which Redmond could not control and perhaps did not even suspect. Those who then thought with Lord Kitchener can say now that events have justified his view. They omit to consider how far those events proceeded from Lord Kitchener's refusal to accept Redmond's judgment.

Of the danger Redmond was fully aware. "I understand your position to be," Mr. T.P. O'Connor wrote to him in January 1915, "that unless your plan as to the Irish Volunteers is adopted we are face to face with a most critical and dangerous situation in Ireland." Just as fully was he convinced of the way to meet it. In February, replying indignantly to Sir Reginald Brade, who had complained that Irish recruiting was "distinctly languid," he enumerated the points at which the War Office had failed to act on his own advice, and urged once more, in the first instance, his original policy of employing both Ulster and Nationalist Volunteers for Home Defence. "If the two bodies of volunteers were trusted with the defence of the country under proper military drill and discipline, the result would unquestionably be that a large number of them would volunteer for the front. Recruiting can best be promoted by creating an atmosphere in which the patriotism of the younger men of the country can be evoked, and we have done a good deal already in this direction."

On April 4th a display was made of the force available. A review was held in the Phoenix Park of 25,000 men—splendid material, but half of them with neither arms nor uniform. The Unionist Press was friendly in its comments upon the statement which Redmond supplied after the parade, claiming that these men should be utilized for Home Defence. That day was Easter Sunday of 1915. No one guessed then what the next Easter was going to bring about.

On April 19th I find him writing officially to Mr. Birrell, seeking the Chief Secretary's influence with the War Office, and claiming, what was the truth, that the Irish Command shared his view. But at the moment recruiting was increasing weekly and the War Office were in no mood to make further concessions than those by which the improvement had been brought about. Then came the Coalition, and the consequent reduction of recruiting from close on 7,000 to 3,000 a month; and in July the Adjutant-General, Sir Henry Sclater, of his own motion approached Redmond. He suggested a meeting between Redmond and the War Office, with Sir Matthew Nathan and General Parsons in attendance. Redmond agreed to the proposal, but formulated his views in a lengthy memorandum. The first three points dealt with matters directly concerning the Sixteenth Division, but in the fourth, weighty emphasis was laid on the suggestion of recruiting Volunteers for Home Defence. Sir Henry Sclater's reply omitted completely all reference to this last—an omission on which Redmond commented sharply. He elicited the official answer that by urging men to join on a special enlistment for home service the numbers who would join for general service would be reduced. This was diametrically opposite to Redmond's view, and he said so, and urged again that the Irish Command was of his opinion.

The proposed conference resolved itself—to Redmond's indignation—into a discussion of Redmond's memorandum between the Adjutant-General and Sir Lawrence Parsons. Only in September, when at Lord Wimborne's instance he interviewed Lord Kitchener, did he have the opportunity of raising the matter by direct speech. Lord Kitchener then declared himself willing to admit that on the question whether enlistment for Home Defence would promote or retard recruiting, Redmond's judgment was probably more valuable than his own, and he promised to review the question of Home Defence again in the light of it. But of this promise nothing came.

Meantime Redmond was being warned that the Volunteer organization as it stood had exhausted its usefulness; its enthusiasm was gone—a natural result of having no purpose. A new opening seemed to be created by the Bill which Lord Lincolnshire introduced to recognize a Volunteer Force in Great Britain which should perform military duties under the War Office control. Redmond hoped to see this carried with an extension of it to Ireland, and this was the practical proposal with which he concluded his speech when, on November 2nd, for the first time in that year, he raised in debate the questions to which so much of his time and thought had been given.

How was the Irish recruiting problem to be dealt with? He declared himself absolutely against compulsion, to impose which would be "a folly and a crime" unless the country was "practically unanimous in favour of it." The voluntary system had never had fair play—at all events in Ireland.

"It is a fact, which has its origin in history, and which I need not refer to more closely—it is a fact that in the past recruiting for the British Army was not popular with the mass of the Irish people. But when the war broke out, my colleagues and I, quite regardless, let me say, of the political risks which stared us in the face, instantly made an appeal to those whom we represented in Ireland, and told them that this was Ireland's war as well as England's war, that it was a just war, and that the recent attitude of Great Britain to Ireland had thrown upon us a great, grave duty of honour to the British Empire. We then went back from this country, and we went all through Ireland. I myself, within the space of about a month after that, made speeches at great public meetings in every one of the four provinces of Ireland. We set ourselves to the task of creating in Ireland—creating, mind you—an atmosphere favourable to recruiting, and of creating a sentiment in Ireland favourable to recruiting. I say most solemnly, that in that task we were absolutely entitled to the sympathy and the assistance of the Government and the War Office. I am sorry to say we got neither."

He disclaimed all imputation upon the Prime Minister or the Under-Secretary, Mr. Tennant—exceptions which pointed the reference to Lord Kitchener.

"The fact remains that when we were faced with that difficult and formidable task, practically every suggestion that we made, based on the strength of our own knowledge of what was suitable for Ireland and the conditions there, was put upon one side. The gentlemen who were responsible for that evidently believed that they knew what was suited to the necessities of Ireland far better than we did. A score of times, at least, I put upon paper and sent to the Government and the War Office my suggestions and my remonstrances, but all in vain. Often, almost in despair, I was tempted to rise in this House and publicly tell the House of Commons the way in which we were hampered and thwarted in our work in Ireland. I refrained from doing so from fear of doing mischief and from fear of doing harm. To-day I am very glad that I so refrained, because in spite of these discouragements, in spite of this thwarting and embarrassing, and in spite of the utterly faulty and ridiculous system of recruiting that was set on foot, we have succeeded, and have raised in Ireland a body of men whose numbers Lord Kitchener, in his letter to the Irish conference, declared were magnificent."

He quoted the Unionist Birmingham Post for the saying that what had happened in Ireland was "a miracle." From the National Volunteers 27,054 men had joined the colours; from the Ulster Volunteers 27,412. In both forces there must be many left who could not leave Ireland, yet might be utilized in Ireland.

"It may be remembered that the very day the war broke out I rose in my place in this House and offered the Volunteers to the Government for Home Defence. I only spoke, of course, of the National Volunteers. I was not entitled to speak for the Ulster Volunteers, but I suggested that they and we might work shoulder to shoulder. From that day to this the War Office have persistently refused to have anything to say to these Volunteers. The Prime Minister, a few days after I spoke, in answer to a question told me that the Government were considering at that moment how best to utilize these Volunteers. They have never been utilized since. A few days after I made my speech I went myself to the War Office, and as a result of my interviews there I submitted to the Government a scheme which would have provided them at once with 25,000 men. If that offer had been accepted, not 25,000, not 50,000, but 100,000 men would have been enlisted for Home Defence within the month. But no, it was obstinately refused. I hear that an hon. member below me is now apparently inclined to take the point that the War Office took. The War Office said that would interfere with recruiting in Ireland. Of course, we know Ireland better than the hon. member. We know our difficulties in Ireland. We do not believe that it would. On the contrary, we believe that it would have promoted recruiting. We believe that the enlistment of these men, their association in barracks and in camp, with the inevitable creation and fostering of a military spirit, would have led to a large number of volunteers for foreign service. Our views counted for nought. In this instance they were not only our views. These views had the approval of the Irish Command, and from the purely military point of view the Irish Command was in favour of some such scheme as I had outlined, and the reason was plain. They have to provide, and are providing to this day, 20,000 to 25,000 men from the Regular Army for the defence of the coasts of Ireland—guarding the coast, guarding piers, railways, bridges, and so forth. If these men of ours had been taken up, within two or three months of training and in camp they would have been able to do this work, and would have done it ever since, and would thereby have released from 20,000 to 25,000 men. That is the chief reason, I fancy, why the Military Command in Ireland were in favour of this idea. But to this moment the refusal continues. I see that an unofficial Bill was introduced by the Marquess of Lincolnshire into the House of Lords doing, to a great measure, for England and Wales what we have been asking should be done for Ireland. I claim that that Bill shall be extended to Ireland."

The Volunteer Bill came to the House of Commons in a form making it applicable to Ireland. There it was opposed by Sir Edward Carson, who demanded that no man of military age should be accepted as a volunteer unless he consented to enlist for general service if called. This killed the Bill.

Sir Edward Carson was of opinion that the necessities of the case demanded universal compulsory service; and conscription was already in sight. With that prospect Redmond's anxiety became very grave.

On November 15th he wrote his mind to the Prime Minister:

HOUSE OF COMMONS,

November 15, 1915.

Private.

MY DEAR MR. ASQUITH,

I have been in a state of great anxiety for some time on the question of a possible Conscription Bill, and I have discussed the matter fully with Mr. Birrell, who knows my views, and who, no doubt, has communicated them to you.

I think it well, however, to shortly put, in writing, our position.

In your Dublin speech you asked the Irish people for "a free offering from a free people," and the response has been, taking everything into account, in the words of Lord Kitchener, "magnificent."

Recruiting is now going on at a greater rate than ever in Ireland, and it would be a terrible misfortune if we were driven into a position on the question of conscription which would alienate that public opinion which we have now got upon our side in Ireland.

The position would, indeed, be a cruel one, if conscription were enacted for England, and Ireland excluded.

On the other hand, I must tell you that the enforcement of conscription in Ireland is an impossibility.

Faced with this dilemma, if a Conscription Bill be introduced, the Irish party will be forced to oppose it as vigorously as possible at every stage.

I regret having to write you in this way, but it is only right that I should be quite frank in the matter.

Very truly yours,

J.E. REDMOND.

RT. HON. H.H. Asquith, M.P., Prime Minister,

Assurances reached him that the first tentative Bill for compelling unmarried men to enlist would only be introduced to fulfil a pledge given by Mr. Asquith in connection with the Derby Scheme, and that as the Derby Scheme had not applied to Ireland, the pledge also had no bearing there. By December 21st the matter was raised in the House of Commons. Redmond, after the Prime Minister had spoken, defined what he was careful to call "my personal view" on the question of compulsory service.

"I am content to take the phrase used by the Prime Minister. I am prepared to say that I will stick at nothing—nothing which is necessary, nothing which is calculated to effect the purpose—in order to end this war." He added: "That is the view, I am certain, of the people of Ireland."

The whole question was presented by him as "one of expediency and necessity, not of principle." From that standpoint he declared himself unconvinced that the adoption of compulsion in any shape was either expedient or necessary. It was inexpedient because it would "break up the unity of the country"—unnecessary because they had already many more men than they could either train or equip. In Ireland, a limited task had been defined, to keep up the necessary reserves for fifty-three battalions of infantry, and he pointed to the fact that so far the new organization of recruiting was producing the stipulated flow.

On these grounds, he said, the Irish party would oppose the measure, and on January 5th that opposition was offered, though Ireland was excluded from the Bill. But the first division showed a majority of more than ten to one for the proposal; and in face of that, when the House returned to the discussion, Redmond declared that Irish opposition must cease—especially in view of the support given by the responsible leaders of Labour. Sir Edward Carson, following, pressed him to go one step farther and accept the inclusion of Ireland in the Bill. Nothing, he said, could do so much to conciliate Ulster. This was the first time that any suggestion of this possibility had come from that quarter, and it came in backing a suggestion which Redmond could not accept. I was not present at the debate, and it is hard to judge of such matters from the printed record, but the impression on my mind is that the suggestion was made without any desire to embarrass. A few days later, in the Committee stage, an Ulster member moved an amendment which would have included Ireland. Mr. Bonar Law, speaking for the Government, advised against it—on the ground of expediency; it would not be an easy thing to put this measure into operation in Ireland. Sir Edward Carson spoke later and counselled the dropping of the amendment. With matters in this stage Redmond spoke very fully to the House, recognizing the absence of all partisan tone in the speeches of Ulster members. He had long felt, he said, that "if conscription came, Ireland's whole attitude towards the war was likely to suffer cruel and unjust misrepresentation," because it must emphasize a difference between the two countries. Conscription in Ireland would be "impracticable, unworkable and impossible." Instead of leading to the increase in the supply of men it would have the opposite effect.

"It would most undoubtedly paralyse the efforts of myself and others who have worked unsparingly—and not unsuccessfully—since the commencement of the war, and would play right into the hands of those who are a contemptible minority among the Nationalists of Ireland, and who are trying—unsuccessfully trying—to prevent recruiting and to undermine thus the position and power of the Irish party because of the attitude we have taken up."

He complained once more of the Government's failure to utilize the Volunteers and of the damping effect which had resulted from the non-fulfilment of Mr. Asquith's words. Yet Ireland was doing all that was asked of it—maintaining the reserves of Irishmen for Irish regiments at the front.—This was true at the moment; but the Sixteenth Division had scarcely yet begun to come into the line and the Ulster Division, during its first few months, suffered slight casualties. In point of fact, however, the bare rumour of conscription had checked recruiting, and Redmond was guarded in his terms. It was, he said, "on the whole very satisfactory, and in the towns amazing"; but he admitted that the country districts had not given an adequate response.

But he made now an appeal to the House as a whole to lift the consideration of this whole matter on to broad lines, to view it on the plane of statesmanship. If five years earlier anyone had foretold that in a great war Ireland would send 95,000 volunteer new recruits to fight by the side of England, would he not have been regarded as a lunatic? "The change in Ireland has been so rapid that men are apt to forget its history." That was a true saying; his own success had created difficulties for him. Once more he quoted the example of the other statesman in the Empire whose position had most analogy with his own. "I honestly believe," he said, "that General Botha's difficulties were small compared with those we had to confront in Ireland.... It is true to say at this moment that the overwhelming sentiment of the Irish people is with the Empire for the first time."

That was his claim, and in that month of January 1916 he was fully entitled to make it; and the House, I think, recognized his justification. His speech has in it the ring of confidence, of assurance that he would be taken at his word.

"Rest satisfied," he said; "do not try to drive Ireland." Wise words, and they were not unwisely listened to. There was no room for doubting this man's earnestness when he went on to tell how he himself had recently met Irish troops in the field, and had then pledged himself to them to spare no effort in raising the necessary reserves for their ranks among their own countrymen. "Trust us," he said to the House, indicating himself and his colleagues, "trust us to know, after all, the best methods. Do not carp at Irish effort, and do not belittle Irish effort." Then they might count on loyal and enduring support till the great struggle was ended.

That speech, as I read it, marks the highwater-line of Redmond's achievement. His statesmanship in the counsels of the Empire had prevailed for his own country. The Home Rule Act was on the Statute Book, and though not in legal operation it was present in all minds; and now on a supreme issue—the blood-tax—Ireland's right to be treated as self-governing was recognized in fact. The argument which underlay implicitly Redmond's whole contention was never set out; it was contentious, politically, and he wisely avoided it. He spoke for a nation to which autonomy had been accorded by statute; he preferred men to feel for themselves rather than be asked to admit that no self-governing nation will submit voluntarily to the imposition of the blood-tax without its own most formal consent. All that he said was, in effect: You have Ireland with you for the first time, by our assistance; do not destroy our power to continue that assistance, do not alienate Ireland. In the counsels of the Empire his argument prevailed; and during the early months of 1916 the relations between Great Britain and Ireland were better and happier than at any time of which history holds record. An utterance from one Irishman, and the general response to it, showed this in extraordinary degree.

Our Division, or rather two brigades of it, had detrained in France on the 19th of December; the first impression as we shook ourselves together for the march to strange billets was the sound of guns. Scattered about in different villages lying round Bethune, our battalions passed the next two months in the usual training before we should take up our own sector of the line, and we saw little or nothing of each other. March found us engaged, though still only attached by companies to more seasoned troops, in some rough crater-fighting on the ugly mine-riddled stretch between Loos and Hulluch. It was when we were marching out from broken houses about the minehead at Annequin that we first met again our old stable companions, the Royal Irish—and that I first saw Willie Redmond in France at the head of his company.

He was on foot as always, for he never could be persuaded to ride while the men were marching, and I never saw more geniality of greeting on any countenance than was on his when he came up with outstretched hand to where I was sitting by the roadside—for we had halted to see them go by. Here was a man utterly in his element, radiant literally in the enthusiasm of his devotion. He refused to listen to our talk of the bad time we had been through in the place where they were to succeed us (and in two winters of that war I never saw worse); all his talk was of the good time which we should have in the billets we were going to, which they had just left. Back there, in and about Allouagne, they rejoined us; and I remember dining with him in his company mess and hearing his eulogies of the splendid fellows that his company officers were. Then, about the time we moved up into trenches, our first leaves began and he got home in March. Naturally, he looked in at the House of Commons, and realized for the first time how uneasy well-informed persons in the lobbies were about the chances of the war. Everybody who ever came home from the front must have experienced the effect of that strange transition from unquestioning confidence to worried anxiety; but Willie Redmond was the only man who ever adequately gave expression to it.

It was on the eve of St. Patrick's Day, and the Army Estimates were under discussion in a very thin House—a wrangling, fault-finding debate. In the middle of it Willie Redmond got up, and said that as he was not likely to be there again, he had one or two things to say which he thought the House would be glad to know. Speaking as one of the oldest members, who had all but completed his thirty-third year in Parliament, he told them that every soul in the House should be proud of the troops—not of the Irish troops, but of the troops generally—because more than anything else of the splendid spirit in which they were going through the privations and dangers,—which he described with passion. If he were to deliver a message from the troops, he knew well what it would be:

"Send us out the reinforcements which are necessary, and which are naturally necessary. Send us out, as we admit you have been doing up to this, the necessary supplies, and when you do that, have trust in the men who are in the gap to conduct the war to the victory which everyone at the front is confident is bound to come. 'And when victory does come,' the message would run on, 'you in the House of Commons, in the country, and in every newspaper in the country, can spend the rest of your lives in discussing as to whether the victory has been won on proper lines or whether it has not.' Nothing in the world can depress the spirits of the men that I have seen at the front. I do not believe that there was ever enough Germans born into this world to depress them. If it were possible to depress them at all, it can only be done by pursuing a course of embittered controversy in this country—as to which was the right way or the wrong way of conducting affairs at the front. When a man feels that his feet are freezing, when he is standing in heavy rain for a whole night with no shelter, and when next morning he tries to cook a piece of scanty food over the scanty flame of a brazier in the mud, he perhaps sits down for a few minutes in the day's dawn and takes up an old newspaper, and finds speeches and leading articles from time to time which tell him that apparently everything is going wrong, that the Ministers who are at the head of affairs in this country, upon whom he is depending, are not really men with their hearts in the work, but are really more or less callous and calculating mercenaries, who are not directing affairs in the best way, but are simply anxious to maintain their own salaries. I say that when speeches and articles of that kind are found in the newspapers they are calculated, if anything is or can be so calculated, to depress the men who are at the front."

Then came a few words in praise of the Irish troops and in deprecation of the failure to recognize some of their services; a confident assurance that, "whether they are remembered or not," the Sixteenth Division would do their duty, with an equal assurance that the Ulster men would do as well as they—and he reached to his conclusion:

"Since I went out there I found that the common salutation in all circumstances is one of cheer. If things go pretty well and the men are fairly comfortable, they say 'Cheer O!' If things go badly, and the snow falls and the rain comes through the roof of a billet in an impossible sort of cow-house, they say 'Cheer O!' still more. All we want out there is that you shall adopt the same tone and say 'Cheer O!' to us."

It is not too much to say that this speech was received with a cry of gratitude all over the country and throughout the Army. It said what badly needed to be said, and said it with a freshness and a dash that came superbly from a company commander in his fifty-fourth year. It was the best service that had yet been rendered to John Redmond's policy. Everybody quite naturally and simply accepted the Nationalist Irishman as the spokesman for all the troops who were actually in the line. Mr. Walter Long, always a generous and candid human being, was quick to give voice to this feeling:

"The honourable and gallant member for East Clare has been in conflict, not only with one particular political party, but during the greater part of his career with every party in turn, and has engaged in bitter controversy with them. Does anybody doubt the fact that when war was declared one great factor in the mind of the Emperor responsible for this war was that dissension would paralyse the hands of Great Britain? Ireland, whatever may have been our differences in the past, and whatever may be our differences in happier days again when we are at peace, everybody must feel by the action of her representatives, who have fought so bitterly in this House and in the country, has created a new claim for herself upon the affection, the gratitude, the respect of the people of the Empire by the great and proud part that she has played in this great struggle."

That was the position to which Redmond's policy, backed by the Irishmen who supported it with their lives, of whom his brother was the outstanding representative, had brought this great issue. The next thing which brought the name of Ireland prominently before the world was the story of action taken by other Irishmen, also at the risk of their lives, to reverse the strong current which was then carrying us forward with so hopeful augury.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 5: Lieutenant-Colonel Maurice Moore, C.B., an officer who had served with distinction in South Africa, and whose father, George Henry Moore, had been a famous advocate in Parliament of Tenant Right and Repeal.]

[Footnote 6: Rifles were really not available, nor competent instructors. But the essential was recognition. A grant towards equipment should have been given, and possibly other assistance. We secured several thousand rifles in Belgium about this time. For instructors, any old crippled veterans paid by Government would have conveyed the sense of recognition.]



CHAPTER VII

THE REBELLION AND ITS SEQUEL

I

The facts of the Irish rebellion are too generally familiar to need more than the briefest restatement—and perhaps too little known for an attempt at detailed analysis. Broadly, a general parade of the Irish Volunteers all over the country was ordered for Easter Sunday. On the night before Good Friday a German ship with a cargo of rifles was off the Irish coast. This ship, the Aud, was a few hours later captured and taken in convoy by a British sloop, so that the arms were never landed. Emissaries from the Volunteers who had gone to Kerry by motor-car to receive and arrange for distributing the arms were killed in a motor accident while hurrying back to get in touch with their headquarters. On Saturday the general parade was cancelled by order of Professor MacNeill, chief of the Volunteer organization. On Monday, against his wish, a portion of the Volunteer force in Dublin, including the battalion specially under command of Pearse and MacDonagh, with the Citizen Army under James Connolly, paraded, scattered through the city and seized certain previously selected points, of which the most important was the Post Office. From it as headquarters they proclaimed an Irish Republic. Slight attempts at rising took place in county Wexford, where the town of Enniscorthy was seized, in county Galway, and in county Louth. At Galway, at Wexford and at Drogheda the National Volunteers turned out to assist in suppressing the rising. Except for a serious encounter with a police force in county Dublin, the fighting was confined to the capital. It terminated by the unconditional surrender of the rebels on the Saturday. The struggle was prolonged by the total lack of artillery in the early stages. Riflemen established in houses could not be dislodged by direct assault of infantry without very heavy casualties to the attacking force.

The purpose of this book is to show Redmond's connection with this event and the succeeding developments from it. He failed to foresee the event; he failed to direct its developments into the course he desired. How far he is to be held responsible, or blameworthy, for these failures, readers may be assisted to decide.

From the beginning of 1916 onwards the Irish Government was warned of danger. One of its members—the Attorney-General, Sir James Campbell—advocated the seizure of arms from men parading with what were evidently stolen service rifles or bayonets. But the Chief Secretary refused to take any action which could be described as an attempt to suppress or disarm the Irish Volunteers until there was definite evidence of actual association with the enemy.

Proof of sympathy was not difficult to obtain, and the propaganda against recruiting had now reached the point of attempts to break up recruiting meetings. Still, Mr. Birrell was in a difficulty. He had a logical mind, and he knew what had been permitted to Ulster. The fact that the Attorney-General himself had been a main adviser of the Provisional Government did not make it easier to follow his advice to disarm men who professed disaffection to the existing authority. Mr. Birrell knew that if he took such action he could be attacked in the official Nationalist Press for having one law in Ulster and another in the South. Further, Redmond would certainly not have disavowed, and might even have endorsed, such a line of criticism. The reason was that Redmond, as he had never believed in the reality of the Ulster danger, so now did not believe in this one.

Later, when Mr. Birrell resigned his post after the insurrection was suppressed, Redmond chivalrously took on himself a part of the responsibility. "I feel," he said, "that I have incurred some share of the blame which he has laid at his own door, because I entirely agreed with his view that the danger of an outbreak of the kind was not a real one, and in my conversations with him I have expressed that view, and for all I know that may have influenced him in his conduct and his management of Irish affairs." A later debate—on July 31st—showed that his strong personal feeling for Mr. Birrell had moved him rather to overstate than to belittle his advisory responsibility. Dublin Castle had never consulted him as to policy. Conferences had taken place with the Under-Secretary, Sir Matthew Nathan, but these were concerned with considering and framing the machinery to be created for bringing the Home Rule Act into operation, whenever the time came.

"There was no conference at all about the state of the country or about Sinn Fein. When once or twice in casual consultation the matter came up—I hope the House will listen to this—I did not hesitate to say what in my opinion ought to be done in certain cases by the Government. For example, I expressed a strong view to them as to how they should deal with seditious newspapers and with prosecutions. What I did suggest, they never did; what I said they ought not to do, they always did. And I want to say something further. They never gave me any information, bad or good, about the state of the country. From first to last I never saw one single confidential Government report from the police or from any other source. I know nothing whatever about their secret confidential information."

It is fair to add that the Under-Secretary was in communication from time to time with other members of the party, who were of course in touch with Redmond. But the substantial accuracy of Redmond's statement is sufficiently evidenced by one fact. Everybody knew that Sir Roger Casement was in Berlin and had tried—most unsuccessfully—to recruit an Irish Brigade from among the Irish prisoners. But neither Redmond nor any Irish member knew that from April 17th Dublin Castle had warning that a ship was on its way from Germany with rifles. The Navy was on the alert, and when the Aud came off Fenit, in Kerry, on Good Friday morning, she was promptly challenged.[7] But in the dark hours of that morning she had landed Sir Roger Casement and his two confederates, one of whom was arrested with him the same day. On Saturday morning Government decided to take action against what was now clearly a rebel organization. But as the Chief Secretary and the General Commanding in Chief were both in London, and as the available force of men in Dublin was small, a postponement was decided on. No special precautions appear to have been taken against the contingency of an immediate rising. On Monday a very large proportion of the officers from the Curragh and the Dublin garrison were at the Fairyhouse races. In the Castle itself there was only the ordinary guard.

Redmond at this date was also in London. His lack of apprehension is sufficiently indicated by the fact that his son and daughter were both at the races, and drove up unknowingly to an armed barricade. Had he been in authority and known, as the Government knew on Saturday, that the Irish Volunteers expected and had arranged for the landing of a heavy cargo of arms on Good Friday, and that a general parade of their men had been ordered for Easter, I hope that he would have either had troops in the utmost readiness to move, or have put strong guards in places of importance. But this is a futile speculation, for had he been in power the situation would never have arisen.

The decisive thing which drove most of the relatively small number among the Volunteers who broke away from Redmond into their original hostility was Government's failure to recognize them. Their force stood in their own eyes for the assertion of Ireland's nationality; and many of those who took active part in the rebellion were at the outset fully prepared to assert that nationality in jeopardy of their lives in the Allied cause. Redmond's policy, had effect been given to it by the Government, still more had he himself been invested with the right to embody it in action, would have prevented the estrangement of all but a very few. Once the estrangement took place, however, I think that he undervalued what was opposed to him, both in respect of its power and of its quality. He lacked appreciation and respect for the idealists whose ideals were not his own. He underrated their sincerity, and the danger of their sincerity. The beauty of sacrifice in the young men who went out to the war, carrying Ireland's cause in their keeping, moved him profoundly; and he saw the practical bearing of their acts on the great practical problem of statesmanship to which his life had been given. He did not guess at the sway which might be exercised over men's minds by an almost mystical belief which disdained to count with practicalities, Redmond for fifteen years had been the leader, and for thirty-five years had been a member, of a party which presented itself—with great justification—as the winner for Ireland of many positive material advantages on the way to an ultimate goal. Pearse, at a time when all the world was plunged in a prodigal welter of destruction, came forward, demanding from Irishmen nothing but a sacrifice—promising nothing but the chance for young men to shed their blood sacramentally in the cause of Ireland's freedom. Redmond also was calling for the extreme risk, but on a sane and sound calculation, to ensure the full development of something already gained. Pearse preached, mystically, the efficacious power simply of blood shed in the name of Ireland. Those whom he brought with him into the pass of danger were few, but they were touched with his own spirit; and even the very recklessness of their act touched the popular imagination. Irish regiments, after all, could do only what other regiments were doing; their deeds were obscured in a chaos of war from which individual prowess could not emerge. Pearse and his associates offered to Irishmen a stage for themselves on which they could and did secure full personal recognition—the complete attention of Ireland's mind.

All this would have seemed vanity to Redmond's solid, positive intelligence—vanity in all senses of the word. It would have moved him to nothing but angry contempt—anger against the spirit which was prepared to divide Ireland's effort, contempt for the futility of the reasoning. But one aspect of the rising dominated all the others in his mind. He had neither tolerance nor pity for Roger Casement, who was in his eyes simply one who tried to seduce Irish troops by threats and bribes into treason to their salt, one who made himself among the worst instruments of Germany. At the re-assembly of Parliament on April 27th he expressed the "feeling of detestation and horror" with which he and his colleagues had regarded the events in Dublin; a feeling which he believed to be shared "by the overwhelming mass of the people of Ireland." On May 3rd, in a statement to the Press, he denounced fiercely "this wicked move" of men who "have tried to make Ireland the cat's-paw of Germany." "Germany plotted it, Germany organized it, Germany paid for it." The men who were Germany's agents "remained in the safe remoteness of American cities," while "misguided and insane young men in Ireland had risked, and some of them had lost, their lives in an insane anti-patriotic movement." It was anti-patriotic, he urged, because Ireland held to the choice she had made, to the opinion which thousands of Irish soldiers had sealed with their blood. It was "not half so much treason to the cause of the Allies as treason to the cause of Home Rule."

On the day when that statement appeared the sequel had begun to unroll itself. In the House of Commons Mr. Asquith announced the trial, sentence and shooting of three signatories to the Republican proclamation—Pearse, Clarke and MacDonagh. With the exception of James Connolly, these were the men most directly answerable for launching an attempt which had cost five hundred lives and destroyed over two millions' worth of property, Redmond accepted their doom as just.

"This outbreak happily seems to be over. It has been dealt with with firmness, which was not only right, but it was the duty of the Government so to deal with it."

But now that example had been made, he held that other thoughts should guide those in authority.

"As the rebellion, or the outbreak, call it what you like, has been put down with firmness, I do beg the Government, and I speak from the very bottom of my heart and with all my earnestness, not to show undue hardship or severity to the great masses of those who are implicated, on whose shoulders there lies a guilt far different from that which lies upon the instigators and promoters of the outbreak. Let them, in the name of God, not add this to the wretched, miserable memories of the Irish people, to be stored up perhaps for generations, but let them deal with it in such a spirit of leniency as was recently exhibited in South Africa by General Botha, and in that way pave the way to the possibility ... that out of the ashes of this miserable tragedy there may spring up something which will redound to the future happiness of Ireland and the future complete and absolute unity of this Empire. I beg of the Government, having put down this outbreak with firmness, to take only such action as will leave the least rankling bitterness in the minds of the Irish people, both in Ireland and elsewhere throughout the world."

It is well to recall what he had in his mind. After the suppression of the South African rebellion in 1914, one man only was put to death—an officer who changed sides during an action. No attempt was made to try accused persons before a jury; a special tribunal of judges was set up by the South African Parliament. But their power of inflicting punishment was limited by the Parliament to a sentence of three years. General de Wet, the chief figure in the rebellion, was dismissed without punishment to his farm. That was the manner in which a strong native Government, realizing the possibilities of future trouble, dealt with an insurrection infinitely more serious in a military sense than that which broke out in Dublin. But in Ireland there was no native government; and the announcement of Mr. Birrell's resignation meant in reality that Mr. Asquith's Ministry had abdicated so far as Ireland was concerned. Quite properly, they had called in a competent soldier to deal with the military exigency. Quite shamefully, they left him in sole authority to handle what was essentially the task of statesmanship.

Everybody saw that in such a case the need was to prevent a rebellious spirit from spreading. Sir John Maxwell took the simple view that the way to secure this was by plenty of executions. Knowledge of Irish history cannot be expected in an English Minister, still less in an English soldier; but it could have taught him how often and how ineffectually that recipe had been applied. Still less could it be hoped that a soldier, in no sense bound to the study of contemporary politics, should allow for the effect of two factors which must certainly influence Irish judgment and Irish feeling. The first of these was the precedent within the Empire created by General Botha's Government. This, I think, English opinion generally, and particularly English Imperialist opinion, wholly disregarded; but it was the point to which Redmond had instantly directed attention. For him, the idea of an Imperial Commonwealth of States was a reality, and within one Commonwealth there cannot be two standards of justice. The second factor was the licence accorded by a Liberal Government, and the sanction given by a Tory Opposition, to preparations for rebellion, and acts of rebellion, in Ulster. This was generally recognized by public opinion, though I think deliberately set aside by Sir John Maxwell—who perhaps is not to be blamed. But the Prime Minister, who had been chiefly and ultimately responsible for the decision to let Ulstermen do as they liked, was specially bound to consider and provide for the consequences of that line of policy in the past as it affected the present development. He was also, as the Minister responsible alike for carrying a Home Rule Act and for denying to it operation, specially bound in such a pass as this to be guided largely by the judgment of the man who but for that postponement would have been head of an Irish Government. But, under the various pressures of the moment, Mr. Asquith moved in a wholly different direction. Redmond's appeal and advice went totally disregarded. Yet Redmond knew Ireland as no Englishman could know it; and his hands were clean of guilt for what had happened. Mr. Asquith by his past inaction, his Tory colleagues by their action before the war, were deeply involved in responsibility. It is difficult, if not impossible, to find in Mr. Asquith's conduct any recognition of this cardinal fact. He judged rebels as if preparations for rebellion had never been palliated or approved.

All that Redmond could achieve was by incessant personal intervention to limit the list of executions, to put some stay on what he called later "the gross and panicky violence" with which measures of suppression were conceived and carried out. He could not prevent the amazing procedure of sending flying columns throughout the country into places where there had been no hint of disturbance, and making arrests by the hundred without reason given or evidence produced. In many cases, men who had been thoroughly disgusted by the outbreak found themselves in jail; and disaffection was manufactured hourly.

On May 3rd, when Redmond made his public appeal to Mr. Asquith, it was still not too late to prevent the mischief from spreading. By general consent, Redmond was right when he said that the rising was thoroughly unpopular in Ireland, and most of all in Dublin. The troops on whom the insurgents fired were in the first instance Irish troops. Later in that year I was attached to one of these battalions (the 10th Dublins), and asked them how they did their scouting work during the conflict. "We needed no scouts," was the answer; "the old women told us everything." The first volley which met a company of this battalion killed an officer; he was so strongly Nationalist in his sympathy as to be almost a Sinn Feiner. Others had been active leaders in the Howth gun-running. It was not merely a case of Irishmen firing on their fellow-countrymen: it was one section of the original Volunteers firing on another.

Yet from the moment when English troops came on the scene, another strain of feeling began to make itself felt. A lady ordered tea to be made for one of the incoming regiments, halted outside her house on the line of march. The refreshment was long in coming, and she went down to see why. She found her cook up in arms: "Is it me boil the kettle for Englishmen coming in to shoot down Irishmen?" Yet that was still the voice of a minority. When I came home from France a few weeks later, a shrewd and prosperous Nationalist man of business said to me with fury: "The fools! It was the first rebellion that ever had the country against it, and they turned the people round in a week."

Nothing could have prevented the halo of martyrdom from attaching itself to those who died by the law for the sake of Irish freedom: the tradition was too deeply ingrained in Ireland's history. Yet Redmond did not go beyond the measure of average Irish opinion when he accepted the first three executions as just. People at least knew who these men were, and their signatures to the proclamation of an Irish Republic proved their leadership. They were given the death of rebels in arms, to which no dishonour attaches. But a fatal mistake was made in suppressing all report of the proceedings of the court-martial on them, and this mistake was to be repeated indefinitely. Ireland was made to feel that this whole affair was taken completely out of the hands of Irishmen—that no attempt even was made to enlist Irish opinion on the side of law by a statement of the evidence on which law acted. Day by day there was a new bald announcement that such and such men had been shot; and these were men whose names Ireland at large had never heard of.

Then on top of all came the appalling admission that an officer suffering from insanity had taken out three prisoners and caused them to be shot without trial on his own responsibility, none of these men having any complicity with the rebellion. This incident would have inflamed public opinion in any community; in Ireland its effect was beyond words poisonous. It revived the atmosphere of the Bachelor's Walk incident; and there was only too much justification for holding that the military authorities were indisposed to take the proper disciplinary action. Its effect detracted from the excellent opinion which the troops generally had earned by their conduct: it instilled venom into the resentment of those few cases (and it was beyond hope that they should not occur) in which soldiers had either lost their heads or yielded to the temptation of revenge in its ugliest shapes.

The result can be best expressed by recording the experience of one Sinn Feiner who was captured in the fighting. While the military escort was taking him through the streets to his place of confinement, a crowd gathered round and ran along, consisting of angry men and women who had seen bloodshed and known hunger during these days. They shouted to the soldiers to knock his brains out there and then. Three weeks later he was again marched through the streets on his way to an English prison, and again a crowd mustered. But this time, to his amazement, they were shouting: "God save you! God have pity on you! Keep your heart up! Ireland's not dead yet!"

These were the effects produced in Ireland on the mind of common people by the action of Government in enforcing the ultimate sanction of law which the members of that same Government by their action and by their inaction had brought into contempt. In England, in the meanwhile, a new Military Service Bill was going through the House, and naturally attempts to include Ireland in its operation were renewed. Sir Edward Carson, criticizing the Government of Ireland, said that (as Redmond put it in replying) Nationalists had held the power but not the responsibility. There was a note of angry protest in the Irish Leader's rejoinder. "I wish to say for myself that certainly since the Coalition Government came into operation, and before it, but certainly since then, I have had no power in the Government of Ireland. All my opinions have been overborne. My suggestions have been rejected, and my profound conviction is that if we had had the power and the responsibility for the Government of our country during the past two years, recent occurrences in Ireland would never have taken place."

I think that view was at that moment very generally shared in England. The British Press had shown by their attitude towards the events in Dublin how deeply Redmond had made his mark. Almost without exception Unionist papers refrained from any attempt to identify Nationalist Ireland generally with the rising: they did full justice to the valour and the sufferings of Irish troops—who, indeed, at that very moment were passing through a cruel ordeal. In that Easter week the Sixteenth Division was subjected to two attacks with poison gas of a concentration and violence till then unknown, and under weather conditions which prolonged the ordeal beyond endurance. The 48th and 49th Brigades had very terrible losses. We of the 47th relieved them in the line.

That was a long tour of trenches, some eighteen days beginning on the 29th of April, and throughout it papers came in with the Irish news. I shall never forget the men's indignation. They felt they had been stabbed in the back. For myself, I thought that a situation had arisen in which Irish members who were serving had a more imperative duty at home, and I went to discuss the matter with Willie Redmond, whose battalion was then holding the front line to the left of Loos.

I found him in the deep company commander's dug-out in the bay of line opposite Puits 14 bis, which will be known to many Irish soldiers. We came up to the light to talk, and he agreed with me in my view. We arranged that each of us should discuss with his commanding officer the question of asking for special leave. Mine advised me to go, and I have no earthly doubt that his would have said, or did say, the same; but Willie Redmond never brought himself to leave his men. Next month, however, he was invalided back, very seriously ill.

But in our talk that day, when we discussed the possibility of our having some special influence, he said this: "Don't imagine that what you and I have done is going to make us popular with our people. On the contrary, we shall both be sent to the right about at the first General Election." I think he was wrong, at least to this extent, that any man who served would not have lessened his chance by doing so. When the tide flowed strongest against us, in three provinces one Nationalist only kept his seat—John Redmond's son, Major William Archer Redmond.

II

Already the tide had begun to turn in Ireland. On May 11th Mr. Dillon—who had been in Dublin during the rebellion—moved the adjournment of the House to demand that Government should state whether they intended to have more executions upon the finding of secret tribunals, and to continue the searches and wholesale arrests which were going on through the country. The list of executions had now reached fourteen, and no word of evidence had been published. Also the Prime Minister stated that he heard for the first time of the shooting of Mr. Sheehy-Skeffington and others by Captain Bowen Colthurst. Unquestionably, discussion was urgently needed, and Mr. Dillon was fully justified in emphasizing the mischief done in Ireland by alienating men's minds. But Mr. Dillon spoke as one who felt to the uttermost the passion of resentment which he depicted, and in his indignation against charges which had been brought against the insurgents, he was led to praise their conduct almost to the disparagement of soldiers in the field. Even in print the speech seethes with growing passion; and its delivery, I am told, accentuated its bitterness and its anti-English tone.

It would be futile to deny that this utterance had a great effect in Ireland and in England, or to conceal Redmond's view that the effect was most lamentable. But it had one notable result. Mr. Asquith, in replying, announced his intention to visit Ireland and look into the situation for himself. Within a fortnight—on May 25th—he reported to the House his impressions.

"The first was the breakdown of the existing machinery of the Irish Government; and the next was the strength and depth, and I might almost say, I think without exaggeration, the universality of the feeling in Ireland that we have now a unique opportunity for a new departure for the settlement of outstanding problems, and for a joint and combined effort to obtain agreement as to the way in which the Government of Ireland is for the future to be carried on."

He indicated that an attempt would be made to renew negotiations for a settlement which would enable the Home Rule Act to be brought into operation at once; and that Mr. Lloyd George had consented to undertake the task of reconciling parties. But he begged that there should be no debate upon this proposal or upon Irish affairs at all. Redmond, in accepting, said that the request for acceptance without discussion was putting the goodwill of Nationalists to a very severe test.—A discussion would at once have produced this criticism: that Ireland would say to-morrow, "The Parliamentary party brought to Ireland a post-dated order for Home Rule, liable to an indefinite series of postponements: Sinn Fein by a week's rebellion secures that Home Rule shall be brought into force at once."

In truth, the rapid growth of Sinn Fein from May 1916 onwards is due largely to this reasoning; but also to resentment against the Government's dealing with the rebellion, and against the Irish party's silence in Parliament in spite of the numerous actions of the military power which called for vigorous criticism.

Irish Nationalist members realized the unpopularity of their silence and submitted to it, for the negotiations appeared to offer a real chance. We held that Mr. Lloyd George could not afford to fail, and had power enough to carry through a settlement. We did not know, and could not, that the Minister of Munitions had been called off from his regular work within five weeks before the beginning of the offensive on the Somme, for which an unprecedented outlay of material had been undertaken.

The negotiations proceeded, and were conducted on the principle of discussion through a go-between. The parties never met: Mr. Lloyd George submitted proposals to each side separately. Redmond and his colleagues insisted on protecting themselves by securing a written document, so that, as it was hoped, there could be no understanding and the terms come to would be final.

Those of us who hoped for a completely new approach to the problem were doomed to disappointment. The affair was taken up where the Buckingham Palace Conference left it. The terms to be arranged were terms of exclusion for Ulster; and the two questions of defining the area and the period met the negotiators on the threshold.

It has been shown above that Redmond regarded as vital the distinction between temporary and permanent exclusion. His purpose was to stamp the whole of this proposed agreement with a provisional and transient character. It was to be simply a war measure, subject to re-arrangement at the close of hostilities; and it was to be adapted to a community still agitated by rebellion.

An Irish Parliament with an Executive responsible to it was to be set up at once. But no elections were to be held. The existing members for the existing constituencies were to be the provisional Parliament till the war ended.

The same considerations precluded the possibility of a referendum in Ulster. Nationalists accepted an area defined by agreement. It left out of "Ulster" the three counties, Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan, in whose eight constituencies no Unionist had been returned since 1885. But it left to the excluded area the counties of Tyrone and Fermanagh, each with a Nationalist majority, and the boroughs of Newry and Londonderry, both represented by Home Rulers.

This was a provision which no body of men could be expected to acquiesce in permanently as representing the equity of the case. It was accepted for the sake of peace, as a temporary expedient. A strong inducement was added by Mr. Lloyd George's proposal that at the close of the provisional period the whole matter should be referred to a Council of the Empire with the Prime Ministers of the Dominions taking a hand in the settlement. But to guarantee and seal its provisional and transitory character an extraordinary clause was added. Until a permanent settlement was reached, the Irish membership at Westminster was to remain at its original number of 103.

The document embodying these conclusions was accepted in identical terms by each side, and each party of negotiators set out for Ireland to endeavour to secure acceptance of it. But before he left London Sir Edward Carson asked for an interpretation of the terms. Did the agreement mean that none of the six excluded counties could be brought under a Dublin Parliament without an Act of Parliament? In other words, was the exclusion permanent until Parliament should otherwise determine? He was answered that the Prime Minister accepted this interpretation, and would be prepared to say so when the matter came before Parliament. Knowledge of these communications was not conveyed to Redmond. Redmond's interpretation was that at the termination of the war this arrangement lapsed, and the Home Rule Act, which was the law of the land, came into force. If Ulster, or any part of it, were to be excluded, it must be by a new amending Act. Had the assurance given to Sir Edward Carson been conveyed to Redmond, either the negotiations must have been resumed or they must have been rendered abortive.

On June 13th the Ulster Council accepted the terms, no doubt with great reluctance. The signatories to the Covenant in the three western counties felt themselves betrayed. The whole body found itself committed to acceptance of Home Rule in principle for twenty-six counties. But the war necessity was pressed upon them and they submitted.

The Nationalist Convention met ten days later in Belfast. Mr. Devlin had been strenuous in his exertions throughout the province, but the whole force of the ecclesiastical power was thrown against him. Apart from the detestation of partition, the Catholic Church conceived that the principle of denominational education would be lost in the severed counties, where the dominant Presbyterian element was opposed to it. Very many delegates came to the Convention pledged in advance to resist the proposals: and the general anticipation was that Redmond would be thrown over.

The proceedings were secret. But in the result the Nationalists of the North refused to be any party to denying the rest of Ireland self-government. A division was taken, and consent to temporary exclusion was carried by a large majority. The victory was in the main due to Mr. Devlin's extraordinary personal gifts, exercised to carry a conclusion which inevitably must injure himself where he was most sensitive to a wound, in the hearts of those among whom he was born and bred.

It must have been in the weeks immediately after this that Redmond spoke to me, as I never heard him speak of any other man, his mind about Mr. Devlin. "Joe's loyalty in all this business has been beyond words," he said. "I know what it has cost him to do as he has done." He knew well that the younger man's influence had been more efficacious than the threat of his own resignation—which was not withheld. A man of other nature might have been jealous of the young and growing power: but such an element as this was so foreign to Redmond's whole being that even the thought of it never entered the most suspicious mind.

The result of the Belfast Convention was communicated and discussed at a meeting of the Irish party held at the Mansion House on June 26th. It was one of the most hopeful moments in our experience; reaction from a depression approaching to despair gave confidence to the gloomiest among us. Hope was in the air. The effect of Mr. Asquith's sentence upon the whole machinery of Dublin Castle had not yet worn off. No new Government had been installed: the Chief Secretaryship remained vacant, the Lord-Lieutenant also had retired from his office. It seemed a certainty that we should enter, under whatever auguries, into the realization of a self-governing Ireland. Even those who were most enthusiastic for the birth of a new and glorious era that was to date from the stirring action of the rebels, and who were most open-mouthed in condemnation of Redmond's futile efforts, in practice shared our view. I asked one such man how he counted on securing the necessary first step of establishing an Irish Government. "Oh, I suppose," was his answer, "the Irish party will manage that somehow."

But soon delay began to hang coldly on this temper of anticipation, and to delay were added disquieting utterances. On June 29th Lord Lansdowne announced in the House of Lords that the "consultations" which had been taking place were "certainly authorized" by the Government but were not binding upon it; and that he, speaking for the Unionist wing of the Cabinet, had not accepted the proposals. This was disturbing. Lord Selborne had retired from the Government before the negotiators went to Ireland, because he knew of the proposals and was not prepared to sanction them. We assumed that other Unionists who shared this view would have followed him in his frank action. Now we perceived that Lord Lansdowne and his friends had frugally husbanded their force. It was expected by many that Ireland would do the work for them. Failing that, they had still the last stab to deliver. But we counted upon one thing: that Mr. Lloyd George, if not Mr. Asquith, would feel himself committed to see the deal through—and that his resignation would have to be faced as a part of the consequences if attempts were made to go back on the bargain.

Parliament reassembled and still nothing was said and nothing done: but the Press was full of rumours. On July 19th Redmond asked that a date should be fixed for the introduction of the proposed Bill, and next day he renewed his demand, urging that the constant delays and postponements were "seriously jeopardizing the chance of settlement." This was only too true. A furious agitation against the proposal of even temporary partition was raging through Ireland. Once more, the tide had been missed: time had been given to inculcate all manner of doubts and suspicions—and once more the suspicions proved to be only too well justified. The whole story was revealed to the House on July 24th.

Redmond, in his speech, emphasized it that the proposals had come not from the Nationalists, but from the Government; they had, however, been accepted, after considerable negotiation and many changes in substance, as a plan which Nationalists could recommend for acceptance. Nationalists had been pressed to use the utmost despatch, had been told that every hour counted and that it was essential in the highest Imperial interests, if Ireland endorsed the agreement, that it should be put into operation at once. "That is two long months ago," he said. Action had been taken; the unpopularity of the proposals, fully foreseen, had been faced, on a clear understanding.

"The agreement was in the words of the Prime Minister himself, for what he called a provisional settlement which should last until the war was over, or until a final and permanent settlement was arrived at within a limited period after the war. This was the chief factor of this plan, and without it not one of my colleagues or myself would for a moment have considered it, much less have submitted it to our followers."

The retention of Irish members at Westminster in full strength was covenanted for "as an indispensable safeguard of the temporary character of the whole arrangement."

It was on this construction of the agreement that consent to it had been secured, in the face of very strong and organized opposition: and consent was secured to it as a final document. Nevertheless, when Redmond arrived in London he had been at once confronted with a demand for modifications—of which the first were unimportant. Yet to consent to any alteration was a sacrifice of principle; but he was told that this concession would secure agreement in the Cabinet. Later, however, came a public statement from Lord Lansdowne that "permanent and enduring" structural alterations would be introduced into the Home Rule Act. Redmond had seen the draft Bill in which the Government's draftsmen embodied the terms of the agreement, and he had accepted this, as conforming to his covenant. In reply to Lord Lansdowne, he had pressed for the production of this Bill, but could not get it. The end was that, after a Cabinet held on July 19th, he was told that "a number of new proposals had been brought forward"; that the Cabinet did not desire to consult him about these at all; and on the 22nd Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Herbert Samuel were instructed to convey to him the Cabinet's decision, with an intimation that there would be no further discussion or consultation. That decision was to make the exclusion of six counties permanent, and to withdraw the provision for retaining Irish members at full strength during the transitory period.

Redmond attacked no individual. His anger was beyond words. He said this, however:

"Some tragic fatality seems to dog the footsteps of this Government in all their dealings with Ireland. Every step taken by them since the Coalition was formed, and especially since the unfortunate outbreak in Dublin, has been lamentable. They have disregarded every advice we tendered to them, and now in the end, having got us to induce our people to make a tremendous sacrifice and to agree to the temporary exclusion of these Ulster counties, they throw this agreement to the winds, and they have taken the surest means to accentuate every possible danger and difficulty in the Irish situation."

That day really finished the constitutional party and overthrew Redmond's power. We had incurred the very great odium of accepting even temporary partition—and a partition which, owing to this arbitrary extension of area, could not be justified on any ground of principle; we had involved with us many men who voted for that acceptance on the faith of Redmond's assurance that the Government were bound by their written word; and now we were thrown over.

Apart from the effect on Redmond's position, the result was to engender in Ireland a temper which made settlement almost impossible. No British Minister's word would in future be accepted for anything; and any Irishman who attempted to improve relations between the countries was certain to arouse anger and contempt in his countrymen.

More particularly the relations between Irish members and the most powerful members of the Government were hopelessly embittered. Mr. Lloyd George put aside completely—probably he never for a moment entertained—the thought of seriously threatening resignation because his agreement with the Irish was repudiated by his colleagues. He was entirely engrossed with the work of the War Office, where he thought, and was justified in thinking, himself indispensable. Mr. Asquith, whose object was to keep unity in his Government at all costs, when it came to a choice whether to quarrel with the Irish who formed no part of it, or with the Unionists who were his colleagues, had no hesitation which side to throw over.

I have never seen the House of Commons so thoroughly discontented and disgusted. There was much genuine sympathy with Redmond. Sir Edward Carson evidently shared it, and he made a conciliatory speech in which he proposed that he and the Nationalist leader should shake hands on the floor of the House. That is a gesture which comes better from the loser than from the winner, and there was no doubt that Sir Edward Carson had won. But he knew Ireland well enough to realize the meaning of his victory, and his speech indicated disquiet and even horror at the prospect before us. He was quite avowedly anxious to see a start made with Home Rule, Ulster standing apart. In a later debate, when the Government announced its intention to fill again the vacant Irish offices (appointing Mr. Duke as Chief Secretary), Redmond referred hopefully to this utterance of the Ulster leader and generally to "the new and improved atmosphere which has surrounded this Irish question quite recently."

The end of this speech dealt with one of the elements which had contributed most to the improvement. In the great battle of the Somme, which opened on July 1st, the Ulster Division went for the first time into general action, and their achievement was the most glorious and the most unlucky of that day. They carried their assault through five lines of trenches, and, because a division on their flank was not equally successful, were obliged to fall back, adding terribly in this withdrawal to the desperate losses of their advance. Side by side with them on the other flank was the Fourth Division, containing two battalions of Dublin Fusiliers, in one of which John Redmond's son commanded a company; so that he and the Ulstermen went over shoulder to shoulder. He came back unwounded; all other company commanders in the battalion were killed. The only thing in which Redmond was entirely fortunate during these last years of his life was in his son's record during the war.

Another Nationalist well known to the House of Commons served also in the Dublin Fusiliers on the Somme, with a different fortune. Professor Kettle, owing to conditions of health, had been unable to come to France with the Sixteenth Division, and had been mainly employed in recruiting. Now in these summer months he pushed hard to get out to France, though he was not physically fit for the line. He got to France, and, as was easy to foresee, broke down and was sent to work at the base on records: but before he left his regiment he knew that it was under orders for a general action, and he insisted that he should have leave to rejoin for that day. He came back accordingly, found himself called on to take command of a company, and led it with great gallantry, and on the second day of action was shot dead. It was the fate that he expected; he, like so many, had a forerunning assurance of his end. So was lost to Ireland the most variously-gifted intelligence that I have ever known.

The Sixteenth Division were still on the sector about Loos, and their casualties were heavy and continuous in the perpetual trench warfare. With the last days of August they were withdrawn—for a rest, as they believed at first; but their march was southwards to the Somme.

The purpose was to use them for an attack on Ginchy; but a shift of arrangements brought the 47th Brigade into line against Guillemont and its quarries, which had on six occasions been unsuccessfully attacked. The Irish carried them. Three days later the whole division was launched against Ginchy. They equalled the Ulstermen's valour, and were luckier in the result. For these achievements praise was not stinted. Colonel Repington in The Times described the Irish as the "best missile troops" in all the armies.

III

The deeds of Irish soldiers helped us greatly outside of Ireland; in Ireland, the news was received with mingled feelings. There was passionate resentment against the Government, and the question was asked, For what were their men dying? Redmond's answer could not be so confident as it would have been six months earlier. There were many who said that he dare not face the country. His answer to this was given at Waterford, where on October 6, 1916, his constituents received him with their old loyalty—though now for the first time there were hostile voices in the crowd. He spoke out very plainly, saying with justice that in all his life he had never played to the gallery and would not now. Things had to be looked at squarely.

"We have taken a leap back over generations of progress, and have actually had a rebellion, with its inevitable aftermath of brutalities, stupidities and inflamed passions."

He would impugn no man's motives, least of all the motives of the dead; but those who had set this train of events in motion had been always the enemies of the constitutional movement. The constitutional movement must go on, he said; but it would be folly to pretend that it could go on as if nothing had happened. Ireland must face its share in the responsibility. But the real responsibility rested with the British Government.