fused to make the exception.

As a result, Redmond's following lost much of the prestige which had
resulted from scrupulous observance of the understanding that no
Nationalist member should take office under Government. To join the
Irish party had been, in effect, for most men, to make a vow of
poverty. Now, on the contrary, it involved acceptance of what was in
Ireland's eyes a well-paid and unlaborious office. The Irish are no less
prone than any other nation to take a cynical view of these matters.

Yet assuredly no man ever gave more service for less pay than the
Nationalist leader, and it was the harder because he was a man who liked
comfort and had no ambition. If at the time of the great "split" he had
stood down from politics, success would have been assured to him at the
Bar in Ireland, or, more surely still, and far more profitably, at
Westminster itself. There never was anyone so well-fitted for the work
of a parliamentary barrister who has to deal with great interests before
a tribunal largely composed of laymen. No one had the House of Commons
tone more perfectly than Redmond, and no one that I ever heard equalled
his gift for making a complicated issue appear simple. When he was
thrown out of Parliament at the Cork election, he thought of retirement,
mainly for one reason: it would be better for his children. Yet, first
by personal loyalty to Parnell, later by his loyalty to Ireland, he was
held firm to his task--always a poor man, always knowing that it lay in
his power, without the least sacrifice of principle, to become rich by a
way of work less laborious and infinitely less harassing than that which
he pursued.

The effect upon the Irish situation produced by the payment of members
was slow to develop, and obscure. But an obvious and grave complication
was introduced into both British and Irish politics at the moment when
the democratic alliance had achieved its first great objective.
Parliament had been in session almost continuously since the beginning
of 1909, with the added strain of two general elections thrown in. There
was a widespread desire to clear the autumn of 1911, so that members
might have some breathing space, and, not less important, devote
themselves to propagandist work in their constituencies for the new
struggle of carrying measures under the hardly won Parliament Act. Each
of these measures must involve a fight prolonged over three years.

But this desire ran against the purpo